Father Stephan Bakker (62) is a first generation Dutch Orthodox priest. Next to leading a Dutch Orthodox Church, he taught theology and history. As a native Dutchman, Father Stephan joined the Orthodox Church in his mid-teens. At that time, over forty years ago, three churches were active in the Netherlands. Nowadays there are, also due to migration, over forty Orthodox churches.



Part II
Listening to the heartbeat of Orthodoxy

‘The union of the church is not made, but we discover it’
Karl Barth

1.
Space for mysticism;
Orthodox view of God and our relationship with Him

‘The truth is not something, it’s Someone’

This is the first time we see each other after our first acquaintance a month ago. Father Stephan is happy to be of assistance in my Orthodox-quest and offered to come my way for the interviews. And so it happens that we have our first talk in my house, which is located on the waterfront near the city centre of Rotterdam. My house has huge windows offering a view over the harbor in front of it. The harbor is part of the river Rhine and ships are sailing in the distance. By entering the house, I hear Father Stephan saying a short blessing. A moment later he stops in his tracks and takes his time to take in the view. It is quiet for a while. A CD is playing, the subdued voices in the background of an Orthodox choir add to the moment; one of these moments, where time seems to slow down. I wait and watch. Finally Father Stephan turns around, and asks with a smile: “How did you find such a house?”

Father Stephan seems right at ease. It’s mutual. We both enjoy pondering primary questions around the complexity of human existence. Neither of us are prone to small talk, and so it doesn’t take long before we’re right into the core of the interview: God, spiritual life, worldview…

‘It seems to me that your view of God is different than our Western Protestant/Evangelical one. There seems more space for mysticism. Can you explain how you view God and the relationship with Him?’

Father Stephan isn’t quick with words. He takes his time to think before he answers. “You know, Christianity is not a man-made religion, it’s a revelation,” another pause follows, than he continues with an example: “You could have said to my wife Heleen: ‘I can’t understand what you like about Stephan.’ But when she chose and married me, it was as if she had some intuitive knowledge. To her, there was something about me. She has made that ‘something’ come to life, but she had already some sense of this ‘something’ being there, before she experienced it.”

Father Stephan pauses while he is trying to find the right words. He faces the window and gazes into the far distance. Thoughtful he continues: “In a similar way God is hidden. He is very close; He is near us, in us, between us. Yet He is hidden, but He delights in it when we find pieces of Him. It is like He leaves a trail so we can find Him. But, this seeking, it is not an effortless and aimless seeking. No, when you’re aimless it’s like a dog wandering along a ditch. It does take an effort from our part. But, look around you! Look at nature and creation, everywhere you can find traces of Him. A true seeker knows what he seeks. People who seek God, will find Him.”

According to Father Stephan God loves to be found and sooner or later we will recognize ‘His traces’: “For example. Imagine I would meet your parents somewhere by change and I would tell them about this meeting with you. As I talk they’ll start thinking ‘that sounds like our Gea!’ It’s because they recognize something. That happens when you’re sincerely seeking. When you keep seeking, you start to recognize the traces.” Father Stephan straightens his back, while raising his finger and exclaims with a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye: “You’ll say: ‘Aha, this is You, God! I found you out. I recognize you!’”

The things I hear sound different, yet also familiar to me. But than Father Stephan says something that catches my attention: “We don’t serve God, God serves us.”
I haven’t heard this before. I interrupt him and ask:

‘What do you mean with “We don’t serve God. God serves us”? I’m more used to the idea that we serve God.

“Yes, God serves us. He seeks us. He calls us friends and heirs. It’s not some bargain-deal where I serve Him and He gives back to me, or something like that. It’s about giving, giving yourself for one hundred percent, without expecting something in return. Imagine that I would meet my wife again after this meeting with you, and when seeing her she would tell me: ‘Sorry, Stephan, I can’t live with you anymore.’ In that case I won’t go after her. I aim to serve her, but she is free to go, she is free to choose. In the same way God loves us and He gives Himself to us. In true love you don’t expect anything, yet you receive everything.”

“God caught me, He allured and enticed me. He serves us; it’s His initiative. He chooses all of us. With each of us He does it in a different way. I want to add, this kind of love is not about feelings. The type of feelings a music composer can arouse. God doesn’t need to play on our feelings, that would make us not free, that would be manipulative.
My wife Heleen is still a mystery to me. Sometimes I think I know her, but than she surprises me again. A relationship with God is similar. It’s not like mathematics. You might want to fill it in and think you know Him. There are these posters with all the names of God: faithful, righteous, and this and that. You have God described. You better be careful that you haven’t made that God into an idol, a boxed in God. A God you have figured out, because you like to have control over your religious life.”

I’m intrigued by this ‘mystery of God-thing’, I miss that within my Protestant way of thinking…

“Some people have a very closed belief system, with thorough and straight arguments based on men and their predominant ideas. There’s no argument, which can shake their ideas. I call it a wooden and an unbendable faith. You can compare such situations with living stones that you try to put into a system, but when you close in something that what is alive, it becomes deformed. Think of what happened to the feet of Chinese girls.
Don’t get me wrong. The Christian faith is serious. Not serious in the meaning of heaviness, but in the way you see children playing. When children play, they can be really serious because they play with concentration. So I mean serious in that sense. And yes, we also need rules. For example when you play a game, you need to know the rules. But when you always need to think about the rules, you are not able to play. The rules are there to make the game easy to play, because when you know the rules you can concentrate on the game and you can have fun playing it.
Christianity is a difficult religion…”