Companions of the Sacred Flame,
This night we gather in vigil, to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ, recalling with it, the history of our spiritual path, seeing in it, our own journeys from life to death, and experiencing through it, the initiation from death to life.
Divine Beloved, out of the tomb of separation you have called us, to rise into the Kingdom of God. The ancient mysteries of sacrifice speak to our journey.
Incarnate in each one of us, the Sacred Flame is transfixed upon the cross of space and time, May we never fear to descend into our lowest reaches, like the Logos and the harrowing of hell, to reconcile the lower with the higher- that we may rise transformed in this very life, and in the fullness of time ascend into perfect union.
– Easter Vigil of the Apostolic Johannite Church
These are the opening words of the Easter Vigil which the Apostolic Johannite Church celebrates at this most solemn time in the journey of the liturgical year.
The Apostolic Johannite Church has the blessing and benefit of being a nexus point of a rich web of Gnostic, Christian, Esoteric, and Mystical traditions – being downstream as it is from the spiritual ancestors and lineages of a variety of Orders, Churches, and Societies.
While our focus is always firmly in and on the footing of the historical-meets-mythical Johannite Tradition, this ocean of profound spiritual exploration is fed by a diverse series of participatory streams and rivers.
One such running vein through our spiritual landscape is the concept of Spiritual Chivalry, manifesting historically through a spectrum of communities, figures, and symbols as varied as the Order of the Temple, the Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cite Sainte, and the Martinist Order, to the medieval Grail legends and the tapestry of Freemasonry, among others.
This new liturgical year finds each of us in an increasingly fractured human landscape, regardless of our geography. Tensions are high, anxiety is high, and oftentimes it seems that hope is low, and trust is lower yet still.
There are innumerable spiritual types, denominations, preachers, gurus, and masters who either diagnose it as a symptom of a kind of spiritual warfare or prescribe the cure as being a kind of spiritual warfare. Often enough, the cause and cure are said to be the same. We should take pause when we encounter any spiritual tradition, cosmology, or soteriology that begins or ends with warfare— and I include spiritual warfare in that statement.
The Apostolic Johannite Church is blessed to have a diverse, intelligent, and inclusive community that asks good questions, reflects on answers, and seeks both together as a part of their spiritual journey, collectively and individually.
One such question has been— do we take the Demiurge and the Archons literally or figuratively? The answer, like the same question applied to Holy Scripture, is that we take them seriously.
Whether seen as cosmic trends and forces, the dispassionate destructive capability of a universe governed by the laws of physics, oppressive systems or metaphors for darker aspects of human nature, our egos, delusions, obstacles, and difficulties – they are concepts that help us digest, understand, and reconcile the challenges we encounter. They are symbols and language to help us talk about hard things.
And yet while they appear in our liturgies, they appear nowhere in our Statement of Principles. This isn’t an accident. We keep them framed in the realm of the spiritual, subject to the determination and lens of the individual, not the imposition of the community, and not the principles we govern by or govern around.
The realm of ecclesiastical Gnosticism, as I have experienced it, participated in it, and learned from it— is a realm of myth and symbol, not doctrine and dogma, and like the mystics of old, literal interpretation is a possible interpretation, but it is also the lowest form of interpretation.
When we begin to put human faces on concepts of cosmic evil and blind forces, and when worse, we do so in a framework of ideas and theologies of redemptive suffering, redemptive violence, and atonement, we set the stage for seeing our fellow sentient beings as embodiments of these cosmic, archetypal, or metaphorical forces.
Seen in this way, at some point down the road, spiritual warfare will begin to slip its bonds of metaphor to rage with real physical, mental, emotional, and societal consequences— which only brings more suffering, more evil— not less, and no redemption to be found anywhere.
It is human to feel the weight of struggle, tension, and obstacle, and yes, some of these things will come with the participation of our fellow sentient beings, especially and including ourselves, but like another process raised to the level of spiritual analogy— alchemy— transmuting our base material into a rarer and more precious resource, is imperative.
This is why the concept of Spiritual Chivalry will always carry both the high ground and the field against ideas of spiritual warfare. It doesn’t impose a code; it seeks to live by one. It doesn’t seek to conquer the world or others, but the self.
In moments of difficulty, opposition, and even oppression, as human beings, we always have instinctual, defensive, ready answers to the question of what those who visit hardship on us deserve. The answer is not the right one because often, the question is not the right one.
The question is not what is worthy of them but rather, what is worthy of us?
If you adhere to the concept of Spiritual Chivalry rather than Spiritual Warfare, then the question and the answer are one of your own dignity and goodness, and exemplifying your own principles, regardless of whatever or whomever you face.
Please take my blessings, good wishes, and prayers for all the Johannite Parishes, Narthexes, Missions, Oratories, and Chapels, our solitary sisters and brothers who keep the flame burning in distant places, and all those who call the Apostolic Johannite Church home, deepening and sharing their journey here.
My thanks and gratitude on behalf of the Apostolic Johannite Church to the Johannite Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Subdeacons, Seminarians, and Narthex Leaders, the Grand Master, and Initiates of the Friary, Oblates, and Knights of the Order of the Temple and Saint John, and the Talk Gnosis team, for all their hard work and dedication— not only to the people we work on behalf of but also in their spiritual paths and in their service to each other.
Blessings and Easter greetings also from the Apostolic Johannite Church to the many Churches, Orders, and spiritual communities of goodwill, the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum, the Ecclesia Gnostica, Ekklesia Neoplatonismos Theourgia, the Alexandrian Community, l’Eglise Gnostique Apostolique (New York), the Templar Collegia, the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, the Ecclesia Lucis et Umbrae, our Martinist and Masonic sisters and brothers, and the many individual friends, family, laity, and clergy of goodwill.
May the coming year find your work and paths rich and rewarding with fruitful challenges and blessings, and balanced with rest and reflection. May your work be noble, your spirits be humble, and your hearts always full.
+ IOHANNES IV
Sovereign Pontiff and Patriarch