Powerless in Christ: A Romanian Orthodox Insight into Disability Theology

Abstract

Disability theology has long been an anglophone affair, with most debates taking place around lexical structures and semantic nuances specific to the English language. This paper claims that the Romanian word neputință – loosely translated into English as powerlessness – can make a significant contribution to the field. Drawing on interviews with Romanian Orthodox priests, the article argues that neputință can provide a Christological edge to popular concepts such as vulnerability and limits, while also adding an understanding of aging as a natural process that needs medical and social support, but not cure.

Keywords:

• Creamer
• Eastern Orthodoxy
• limits
• neputință
• Reynolds
• Romanian Orthodoxy
• vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It suffices to check the articles published in the Journal of Disability and Religion in the past ten years in order to see that disability theology is dominated by authors coming either from Catholic or Protestant backgrounds.

2 See for instance: (Adveev, 2021; Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA, 2020; Athanasiadi, 2018; Depression. According to the Fathers. | A Russian Orthodox Church Website, n.d.; Overcoming Depression: Cognitive Scientific Psychology and the Church Fathers | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, n.d.).

3 The books of Jean Claude Larchet are an excellent example in this regard. Larchet deals with notions that would normally be placed in the framework of disability, such as mental illnesses, but he does not mention or engage with disability theology or disability studies (Larchet, 1992, 1994, 2015).

4 All the priests of the Romanian Orthodox Church are required to have at least an undergraduate degree in theology and pass an examination called “capacitate preoțească” in the metropolis where they apply for a parish. See ( Statutul Pentru Organizarea Și Funcţionarea Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 2020, art. 123).

5 “To speak of untranslatables in no way implies that the terms in question, or the expressions, the syntactical or grammatical turns, are not and cannot be translated: the untranslatable is rather what one keeps on (not) translating. But this indicates that their translation, into one language or another, creates a problem, to the extent of sometimes generating a neologism or imposing a new meaning on an old word. It is a sign of the way in which, from one language to another, neither the words nor the conceptual networks can simply be superimposed” (Cassin et al., 2014, p. xvii).

6 Transcripts of the conversations can be provided, although as pointed out above they are not relevant to the argument.

7 The list of examples is long, but to give just a few: Brian Brock (Brock, 2011, 2019), John Swinton (Swinton, 2012b, 2012a) or Amos Yong (Yong, 2007).

8 The literature on vulnerability is rather extensive and goes way beyond Reynolds. See for instance Petre Brock (Brock, 2019), Martina Vuk (Vuk, 2021), the issue edited by Talitha Cooreman-Guittin and Petre Maican in The Journal of Disability and Religion with the topic “Vulnerability and Power” (Cooreman-Guittin & Maican, 2021) or the edited volume on vulnerability and survival (Petkovsek & Zalec, 2022). The reason I decided to engage with Reynolds is that he is the only one who has elaborated a fully-fledged Christological vision in relation to vulnerability. And since I am examining vulnerability from the perspective of Christology it seemed appropriate to deal with the strongest version of the argument.

9 While the perspectives on the ultimate shape of human relationships with God in the light of the Incarnation

diverge across Christian traditions – and my critique comes from an Eastern Orthodox standpoint with a very high Christology – I still think that the overall consensus remains that Jesus Christ was more than a simple prophet.

10 It can be argued that Creamer’s understanding of limits can be used without its Christological implications. This is certainly true, but then the question is what would make Creamer’s proposal a theological one since it seems to me that in and of itself, the idea that limits help us better cooperate can be used easily to ground a secular ethical discourse.

11 See for instance, the website DexOnline, which gathers online the most important editions of Romanian dictionaries published by the Romanian Institute for Lingusitics of Romanian Academy. (See Dexonline, n.d.).

12 I’m referring here to the edition of the Romanian Bible printed in 1982 under the Patriarch Teoctist Arăpașul (1915–2007). (Despre BibliaOrtodoxa.Ro, n.d.). All the quotes in Romanian that are found in the footnotes are from this edition.

13 The Romanian word captures three layers of meaning: physical weakness due to limitations of old age, moral imperfection, and the impossibility of doing something, as in the expression of “With man this is impossible (cu neputinta), but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26). Due to the limited space, I will refer here only to the two meanings of the word.

14 Şi a străbătut Iisus toată Galileea, învăţând în sinagogile lor şi propovăduind Evanghelia împărăţiei şi tămăduind toată boala şi toată neputinţa în popor.

15 I would note here however that the word neputintă is not used in two of the most important biblical references for disability theology: 1 Corinthians 12:22, where Paul speaks about the weakest members of the body of Christ, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The actual word used in Romanian as weak (slab).

16 Căci Hristos, încă fiind noi neputincioşi, la timpul hotărât a murit pentru cei necredincioşi.

17 Pentru că ceea ce era cu neputinţă Legii – fiind slabă prin trup – a săvârşit Dumnezeu, trimiţând pe Fiul Său întru asemănarea trupului păcatului şi pentru păcat a osândit păcatul în trup.

18 Cel ce esti fara de inceput si fara de sfarsit, Sfinte al sfintilor, Care ai trimis pe Unul-Nascut Fiul Tau sa tamaduiasca toata boala si neputinta sufletelor si trupurilor noastre, trimite Duhul Tau cel Sfant si sfinteste untdelemnul acesta.

19 Dumnezeiescu har, care pe cele neputincioase le vindeca si pe cele cu lipsa le implineste, hirotoneste pe (N) intru preot.

20 I referred here to autism because the majority of the educated population in Romania is aware of this disability. On the one hand, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, there were well-known voices who contested several vaccines for children (MMR) saying they provoke autism (Olivia Steer, noi controverse despre vaccinuri, 2017). On the other hand, because there are many young influencers who have children on the autistic spectrum or who are interested in supporting those who have their experiences (Drumul Meu ca Părinte de Copil Cu Autism—Prințesa Urbană – Blog Cald de Familie, 2022).

21 Ignatius of Antioch felt in “the pangs of birth” and begged the Romans to allow him to be born in Christ and not “delude him with the things of the world” (Louth, 1987, p. 87) See also (Gavrilyuk, 2009, pp. 69–75).

22 A certain amount of parallelism can be drawn between this conclusion and that of Topher Endress, from his article ‘Skin in the game: Towards a Christological and death-focused model of disability’. Endress criticises the medical and social models of disability because they ignore the reality of human embodiment. Disability is neither something to be cured but it is neither solely something social. It is also something that affects our bodies profoundly. To acknowledge this last aspect of disability, we should understand disability as located in the death and resurrection of Christ. “Deficiency locates disability in a cosmic order, while medical models find disability in the body of the individual. Social models locate disabilities in the policies and ideologies of a society, and my contention is the death-without-sting model locates disability in the expression of humanity’s experience with Christ in the liminal state between life and death, inclusive. This understanding allows us to define disabilities theologically without erasing bodily needs, communal experiences, or political actions. Other key differences between these models may emerge, especially in the practical expressions, but any future outcomes would still depend on this initial locational divergence” (Endress, 2019, p. 315). This parallelism can be developed further.

23 I have decided to engage with this particular article because it is among the most recent and because it allows for a clearer articulation of the potential the word neputință has in this area.