In the Persons of the Venerable Job, Abbot of Pochaev, & the Uniate “Saint” Josaphat Kuntsevich, as Representatives of their Churches, Compatriots & Contemporaries
“Show me your faith
from your works” (Jas. 2: 18)
It is well known that comparisons
have been made between the Unia and Orthodoxy from the most varied standpoints,
and, as is fitting, never favorably for the Unia. But as far as we know, no one
has yet tried to place the Unia, if one may thus express oneself, face to face
with Orthodoxy in the form and activity of the highest representatives of both
the Orthodox Church and the Unia, such as may, without doubt, be considered
saints acknowledged in one Church or the other by their followers.
The celebration of the return of
the Lavra of Pochaev from the Unia to Orthodoxy, with all of its age-old
shrines, consisting, as is well known, of the healing foot print of the
Theotokos, the miraculous Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God, and the incorrupt
relics of the Venerable Job, Abbot and wonder-worker of Pochaev, as well as its
inclusion in the family of the lavras of Russia, provides us with a basis and
reason for bringing this attempt, as far as we are able, to fulfillment, taking
for comparison the life and blessed struggles of Job of Pochaev and the life
and activity of the Uniate saint Josaphat Kuntsevich.
We consider ourselves as having
all the more right to do this in that the Venerable Job and
Josaphat Kuntsevich were, first of all, contemporaries. The former, who was
born about 1551, reposed in the hundredth year of his life, 1651. The latter was
slain by the inhabitants of Polotsk at the age of forty-three, in 1623;
consequently he was born and died within the lifetime of the venerable one. And
both lived and were active in Western Russia during the period of the
Latino-Uniate domination in Lithuania and Volyn, so that, in speaking of one, one
cannot, out of historical necessity, be silent about the other. Secondly, Job
and Josaphat were compatriots, both as to place of birth and to the place of their
ministry. Josaphat was born in Vladimir of Volyn in 1580, and spent the early
years of his youth there, while the Venerable Job was made abbot of the Holy
Cross Monastery in Dubno, near Vladimir, in the same province of Volyn’, to
which he had been transferred from the Ugornitsky Monastery in Galicia, at the
request of Prince Constantine Ostrozhsky (ca. 1582). Furthermore, Saint Job’s place
of birth in the Pokutskaya region of Galicia is not less akin to Volyn’ than
the city of Vladimir Josaphat’s birthplace. This is the very same province
which, at the first partition of Poland in 1773, passed to Austria, and
comprises at the present time the Kolomysky District between the River Dniester
and the Moldau. There one finds to this day the ruins of the ancient Ugornitsky
Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration, now in the village of Ugerniki, in which
the venerable one received monasticism at the age of twelve, and where later he
was raised to the rank of hieromonk and received the schema. Who is unaware
that Galicia and Volyn’ were from ancient times one, both as to nationality and
religion? This was even more so during St. Job’s lifetime, when Volyn’ and
Galicia were under the sole domination of the Polish realm, and especially when
the venerable one lived and was active in the Monastery of Pochaev, from which,
from the heights of Pochaev, Galicia even now opens up, as we have already
said, even to the simple, untrained eye.
But what is most important of all
for us, the Venerable Job and Josaphat Kuntsevich, being contemporaries and
compatriots, are each considered a saint in his own church, in consequence of
which they give us a fuller basis for comparing them one to the other, the
moreso also in that their posthumous fate and very glorification in many
respects resemble each other, although not with the same results. When the
Uniates occupied the Monastery of Pochaev, they also took possession of the
incorrupt remains of the Venerable Job. Yet even with all their zeal for
Latinism and their hatred for Orthodoxy, the Basilians of Pochaev did not dare
to terminate completely all veneration for the memory of the favorite of God,
and even, as we have seen, desired that he be canonized by the Pope of Rome.
Now, the Orthodox have committed to the ground for all time what the Uniates
considered to be the relics of Josaphat, or to put it more correctly, the
Latins and Jesuits foisted the appellation of relics upon them, and according
to the measure of the spread of Orthodoxy and Orthodox ideals in the Kholmsk region
and Galicia, the very memory of Josaphat is being erased and is threatened with
being covered with the gloom of utter oblivion in the near future.
Where lies the reason for so
remarkable a phenomenon? Why is the memory of the one exalted so mightily,
while the glory and greatness of the other decreases? Hear what history replies
to this.
I
The Outward Life
of the Venerable Job as Compared to the Life & Activity of Josaphat
“Wherefore, ye shall
know them by their fruits” (Mt. 7: 20)
The Latino-Uniates usually begin
by extolling their Josaphat for his intense zeal for the Unia. And we know that
this zeal was actually the predominant trait in the life and activity of this
persecutor of the Orthodox Church. But who will not say that this zeal was zeal
not according to knowledge? The contemporaries of Josaphat themselves
acknowledged this — and in whatever edition we read the famous and remarkable
letter of Chancellor Leo Sapieha of Lithuania to Josaphat, either in the
edition of Bantysh-Kamenski, or in the other, so-called genuine edition
published recently by the Uniates themselves — we must agree with their own
testimony, that Josaphat “filled to overflowing the courts of the land,
magistrates, tribunals, town halls and episcopal chanceries with intrigues,
lawsuits, and denunciations [of the Orthodox]”, that he “did violence to men’s
conscience... locked up Orthodox churches so that the people perished for lack
of divine services, the Christian rites and sacraments, as though they were
unbelievers. “Christ the Lord did not seal up, did not deny access to churches
as Your Puissance is doing” writes Leo Sapieha in his so-called genuine letter
to Josaphat. “The Jews and Tartars are permitted,” he continues, “to have their
own synagogues and mosques, but you are sealing up Christian churches”, etc. In
the same letter, Sapieha points out to Josaphat the threatening mood of the
Orthodox people and Cossacks, which, as acknowledged by Josaphat himself in his
letter to Sapieha, was putting his life in danger because of his fanatical
struggles against Orthodoxy, and which, as Sapieha rightly notes, “has rendered
the Unia itself harmful for the state and dangerous to the existence and unity
of Poland....” But for Kuntsevich, the interests of the state did not exist
before religious interests. Because of his beloved Unia, he did not even care
about his own safety and recklessly walked into obvious danger. In Vitebsk,
whose inhabitants were more committed to Orthodoxy than others, he refused to
permit the unfortunate people to serve even in huts and cabins, or to bury the
dead with the holy mysteries; and he incited the populace against him to such
an extent that at the first opportunity a street mob attacked him, beat him to
death with clubs and, having severed his head with an axe, cast his body into
the river.
Such a terrible, pitiless fanatic
the infallible papacy first beatified, and then canonized (1867), designating
him the “Patron of Russia & Poland”. And this is not the first time the
papacy has done such a thing. They canonized the fanatical founder of the
Society of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola (a Spaniard, and the terrible deviser of the
cruel Inquisition), Peter Arbues, and others, because the Roman Church does not
require God-pleasing struggles of Christian love and piety as the basis for
canonization, but brilliant, even if bloody, struggles which advance the spread
of papal domination and rule, ad majorem Dei gloriam… After this, the
memory of a similar type of saint, at the first convenient opportunity, topples
with a loud noise, as in our own eyes the memory of Josaphat has perished in
Lithuania and Volyn’, and as it is now quite apparently perishing in the
Kholmsk region and in Galicia.
Not such are the true servants of
God, the genuine champions of the Holy Orthodox Faith. The Venerable Job also
loved his native Church with the fullness of his heart, and with all the powers
of his spirit and life strove to contend for its glory, purity and
dissemination. But he loved it as befits a true follower of Christ, with a love
united with unshakable steadfastness, Christian tolerance, and goodly
condescension toward the erring, and with that real evangelical zeal which is
ready to lay down its life for the conversion of unbelievers, but without doing
violence to their conscience, in the spirit of persuasion, and not oppression
and force. Thus did our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His apostles
themselves act; thus did all the holy fathers of the ancient Church act: “You
do not find among them,” Sapieha justly writes to Josaphat concerning St. John
Chrysostom, “either complaints, or protests, or court cases, or legal
accusations, or subpoenas… or persecution, expulsions and executions of pious
priests, but find only what serves to increase [the real] glory of God, the
edification of men’s souls and the moving of enraged tyrants to mercy…” This is
how the Venerable Job of Pochaev, the blessed favorite of God, acted.
His primary concern after
acceding to the duty of Abbot of the Dubensk Monastery, as we have seen, was to
raise the level of moral life among the brethren under his care. This was the
foremost, vital power, which in those times elevated Orthodoxy over other
religions and gave it significance and an invincible might. One of our native
historians correctly writes of St. Job of Pochaev: “Only when viewed
superficially does it seem that the power of the Russian spirit and the essence
of the Russian character were embodied all the more by men who built cities,
worked the fields and routed the assaults of the enemy. The Orthodox Church was
the soul of all these activities and the regulator of human passions, and men
like Job of Pochaev preserved the Church from utter collapse. These humble men
of silence, these men of ceaseless prayer, these mediators between our remote
forebears and even more remote posterity, were the centers of the nation’s
life, toward whom souls beset by the fears or temptations of life came from
great distances, and from whom words of encouragement and edification were
directed throughout the land of Russia...” This is the striking dichotomy
between Job and Josaphat, of which, concerning the latter, Sapieha himself
writes in his letter to him: “I know what sort of priests you are ordaining,
i.e., such as are more capable of destroying than building up the Church of
Christ. From everywhere we hear the complaint that the priests we have are not
worthy, but rather are blind. Our ignorant priests are leading the people to
destruction….” What is also astonishing is that, this being the case, the Unia
was, so to speak, dying at its very root, while Orthodoxy has hitherto stood
steadfast and unshaken. “May God grant,” we say with the words of this same
Sapieha, “that we always have more worthy representatives among us”!!!
Another, no less essential
concern of the Venerable Job which is known to us, was the distribution of
church books, which during those unfortunate times, as we know, comprised the
sole rampart of Orthodoxy against the Latino-Uniate pretenses of papism. In
this regard, the Latino-Uniates can also show us that Josaphat for his part
also “was concerned with the elevation of education among the clergy subject to
him, especially with the translation of Latin theological books into the
Russian language…”, and he even, they say, published “a short catechism which,
on his instructions, was read weekly in the churches.” Yet it is remarkable
that even such an admirer of Josaphat as the author of The History of the
Union of the Russian Church with the Church of Rome, while mentioning
Josaphat’s translation of “theological books”, does not indicate even one which
was actually translated by him, even among the series of those Latino-Uniate
books which were full of historical lies and fanatical attacks on Orthodoxy,
with which the anti-Orthodox literature of the Western church abounds. But
concerning Josaphat’s notorious catechesis, the same author remarks in a
footnote that only “certain portions of this catechesis have been preserved to
our times”, and what is even more curious, “they can be found only in the
appendix to the Italian biography of Josaphat, Vita di s. Giosafat
(Rome, 1867), authored by the Roman Catholic priest Contieri.” By way of
contrast, in the Lavra of Pochaev itself, as we already know, there is
preserved a book written in the Venerable Job’s own handwriting, comprising an
anthology of various patristic teachings and other articles of a historical and
dogmatic nature, which the saint himself used when delivering instruction to
the brethren and the people in church, and which was especially directed toward
the defense of Orthodoxy.
We are not speaking of how
elevating for the Orthodox was the holy personality of the saint when we recall
that one of the greatest contributions made by Prince Constantine K. Ostrozhsky
— the publication of the first Bible in Church Slavonic — was made at a time
when the blessed favorite of God was residing in the Dubensk Monastery, in
consequence of which, as we have already said, the Venerable Job not only
approved and blessed this printing of the famous Ostrozhsky Bible in 1580-81,
but was responsible for the very idea for this publication, its implementation
and completion. Thus, we consider ourselves all the more justified in thinking
that in those times the best among the princes and noblemen, both in the East
and in the West of Russia, would never have dared to do anything without the
advice and participation of their spiritual fathers. And the Venerable Job was
just such a father for Prince Constantine Ostrozhsky all throughout the
former’s tenure as abbot of the Dubensk Monastery, until the very death of the
God-loving prince.
One can only imagine how Josaphat
treated the Ostrozhsky Bible, even though he was born only a year before its
publication. He doubtless knew of its origin in the later years of his life if,
as is beyond doubt, he was thoroughly imbued with all the ideals of the Latin
church, which at that time set as one of its basic laws the prohibition of the
reading of the Bible by the people, the better to keep their adherents in the
darkness of ignorance and error.
Saint Job’s transfer to Pochaev
and his appointment as abbot of the Holy Mountain of Pochaev provided him with
new means for acting to benefit Orthodoxy. Thus, he built on Mount Pochaev a
beautiful new church, and in such a way that the healing footprint of the
Mother of God, which for centuries had stood under the open sky, was situated
directly beneath its dome. Here, according to ancient Orthodox custom, the
wonder-working Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God was placed over the royal
doors, so that the new church became, as it were, the center of all the holy
shrines of Pochaev, all the more precious for Russian Orthodox sensibilities,
so that, throughout the Venerable Job’s sojourn on Mount Pochaev, they could
breathe and find consolation only in the gracious aid sent down from on high
through the wondrous footprint and the holy icon of the Mother of God, amid the
storm of adversities raised against Orthodoxy by papism and its henchmen such
as Josaphat.
It is remarkable that the very
glorification of the wonder-working Icon of the Mother of God in the Monastery
of Pochaev, beginning, as is well known, in 1595, coincides with the beginning
of the Union of Brest (1596) and the subsequent persecutions raised against the
Orthodox Church by Josaphat himself, so that one would have to be very
inattentive to the judgments of God not to see in this coincidence the activity
of the right hand of God which, at the same time as the bitter persecutions by
the Unia, prepared gracious consolation for the Orthodox in the miraculous Icon
of the All-pure Virgin, who in this manner chose Mount Pochaev as her
headquarters for the defense of the Orthodox people, their encouragement and
deliverance.
Summoned from the Ugornitsky
Monastery to the Dubensky Monastery for the sake of Orthodoxy which, as we have
already said, was supported primarily by the pious life of monks, the Venerable
Job was prepared to use every favorable opportunity to spread Orthodox
monasteries throughout Western Russia. And history bears witness that, thanks
to his influence as a spiritual father, the famous noblewoman Irene
Yarmolinskaya, as we know, in 1646 founded a rich monastery by a special
bequest, and had it dedicated to Saint John the Almsgiver. The monastery was
situated on her estate, called Zagaitsy, in Volyn’, and the venerable one
personally signed her bequest as her spiritual father, and thus for all time
confirmed his direct participation in the establishment of this monastery to
the glory of the Holy Orthodox Church. There is a tradition that the first
monks to inhabit the Zagaitsky Monastery were sent by the Venerable Job, at
Yarmolinskaya’s request, from the Monastery of Pochaev.
One cannot, of course, deny that
Josaphat, for his part, also drew several prominent Russian noblemen into his
Unia, such as, for example, Theodore Skumin Tyshkevich, his son Janus, Jan
Meleshko, Soltan, and others, as a result of which the Orthodox justly called
him a “soul-stealer”. Yet by doing so Josaphat deprived his clients of what is
most dear to man — their native Orthodox Faith; and we doubt greatly that by so
doing he brought holy peace to the souls of the apostates. The following
passages from the letter of Sapieha to Josaphat have quite a different meaning:
“Show us, Your Grace, whom you have acquired, whom you have brought in with
your severity, your sealings and closures [of churches].... You have
transformed them [Josaphat’s followers] from sheep into goats, have imperiled
the state, and have possibly brought all of us Catholics to destruction.
Instead of joy over celebrated Unia has caused us only vexations, disturbances
and discord; it has become so loathsome to us that we might wish that we could
be left without it, so much disturbance, bitterness and care we endure thanks
to it. This is the fruit of your famous Unia. To tell the truth, it has
acquired fame only for the troubles and dissensions it has produced among the
people and the whole border area....”
Simultaneously with his concerns
for the good external order of Mount Pochaev, which had an immediate influence
on the increase in the monastic population within the walls of the monastery,
the Venerable Job did not forget in Pochaev his beloved work of disseminating
essential books for the benefit of Orthodoxy, which, as we have seen, he
intentionally printed in his Pochaev Printery, such as the famous “Mirror of
Theology” by Tranquilion. He himself travelled to Kiev for a council of the
fathers (1628) for the defense of Orthodoxy; etc.
It is understandable in and of
itself that for Orthodoxy such feats could not pass without leaving a trace.
And we know that they indubitably saved the Church of Russia, and thus
preserved for all time that unshakable ground upon which Orthodoxy is built
even now, even where, as for example in the Kholm region, the enemies of the
Orthodox Church were fully justified in considering that it was apparently
perishing utterly. It is also to no one other than the Venerable Job and that
high moral law of life, the foundation of which was laid by the blessed
favorite of God in his monastery, that the Monastery of Pochaev is indebted for
the fact that, of all the monasteries of Western Russia, it was the last
converted to the Unia (after 1721). Prior to that time, the monks of Pochaev,
faithful to the testament of their God-bearing father and teacher, for almost a
century after the appearance of the Unia remained unshaken in Orthodoxy,
despite the most desperate efforts and dangerous ploys used by its enemies to draw
the Monastery of Pochaev into the Unia.
Thanks to this, as we already
know, of all the Uniate monasteries of Western Russia in the 18th and 19th
centuries, only in the Monastery of Pochaev were the liturgical rites observed
in a manner close to the typicons of the ancient Orthodox Church, which is why
the other Basilians called divine services as performed at Pochaev schismatic.
Furthermore, actual proof of this even in our times is the fact that, with the
exception of the liturgicons and books of needs, the liturgical books printed
at the former Pochaev Basilian Printery contain only insignificant differences
from the corresponding Orthodox books, such as, for example, the horologion,
octoechos, menaion, etc. Thus, the very enemies of Orthodoxy were unable
utterly to eradicate what was sown through the prayer and labors of the
venerable one.
It is interesting that the labors
of the Venerable Job on Mount Pochaev to confirm and defend Orthodoxy
(1604-1651) coincide exactly with the time when, in Eastern Russia, the Holy
Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, inspired by the spirit of its great founder, which
was ever present in it, was saving Orthodoxy and the Russian land from the
selfsame enemies and the henchmen of the Unia with whom the Venerable Job was
doing battle as abbot of Pochaev. And if it is impossible to doubt that the
Venerable Job had the most circumstantial information concerning all that was
happening at that time in Muscovy during the Time of Troubles (1608-1612), of
the pretenders and the interregnum, one must agree that, as a true son of the
Orthodox Church, with all the powers of his soul he sympathized with all that
was then being done by and from the Lavra of St. Sergius, and if not in deed,
then by his powerful prayer and the good desires of his heart he aided that
upon which the power and greatness of the Russian nation is now unshakably
established, and with this, of course, all the Russian provinces, which
comprise a single, indivisible whole under the scepter of the sovereign of all
Russia.
II
The Inner
Spiritual Life and Struggles of Saint Job & of Josaphat & Their
Glorifications
And
if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive
lawfully (II Tim. 2: 5)
Behold the pellucid, starry night
of southern Russia. Elevated hundreds of feet above the surrounding level
plain, the Holy Mountain of Pochaev rests in the twilight, covered from top to
bottom with age-old beeches, hornbeams and broad-leafed walnut trees. When they
have finished their private rule of prayer, the monks of Pochaev have long
since extinguished the fires in their little cells. Only the newly constructed
Church of the Holy Trinity, white as snow, and containing the healing footprint
and the miraculous icon of the Mother of God under its domes, stands welcoming
on the very peak of the crag, as if watching over those who pray in it. And
below, in the middle of the southern face of the mountain, on a nearly level
space between the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the mountain’s foundations,
Pochaev’s ancient wooden Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God is
sheltered, and across from it, directly in the crag, like a dark precipice
yawns the deep cave well known to the hermits of Pochaev from time immemorial
as the best refuge for feats of prayer and contemplation, far from the tumult
and threefold waves of worldly vanity.
But behold! the holy gates of the
monastery are silently opening, and from them two men are issuing forth one
after the other: the first, an elder bent beneath the weight of years, but
obviously hale and hearty, vested in the full monastic schema, with an abbatial
staff in his hand, on which he leans, guiding his steps. The second is a young,
modest monk in the usual monastic garb. Both of them are evidently going toward
the Church of the Dormition; but while the young one pauses at the vestibule of
the church, the elder moves with measured step toward the cave, and there is
slowly swallowed up by its sepulchral gloom.
These were the Venerable Job and
his closest, most beloved disciple, Hieromonk Dositheus of the Monastery of
Pochaev. The favorite of God descended into the cave, extending his hands
before him, his head bent low, because the rocks hanging down above his back
prevent him from standing upright. Then, having grasped with his hand a rock
which stands like a column on the left-hand side within the cave, the venerable
one stood erect in the cave, having thus wormed his way between rocks for a
distance of about twelve feet. Here his blessed feet paused first on a little
space about 28 inches square, at the head of which, if one turns to face the
north, opens an empty space about 28 inches high, but irregular in shape.
Despite the impenetrable darkness of the cave, the Venerable Job knows the lay
of the cave perfectly well. This is why, extending his left hand and leaning it
against the aforementioned column, and simultaneously bowing his head because
further on there is a dome in the rock like a baldachino, Job set his foot as
upon a step, and moving forward, set foot in the largest northern recess in the
cave. Here the favorite of God had many years before placed an excellent copy
of the miraculous Pochaev Icon on a shelf in the stone, and now, without seeing
it with his bodily eyes, but directing the gaze of his soul upon it, he falls
prostrate and begins to pray, as is his custom, profoundly, sincerely and with
a pure heart. If we ourselves had the ability to watch the holy favorite of God
while he was praying, we might see his threadbare schema part to reveal the
coarse hairshirt he wore against his body, covered with blood from the cruel
sores caused by the saint’s wearing iron chains against his flesh; we might see
his feet, swollen from long standing, until his flesh has fallen away from his
bones in pieces, to which, as Dositheus writes, “his precious incorrupt relics,
which lie in his shrine, bear witness to this day.” Suddenly, an extraordinary,
unearthly light illumines the cave, and for the course of more than two hours
issues forth from its depths and is reflected upon the church which stands
opposite, to the great terror and astonishment of Dositheus who, seeing all of
this, could only fall to the ground, “overcome by such a strange sight”.
“And if this cave of stone had a
mouth,” we repeat the words of Dositheus, “it might inform us how sometimes, at
times after three days, at times after an entire week, he who had enclosed
himself alone within it and was nurtured only with tears shed from a pure
heart, prayed for the good estate of the world which lies in darkness.”
This is genuine Christian prayer,
in nowise comparable to prayers which Josaphat might have uttered “while
flogging himself until he drew blood”, as his panegyrists boast of him.
Firstly, as true believers, we cannot fail to regard with prejudice the beating
with which in general the Latino-Uniate ascetics love to accompany their feats
of prayer. One may only consider prayer genuine which is made from the depth of
one’s soul, without any external diversion. From this such holy favorites of
God as the Venerable Job also strove primarily to choose for their prayer
solitary places which present no diversions for weak human nature. And the
Savior Himself among His most important instructions concerning prayer commands
each of us: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy room, and when thou
hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, Who is in secret; and thy Father, Who
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly” (Mt. 6: 6). What sort of
concentration has one who prays when, pouring forth his feelings before the Lord,
he is at the same time trying to inflict wounds upon himself with an instrument
of well-known type? On the contrary, torture of this sort will certainly
distract one’s thoughts from the Lord, and hence will render the prayer itself
shallow and imperfect. One likewise cannot but agree that the so-called
flagellation practiced by the ascetics of the Western Church, as admitted by
the best of them, in many instances produces in its practitioners, instead of
the mortification of the flesh, a certain type of pleasure, a sort of languor,
which prompts one to resort to flagellation not as to a salvific means of
repentance, but more readily as a well-known way of inducing a pleasure which
is evidently totally contrary to the spirit of true Christian compunction and
repentance.
Secondly, listen to what Josaphat
prays for while subjecting his body to flagellation: “While whipping himself,”
writes one of his biographers, “he cried out: O Lord, uproot the schism and
grant the Unia a crown!” And he did not forget this prayer even when he had
become a bishop. This is a real Latino-Jesuit prayer, alien to any spirit of
love and Christian condescension, a prayer all the more sinful and contrary to
God in that Josaphat himself, even though he was a Latin of the Eastern Rite,
had to learn to pray with the mouth of the Holy Orthodox Church: “For the peace
of the whole world, the good estate of the holy Churches of God, and the union
of all...” But he obviously read more of the missals of the Latins than
Orthodox service books, and hence, from the foremost of them became imbued with
the spirit of the Roman prayer: “May the Lord bring peace, preserve, unify and
render honorable the Catholic Church, and with the pope make her the governor
of the whole world [regere toto orbe terrarum]...”, etc. With what
immense magnitude does the meek prayer of the Venerable Job breathe in
comparison to all of this, for he did not even pray for the prosperity of the
Orthodox Church, but only “for the good estate of the world which lieth in
evil...”
To the extent that the
supplication of the Venerable Job is integral, holy and unselfish, his entire
moral life in general is truly noble and full of divine wisdom. In this
respect, one cannot but agree with Mr. Kulish, that “the real sphere of the
blessed favorite of God was not administrative, not practical, but spiritual
and ideal,” and although by dint of necessity he “did not avoid anything: he
entered into contact with the families of the nobility when the needs of
Orthodoxy or the interests of the monastery required this, and even appeared in
court as a plaintiff when the heterodox Firlej had confiscated the monastery’s
property,” yet he was primarily “great in his divine contemplation, and
influenced men’s minds by the holiness of his own life.” This was the way Job
was when he entered upon the monastic struggle at the age of ten, and this was
how he remained until the end of his life.
He always “comported himself as
if he were the least in the midst of elders, as the most sinful in the midst of
righteous men. Even when he happened to be a witness to such a sin as thievery,
he felt only sympathy for the sinner. He helped him hide his shame before men,
and only meekly reminded him of the account which each of us must render before
God...”
It is not surprising that after
all of this “everyone feared [St. Job] as one who could penetrate the hidden
secrets of the soul of his neighbor, and they loved him as an all-forgiving
brother,” since “in his loving and meek soul, without doubt, the thought was
always and everywhere present of Him Who came, not to be served, but to serve
others...”
In view of such circumstances it
would be a direct, even unforgivable audacity to compare the blessed Job with
Josaphat. Here we see the integral, noble nature in which every step, every
movement of the soul, every activity keeps itself on the path of duty and
righteousness, humility and brotherly love, from the age of reason to the
grave. On the other hand, though Josaphat did possess certain virtues, which we
will not try to reject, they were all inundated by his crude fanaticism, which
lay precisely in the fact that he dichotomizes the human soul and, what is even
more terrible, makes it evil, cruel and inhuman in the name of the most holy
principles of faith and religion, of which, unfortunately, he has an erroneous
understanding.
Hence it is not surprising that
the end of the one and the other were quite different. The Uniate Josaphat was
murdered in the flower of his youth by a rebellious mob, while the Venerable
Job reposed peacefully at one hundred years of age on October 28th, 1651,
having earlier foretold his own end and served the divine liturgy on that very
day, and been sincerely mourned by his orphaned brethren and all who knew and
honored him.
True, there were tears shed over
the corpse of Josaphat, but they were tears of suffering and bitter curses on
the part of his unfortunate victims, who filled the prisons and were beheaded
in the hundreds because of the murder of the fanatic.
Nevertheless, there may be
perplexities now with regard to the question of the blessed glorification of
the Venerable Job and the papal coronation of Josaphat. “Vengeance is Mine; I
will repay, saith the Lord” (rom. 12: 19). “Though the righteous be prevented
with death, yet shall he be in rest; for the memorial thereof is immortal,
because it is known with God, and with men” (Wis. 4: 7, 1). And one must
possess very sick, weak eyes not to see the actions of the inscrutable
judgments of the providence of God in the posthumous fate of the Venerable Job
and of Josaphat.
Of the canonization of Josaphat
by the Latino-Uniate Church, the Uniates themselves relate that “At the request
of the king and the Russian bishops, Uniates and Latins, after examining all
the witnesses to the life, apostolic labors and miracles [sic!] of Saint
Josaphat, Pope Urban VIII beatified him in 1643, and Pius IX numbered him among
the holy servants of God in 1867, declaring him patron of Russia and Poland.
“The body of Josaphat,” according
to the words of the same writer, “rested in Polotsk where he had been taken
after his murder until 1705. In that year, when Emperor Peter I threatened to
have the corpse cremated, the Basilians of Polotsk had it removed from that
city and entrusted it to Prince Carl Radziwill, Chancellor and Hetman of
Lithuania, for safekeeping. The hetman transported it in his wagon-train
throughout the remainder of the war, and when peace was declared, enshrined it
in Byaly, at his estate on the Podlyasa. The Basilians expected that the
remains would be restored to them, but Prince Radziwill would not permit them
to be returned. Ultimately, he reached an agreement with them that they would
be permitted to remove a single rib from the body, but that the rest of the
body was to remain at Byaly, where they would be allowed to build a church and
monastery of their rule. Relatives of Princes Chartorzhky and Sapieha protested
against this. But the Radziwills, despite this, remained in possession of the
relics. Not long afterward, however, Moscow removed them from the church in
which they lay on an altar and, according to some accounts, took them away to
an unknown place, or, according to others, ordered them buried in the crypt of
the church, to conceal from the eyes of the faithful this most zealous and
courageous defender of the Unia, which [Moscow] is striving to annihilate with
all its powers.”
If one limits oneself only to
these testimonies concerning the posthumous fate of Josaphat, it is impossible
not to see from them that it is men and men only who play an exclusive rôle in
the case of his so-called glorification… While of what is most essential in the
case of the glorification of true favorites of God — the direct will of God for
this, as well as of the miracles which comprise the most substantive proof of
the holiness of a blessed person — we either hear nothing, or hear only in
passing. And there are indubitable bases for thinking that there has never been
any such higher, heavenly volition, or any miracles wrought by Josaphat.
“True,” we say in the words of the closest experts in Russian history,
Kulchinski, Josaphat’s biographer, and following him other Basilian writers,
point to several miracles allegedly performed by Josaphat after his death, yet
not one of them is confirmed by any reliable testimony, and they speak of them
without adducing any proof, in the hope that a printed lie will receive the
authority of the truth among the ignorant. The accounts of several miracles are
so badly composed that they cannot withstand refutation. They say, for example,
that the body of Josaphat, which was cast into the Dvina at Vitebsk, floated on
its own to Polotsk against the current of the river, or that when a certain
gentlewoman, who was returning from Polotsk to Ushach, prayed to Josaphat, her
mare, which had died on the road, was returned to life.
But from the commission’s report
on Josaphat’s murder, it is known that his body was cast into the Dvina, was
removed three days later, formally identified and examined in the castle, and
then dispatched by horse, along the course of the Dvina, to Polotsk, for
burial. This shows what sort of credence one can place in Kulchinski and other
zealots of the Unia like him! And if after the murder of Josaphat his body had
performed anything in the least resembling a miracle, the examiners, the royal
commissioners, as well as zealous Catholics, would not have failed to declare
this in the aforementioned decree, where they enumerate all the minute details
relating to the murder of Josaphat, praise his false piety, supposed virtues
and even the fact that he wore a hairshirt.
Moreover, if such miracles had
been manifested after the death of Josaphat, Pope Urban VIII himself would have
mentioned them in his bulla of beatification, yet there is not the slightest
hint of such miracles in it. We note also that, apart from Kulchinski and other
Uniate and Latin writers who set down accounts of the miracles of Josaphat
almost two hundred years after his death, no popular tradition concerning them
has been preserved, nor so much as a single written contemporary act (with the
exception of the resurrection of the horse), nor any other historical proof at
all. Consequently, all the legends of the Uniates and Roman Catholics
concerning the supposed miracles of Josaphat are pure fabrications, the product
of the fantasies of the Basilian monks who wished to assure the ignorant mob
that the Unia had its own saints, and among them a wonder-worker.
With this purely pragmatic goal,
the popes performed the beatification, and later the canonization of Josaphat
“for the exaltation of the Unia”; and “the politics of the Polish government,
the personal interests of the Uniate clergy, and the ignorance of the people
recognized him as a saint and began to venerate and bless him as a genuine holy
man.” What is surprising is that, in the fullness of time, the Lord finally
raised up the zeal of the divinely chosen Russian people to put an end to the
superstition, by burying the embalmed remains of Josaphat in the ground, and
thus, by His inscrutable judgments, by the hands of His elect He destroyed and
annihilated what was, in and of itself, the creation of the sinful hands of
man.
We see exactly the opposite in
the history of the glorification of the Venerable Job of Pochaev. The relics of
the venerable one were uncovered not by human calculation or at men’s request,
but by direct inspiration from on high. Afterwards, a multitude of miracles
were wrought through the relics of the favorite of God, which were so
completely different from the “miracles” of Josaphat, that they not only took
place, but have not ceased to take place even now, and each of them is fully
documented as an indubitable fact, often borne witness to not only by the
testimony of eye-witnesses, but also by the judicial authorities, popular
tradition, etc. Furthermore, in the history of the glorification of the holy
favorites of God in general, one sees everywhere the undoubted fact that the
saints themselves carefully maintain the honor of their own blessed remains,
and often reveal various miracles and signs in order to save them from
disgrace. We read the same thing in the history of the posthumous miracles and signs
of the Venerable Job.
Thus, as we know, it was in 1711,
when a certain Wladislaw Kaminski from Bratslava, who was in Pochaev, mockingly
expressed his doubt concerning the incorruption of the relics of the venerable
one, that Job himself appeared to him in a dream, threatening him with his
staff if he “dared to speak blasphemously of the saints of God...” It is even
more remarkable that a similar miraculous sign was again manifested by the
relics of Saint Job in 1737, when the Uniates had already seized control of the
Lavra of Pochaev, in the person of a certain Lady Pontowski, her little son,
and others.
The question thus arises as to
whether we see anything similar in the embalmed remains of Josaphat. If he were
a genuine saint, could he really have failed to stand up for himself when
“schismatic Moscow” buried his body in the earth and thus forever deprived him
of his former honor and veneration? But such is precisely the fate of all
unrighteousness, that it is never in a position to stand up for itself openly
and with honor. On the contrary, holy Truth triumphs even where, apparently,
one might expect its most complete destruction and disgrace.
This is what happened also with
the incorrupt remains of the Venerable Job. We already know that no sooner did
the Uniates take possession of the Lavra of Pochaev (1721), than they
immediately denied access to the relics of the venerable one and placed them
behind a grill, terminating, for the time being, all contact with them. Yet
this was only in the beginning. The Uniates had not managed to establish their
control over Mount Pochaev when the Venerable Job again began to work various
signs and wonders, which are of even greater interest to us in that they were
recorded not by the Orthodox, but by the Uniates themselves. Consequently,
although the Basilians of Pochaev, as we have seen, enclosed the relics of the
venerable Job behind a grill and glass, despite all of this they could not but
accord him special respect. And we know that they, for example, indubitably
recognized the incorruption of his holy relics and even wrote openly of it in
their own books.
Furthermore, the Uniates never
referred to Job as other than blogoslaviony, the blessed, which, derived
from the Latin word beatus, indicates in general a man of God who
undoubtedly has been glorified from on high. There are also indubitable
indications that the Basilians of Pochaev possessed an icon of Saint Job, which
they venerated, and as we have said, they even secretly celebrated services of
supplication [molebny] before his relics, set up candles before them,
etc. We are not speaking only of the high respect for the Venerable Job which
began among the Basilians of Pochaev, but that of the rest of the Uniates, by
the end of the 18th century, especially during the time of the famous
benefactor of the Lavra of Pochaev, Count Nicholas Potocki, the starosta
of Kanev, so that in 1767 the Basilians even raised the question of the
canonization of Saint Job with the pope, hoping to having him proclaimed a
saint of their own Latino-Uniate church.
But the true servants of God, who
are glorified by the Lord Himself, do not need to have their holiness confirmed
by heterodox authorities. Despite the Basilians’ unwavering confidence that the
canonization of Saint Job would take place, it was not, as it happened,
forthcoming, because the pope, as we know, found the favorite of God to be too
Orthodox and decided not to introduce a “blatant schismatic” into the Roman
martyrologies, despite the significant amount of money donated for this purpose
by Potocki.
Now it is doubtless the turn of
the successors of the former Uniates who have returned to Orthodoxy within the
boundaries of the Kingdom of Poland, and those of like mind with them who are
striving toward Orthodoxy in Carpatho-Russia and Galicia. They are all the more
obliged by a fitting reverence for the memory of the Venerable Job, since he is
their close compatriot and one of the foremost representatives of the Russian
nation in the history and life of southwestern Rus’, to such an extent that the
very enemies of Orthodoxy could not refuse him respect, even though this
respect did not result in the desired canonization of the saint.
In one passage in the Uniate
service to the Venerable Job there is a remarkable Theotokion: “O Theotokos,
who by thy birthgiving saved the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, by the
supplications of thy three favorites — our fathers Basil the Great, the blessed
Josaphat, and Job — save us also from misfortunes.” Thus, at that time the
Uniates placed the venerable Job on the same level as Josaphat. Now, when the
place of Josaphat has been abolished, obviously Job alone remains for all the
former Uniates, and we cannot say anything better to them in this instance than
the words from the same Uniate service: “Come, ye councils of those who love
the feasts of the Church! Assemble, ye choirs of the faithful! Make haste, ye
people from the ends of Russia and Poland, and let us enter into the temple of
the Lord, the house of the Mother of God. Let us draw forth water from the
well-spring of healings, and let us worship in the place where the feet of the
Virgin stood. And together let us all say to her: Show forth thine ancient
mercies; defend thy holy place with companies of angels, accepting as a
mediator for us before thee thy blessed favorite [Job] Zhelezo; for he ever
prayeth to the Lord in behalf of our souls.”
And that the Orthodox inhabitants
of the Diocese of Kholm & Warsaw might know that the veneration of Saint
Job is for them not only a moral duty but also a legal obligation, we consider
it necessary to reproduce here, in conclusion, the following decree which,
without doubt, remains in force to the present time. One ought to remember only
that this decree was written at a time when the Orthodox inhabitants of the
Kingdom of Poland were in hierarchal dependence upon the Archbishop of Volyn’.
“In the magazine of the Volyn’
Spiritual Consistory, 19th June 1833.
“Heard: The proposal of
His Grace Innocent, delivered to this Consistory on the 17th instant, of the
following content: From the tradition preserved among the people of this area
and from written information it is well known that among the ancient leaders of
the Orthodox Monastery of Pochaev the venerable father Job Zhelezo, Abbot of
Pochaev, was glorified by the particular struggles of a strict monastic life.
His mortal remains were committed to the earth in 1651, only fifty years before
the seizure of the Monastery of Pochaev by the Uniates, and eight years
afterwards, on the 28th August 1659, after the the venerable one had appeared
several times briefly to the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev, Dionysius Balaban,
as he slept, [the relics] were uncovered by this same metropolitan in a
complete intact state, and over the intervening 182 years, in witness of the
special grace imparted to him by the Lord God, they are preserved in one of the
monastery churches here [at Pochaev]. And it is no less also well known that
this precious surety of the ancient Orthodoxy of this region, remaining for
more than a century in the hands of those not of like mind with us, did not
have in their eyes, as a constant, dire denouncer of their apostasy from the
Faith of our forefathers, the value which their pious diligence customarily
accorded objects venerated by them as holy.
“’Now, when merciful Providence
has permitted, in the days of the blessed reign of our most devout monarch,
Nicholas I, who tirelessly concerns himself with the dissemination and
confirmation of true piety in our homeland, this Orthodox monastery, which is
again returned to the bosom of our Church, to the joy and spiritual consolation
of the Orthodox, the grateful memory of the ever-memorable planter of our
ancient piety in this region, and his manifest, glorious sanctity, impose upon
us the sacred duty of nurturing within the pious people reverent recollections
of the exalted virtues of this righteous man. To this end, with the permission
of the supreme government, henceforth, every year on the 28th August, the
uncovering of the relics of the venerable one will be solemnly celebrated in
this monastery.’
“The Consistory, in order to
bring this to general attention throughout this diocese, through the
announcement by sacred ministers to their parishioners on Sundays and feastdays
in their churches, is immediately circulating a fitting proclamation. We
have ordered: On obtaining the signature of His Grace on the indicated
proposal, for fitting implementation, to send decrees from the Consistory to
the ecclesiastical administrations, monasteries, and also the deans of the
Kingdom of Poland and the District of Kremenets, and to inform the spiritual
council of the Lavra of Pochaev.”
Translated from the Russian by the Reader Isaac E.
Lambertsen, from Orthodoxy in the West of Russia, in Its Foremost
Representatives, or the Patristic of Volynia & Pochaev, by Archpriest
Andrew Khoinatsky (Moscow: D. I. Presnov Press, 1888), pp. 293-312.
Source: Living Orthodoxy, Vol. XVIII, No. 4,
July-August 1997, pp. 11-21.
