A Foretaste of Pascha: The emblem of Christ’s victory over suffering and death

Archimandrite Placide (Deseille) (+2018)

 

 

On this Sunday, which marks the middle of Great Lent, the midpoint of our journey toward Pascha, the Church invites us to venerate the Precious Cross.

The Cross thus appears within the period of fasting as a foretaste, we may say, of Pascha. For the Cross does not signify only suffering and death, but on the contrary: above all, victory over suffering and death.

A few days ago, I received a letter from someone who informed me that he had moved away from Christianity, because, as he wrote, Christianity constantly speaks about trials, death, and tears, whereas he was seeking something more joyful, more peaceful.

No, it is not Christianity that brought suffering and death into the world; sin did that. Pain and death are consequences of sin, of man’s separation from God, Who is the Source of Life. What Christ brought us is the opposite: the victory over pain and death. Certainly, He did not abolish them immediately; Christ came to conquer them by reversing their meaning. From being signs of man’s separation from God and of men from one another, from a source of opposition and hatred, He made them signs of love toward the Father and toward His brethren.

At that moment, He introduced into suffering and death the seed of the Resurrection, that seed which would destroy them and would cause Eternal Life to triumph definitively.

In this light of the Resurrection, we must contemplate the Mystery of the Cross. The Cross of Christ is no longer merely an instrument of torture, and the great iconographers always tried to make visible—within the very suffering of Christ upon the Cross—the Light of the Resurrection and the Peace, which are already present on the Cross.

Those crosses that we see at the intersections of our roads, which we find in certain regions at the corner of every farm, this Cross is the emblem of Christ’s victory over suffering and death.

But also in our own life, our own painful hardships, our own trials—if we are able to live them within the Light of Christ, then they too become instruments of victory. When we read in the Lives of the Saints the torments they endured, we see how their spirit was not at all gloomy, but on the contrary how they already lived, through their very trial itself, the victory of Christ over death, that triumph which we celebrate on the day of Pascha.

And if, while reading the Lives of certain ascetics, we are astonished and perhaps even frightened by the hardships they imposed upon themselves, we should know that it was not some morbid attraction to suffering that led them, but rather the opposite; through their suffering they perceived precisely the presence of the victorious love of Christ, the love that was destined to triumph over suffering and death. They understood that suffering would allow them to uproot their egoism, that egoism which always focuses on ourselves and whispers to us that we are the center of the world. Suffering would allow them to turn themselves entirely toward God and toward their brethren.

Thus, we must live through our inevitable trials, which we shall certainly encounter in our earthly life. But we must have a living faith in the victory of Christ. We must rely upon this faith, knowing how to transform all our sufferings and trials into instruments of victory, already transfiguring them by this love of Christ, by the victorious power of the Resurrection.

Then we shall truly be Christians, with all the power that the word contains. Then we shall truly be children of the heavenly Father, bearing the image of His Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

To these three divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be all glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

 

Greek source: https://www.imoph.org/pdfs/2026/03/15/20260315aKyr-Stayr.pdf

 

 

On the ROCOR/MP Union: Lessons of the Past and Challenges of the Present

Archpriest Valery Alexeev | June 27 / July 10, 2007

Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, Astoria, New York

 

 

When the negotiations of the ROCOR with the MP began, in certain theological articles that called into question the method of these negotiations, a sinister word appeared, wounding the historical memory: unia. Let us recall that unia means a union in which one side, in its own interests, absorbs the other.

Everyone who is familiar with the history of the unions (we mean the unions that were concluded between a Local Orthodox Church or its region and Roman Catholicism) knows that these unions were accompanied by betrayal of Orthodoxy, violations of dogmatic principles and the holy canons, hostility, hatred, hierarchical arbitrariness, persecutions of the confessors of Orthodoxy, the arbitrariness of “outsiders,” bloodshed, martyrdom: the unions foretold evil!

What then occurred on May 4/17 of the current year [2007], on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior? Did all remain in the status of witnesses of Christ, to which the apostolic and evangelical readings of this feast call us, or did some, in the ongoing universal judicial process—for now is the judgment of this world (John 12:31)—withdraw from their testimony?

It is known that the canonical law of the Orthodox Church does not know such a definition of falling away from the Church as unia; [1] the unions arose already after the Ecumenical and Local Councils of the first millennium after Christ, but it does know such a form of preserving ecclesiastical unity as a canonical and Eucharistic rupture, [2] “walling-off,” or “separation.” [3] St. Basil the Great, in his first canonical rule, calls, in agreement with the ancients, three forms of falling away from the purity of Orthodoxy: heresy (false teaching), schism (a division), and parasynagogue (an unlawful assembly). As we see in the recent history of the Universal Church, many Local Churches accept, assimilate, retain, and develop within themselves signs of heresy (the acceptance of new heretical doctrines and theories), schism, or self-willed action (the usurpation of ecclesiastical authority), which can be healed by a Local Council of the Church afflicted by these maladies. Let us note that heretically-minded Churches, or heretical Confessions that have completely fallen away from the Church, always strive to attach to themselves and subject to themselves those Local Churches or ecclesiastical regions that remain in dogmatic and ecclesiological purity, through unions, or unias, the cornerstone of which is always a confessional compromise or economia, [4] which, as we shall see below, ought not to occur.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, passing through its complex history, is well acquainted with such phenomena as schism (a division) or parasynagogue (an unlawful assembly). Metropolitan Laurus, in his message to the participants of the extraordinary congress of the Sydney and Australian–New Zealand Diocese, wrote: “I would like to remind everyone that at the present moment the discussion is not about ‘joining,’ ‘merging,’ or ‘union’ with the Moscow Patriarchate, but about the reconciliation of the two parts of the Russian Orthodox Church.” If, however, we dare to give an evaluation of the phenomenon and call it—“conciliatory communion passing into unification” of a part of the ROCOR with the MP—the name unia, it is necessary for us to examine its nature in general as a historically anti-ecclesiastical phenomenon and to clarify what actually occurred: reconciliation through Eucharistic communion, unification on the basis of unanimity of mind, or self-liquidation on the basis of unconditional capitulation (let us note that capitulation is surrender into captivity, the surrender of positions, subordination, the renunciation of one’s ideals, an attempt at survival), that is—captivity.

Let us give an example: the Moscow Patriarchate, and almost all the other Local Orthodox Churches, have already reconciled themselves with the Roman Catholic Confession, declared it their Sister Church (“Balamand”), and recognized the Monophysite Confessions as Eastern Orthodox (Chambésy). Orthodox and Catholic bishops, as yet, do not openly receive communion together, although certain cases of joint Eucharistic communion are known; [5] but they already pray together, and Catholic laymen, without converting to Orthodoxy, receive communion in Orthodox churches in Russia.

This, indeed, is reconciliation, with the introduction of gradual Eucharistic communion, but, for now, it is still not full unification, and not a complete unia. Let us note that the ROCOR will now also have to receive Roman Catholics no longer through the sacrament of Baptism and to admit them to Holy Communion. According to the Act that was signed, the ROCOR must present the candidacies of its bishops for approval to the Patriarch; it must receive Holy Myron from him. And it will now also be necessary to concelebrate not only with the Serbs-ecumenists, but also with other ecumenical Churches—the new-calendarists and the new-paschalists… This is not reconciliation, but unia!

But for the moment, let us consider the lessons of the past.

The first historical lesson is the Union of Ferrara-Florence of 1439. It is known that the episcopate, headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople Metrophanes, and afterwards by Patriarch Gregory Mammas, at this council betrayed Orthodoxy and accepted the Roman Catholic dogmas. And only one hierarch—St. Mark of Ephesus, who did not sign the conciliar decrees—remained Orthodox, broke his canonical and Eucharistic relations with the heretically-minded uniates, that is, he acted according to the second half of the 15th canon of the First-Second Council: “and he did not cut off the unity of the Church by a schism, but rather hastened to guard the Church from schism and division.” [6]

Thus, according to dogmatic principles, “Union [of separated Churches, or regions of the Church, Archp. V.A.] is possible only on the basis of one, single dogmatics (…), for dogmatics is the foundation, the skeleton upon which the whole Body of the Church rests. Remove this firm, integral dogmatics, and the Church will cease to be the Church. The presence of two different dogmatic principles within the same Church, or some compromise of two opposing dogmatic principles, is an absurdity which will cost the Church its destruction.” [7]

In this case the Patriarchate of Constantinople entered into a compromise with the Roman Catholics and accepted the Latin doctrines; but let us also remember the following: “In Ferrara, the principal motive of almost all the Greeks was political…” [8] How close this is to our own time!

Let us therefore trace the history of this union. In April 1438 a commission was formed from representatives of the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, which was entrusted to clarify the points of disagreement, examine them, and indicate the path toward the conclusion of a union. These proceedings did not pass entirely smoothly, and the Orthodox did not agree on questions concerning the Latin dogmas. Concerning the fruitlessness of these disputations, St. Mark of Ephesus wrote: “To say this seemed like singing to deaf ears, or boiling a stone, or sowing upon stone, or writing upon water, or something similar that is said in proverbs regarding the impossible.” [9]

And nevertheless, certain members of the Orthodox delegation spoke in favor of accepting the Latin dogmas, sought a modus unionis, and “began to work out certain formulas by which they might unite with them, representing a certain compromise (…) as though a kind of boot fitting both one foot and the other.” [10] In the end there took place the promulgation—the solemn proclamation—of the union.

St. Mark of Ephesus did not follow this path. He “did not permit any compromise in matters of faith. They cried to Mark: ‘Find for us a way out, an economia.’ Mark replied: ‘Matters of faith do not admit economia. It is the same as saying: cut off your head and go wherever you wish.’ ‘Never, O man, are the things that pertain to the Church resolved through compromises.’” [11]

But the zealots of Orthodoxy gathered around St. Mark… “Yet it was not the mighty of this world who gathered around him. The episcopate, headed by Patriarch Metrophanes and afterwards by Patriarch Gregory Mammas, was in the hands of the Uniates; we do not hear a single name of a bishop among the supporters of St. Mark of Ephesus, not one high-ranking person, whether at the court of the Emperor or of the patriarch. But the army of St. Mark was numerous: it consisted of monks, first of all the monks of Athos; it consisted of presbyters, often rural and unknown, of whom the sources say ‘a certain presbyter’; it consisted of deacons; it consisted of the little ones of this world.” [12]

St. Mark was not broken either by persecutions, nor by imprisonment in the fortress of Mundros, nor by a severe cancerous illness. “Therefore, brethren, flee from them and from communion with them; for they are ‘false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ. …Beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation.’” [13]

In a letter to Hieromonk Theophanes he wrote: “Therefore, you also, brethren, flee from communion with those with whom one ought not to have it, and from the commemoration of those whom it is not fitting to commemorate (liturgically)”; [14] (…) “…for this means to mix what cannot be mixed; but they must remain completely separated from us until God grants correction and peace to His Church.” [15]

The Union of Ferrara–Florence did not endure. The Orthodox hierarchy was restored and a First Hierarch of the Church of Constantinople was elected.

More than a hundred years passed, and a new union stirred the life of the Orthodox Church. This union received the name Brest. Like the Florentine union, the Union of Brest had a political background. “Being the most reliable means of assimilation, of the Polonization of the Orthodox population of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was intended to strengthen the political foundation of the Union of Lublin” [16]—that is, the political union of 1569 that united Poland and Lithuania into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The bishops were led to the union not by conviction in the truth—asserts the researcher of this period of Church history—not by ideological or religious motives, but by concern that their cathedras, villages and estates, their places in the senate and the diet, and equality in rights with the Catholic bishops should be preserved for them.

In contrast to the Union of Ferrara–Florence, which was conducted through theological disputations, “the preparation of the Orthodox Church in Poland for union with Rome was carried out in an atmosphere of secrecy, observed both by the bishops and by the government”; [17] “…the question of the union was discussed not at the regular councils of bishops, at which clergy and laity were present, but at secret, ‘pokutnye’ (that is, ‘in corners’) gatherings.” [18]

Even before the council that was to decide the question of the union, Metropolitan Michael (Rogoza) and the bishops of Vladimir, Lutsk, and Pinsk, together with the archimandrite of Kobrin, Jonah (Gogol), signed the pope’s letter, thereby expressing their agreement to accept the union; and in December 1595 the bishops Hypatius (Potsei) and Cyril (Terletsky), at an audience with Pope Clement VIII, completely betrayed Orthodoxy.

In June 1595 the protector of Orthodoxy, Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky, wrote in his proclamation: “…In the present times, by the evil cunning of the wicked devil, the very chief leaders of our true faith, having been seduced by the glory of this world and darkened by the darkness of sensual pleasure, our supposed shepherds, the metropolitan with the bishops… secretly agreed among themselves, the accursed ones… to tear away the pious Christians of this region without their knowledge and to cast them with themselves into destruction, as their own most secret writings declare. Having learned with certainty about such apostates and manifest betrayers of the Church of Christ, I inform all of you of them, as beloved brethren in Christ, and I desire together with you to stand united against the enemies of our salvation, so that with the help of God and your zealous effort they themselves may fall into the nets which they secretly prepared for us… What benefit can we have from them? Instead of being the light of the world, they have become darkness and a stumbling block for all.” [19]

The Council of Brest, which took place in 1596, became divided. The defenders of Orthodoxy, among whom were representatives of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Alexandria, resolved: to deprive the apostates of their episcopal cathedras, not to permit the conclusion of the union, and strictly to adhere to the Julian calendar. The apostates from Orthodoxy, for their part, issued an act and a conciliar charter of union (unia) with Rome, and they anathematized the Orthodox clergy.

Now let us summarize. “The union was the work of bishops who acted in separation from the church people, without their free and conciliar agreement and counsel… At the same time, these Uniate bishops considered their submission to Roman authority and jurisdiction to be a ‘union of the Churches,’ while the resistance of the people they regarded as canonical arbitrariness and rebellion… The Orthodox, on the contrary, saw in this disobedience and in this inevitable anti-hierarchical struggle only the fulfillment of their Christian duty, the duty of faithfulness and faith. The struggle against the union was above all a manifestation of the conciliar consciousness of the church people” [20]—that is, reception.

Let us note that the idea of the unification of the two parts of the Russian Orthodox Church, which became separated after certain well-known historical events, as many now say, is entirely natural and corresponds to the evangelical principle: “that they may all be one, as We are” (John 17:11).

Here, first of all, I will express an opinion concerning such a concept or definition as “a part of the Church.” Canonical law does not know such a term or definition. In ecclesiastical relations such a definition has developed as:

1. The Mother Church, or the Kyriarchal Church, in relation to its canonical regions or daughter jurisdictions, that is, Autonomous Churches, to which the Mother Church has granted the rights of autonomy, or the rights of broad autonomy differing little from autocephaly, or autocephaly itself.

2. Two regions (or jurisdictions) of one historically formed Church that are in canonical separation for various reasons, which, with dogmatic unanimity, may unite.

3. The Mother Church, or a church region, and a schismatic society that has fallen away from it, which through repentance may join the Mother Church. But the designation of a canonical jurisdiction as a “part” of the Church is incorrect, for it closely touches upon the ecumenical term “branch,” condemned as a heresy, the so-called “branch theory.” [21] The canonical definition is a church region. [22]

Let us note that the official negotiations between the MP and ROCOR were preceded by numerous visits of the higher hierarchy and clergy of ROCOR to the Fatherland, and from the Fatherland to the Council of Bishops by high officials of the Russian Federation, in which political motives are clearly visible: as in Ferrara, and as in Brest, that is, motives characteristic not of union but of unia. State officials do not have the right to intrude into the sphere of ecclesiastical relations.

By concluding the Union of Ferrara–Florence, Emperor John Palaiologos hoped to save the capital of the empire from the Turks; the hierarchy, which received from the pope a “considerable sum,” [23] and had reached the point where “the monetary factor played no small role in the matter of the Union,” [24] thought to preserve their cathedras—that is, their privileges—while the pope sought to attach Constantinople to Rome, that is, Orthodoxy to papism.

By concluding the Union of Brest, King Sigismund III Vasa strove to bring the Orthodox population of the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands under his authority into obedience to the Roman See, and consequently to his state; while the hierarchy of the Lithuanian Metropolia, having lost its Orthodox principledness, was at that time guided only by “ambition and the thirst for advantage.” [25]

And what political background is present in the case of the Moscow union, which we are now considering? On the one hand, it is the loss of the free voice of the church region in the Russian diaspora; it is the property of ROCOR—churches and monasteries, part of which has already been seized and which will gradually pass into the ownership of state structures existing in the Fatherland; it is the long-desired end of the White Movement and its historical legacy; it is the erosion of Orthodox theology, capable of resisting the heretical ecumenical pseudo-theology. On the side of the hierarchy that concluded the union, it is the mythical fear of finding itself isolated from “world Orthodoxy,” which has already fallen into dogmatic and ecclesiological heresies, although the Lord nevertheless calls: “come out from among them and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17); it is the attempt, by concluding the union, to affirm its “canonical existence,” as if the bishops of the Church Abroad had doubted their own canonicity—something of which for seventy years they had been accused by patriarchal theologians and hierarchs of the Sergianist tendency, namely of the “Karlovci schism.”

Then the work of the bilateral Commissions began, which were to clarify, as once in Ferrara, the points of disagreement. It cannot be said that the negotiations always proceeded smoothly. Once again, as before, they were “singing to deaf ears,” “boiling stones,” “writing on water,” and “sowing on stones.” But most important was the complete secrecy of the negotiating process, about which the believing people of ROCOR knew nothing, although they had the right to their reception. As once in Brest, the negotiations were conducted “in corners,” without subsequent broad information. It would have been possible, for example, to publish a bulletin in which the process of negotiations, statements, arguments, and remarks, as well as the names of the defenders of the historical principles of ROCOR and their opponents, would be reproduced stenographically and precisely. Such a bulletin could have provided a place for a general church discussion. This did not occur, and the process of negotiations proceeded along the path conceived and planned by the administration of the Moscow Patriarchate: along the path of economia, or compromise. A departure took place from the resolutions of the Pastoral Conference in Nyack, the Fourth All-Diaspora Council in San Francisco, and even the Council of Bishops of ROCOR in 2006. They did not wait for a Local Council of the All-Russian Orthodox Church, and the union was carried out suddenly and hastily, that is, as people used to say, “at Bolshevik tempos.”

The ROCOR Commission did not defend the principle that the election of the Moscow patriarchs during the Soviet God-fighting era took place in violation of canonical rules; that the Patriarch of Moscow is only the First Hierarch of the ROC MP, a church region whose foundation was laid by a non-canonical synod that usurped ecclesiastical authority; that this church region is not the Kyriarchal Mother Church, and that the Patriarch is not the First Hierarch of the entire fullness of Russian Orthodoxy. The commission also did not defend the principle that the Russian Church Abroad is an independent canonical region, or jurisdiction, possessing its own canonical First Hierarch in the rank of Metropolitan, having preserved dogmatic purity and not having come into contact with the ecumenical heresy.

Which church region of the divided Russian Church, then, should nevertheless be considered the Mother Church? We know that the division of the Russian Orthodox Church occurred not because one of its regions remained in the Fatherland conquered by the God-fighters, while part of the hierarchy, on the basis of the holy canons, without abandoning the flock that was leaving the Fatherland, shared exile with it and formed the Refugee Church—the church region abroad, which in history received the name Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

The prayerful and Eucharistic separation occurred after, in the church region existing in the Fatherland, governed by the synod of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), who had usurped the supreme ecclesiastical administration, there appeared the most grievous violations in the sphere of Orthodox ecclesiology—a symphony in the sphere of church governance between the hierarchy and the structures of the God-fighting state regime; when there occurred the appropriation of primatial authority by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) while the confessor–metropolitan, the Locum Tenens Peter, was still alive at that time; when the theory was created of transferring the rights of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens to the Deputy of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens; when there sounded throughout the whole world a false witness, which became a scandal both for many exiles and for the peoples living in free countries—the interview of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), and later the publication of the book “The Truth about Religion in the USSR.” It was also when even the exiles themselves were required to show loyalty to the God-fighters and to renounce the struggle against them—the demand to sign declarations of loyalty to the Soviet authority, which served as the cause of a schism in ROCOR; when a systematic alteration of the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church began; when the confessors and the new martyrs were betrayed and declared schismatics and “enemies of the people,” counter-revolutionaries—when they were suspended from priestly service and deprived of their episcopal cathedras. These archpastors, pastors, and their flock formed yet another region of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Fatherland—the True Orthodox Church, which withdrew into internal emigration. This church region could rightly have been called the Mother Church. It could, because all its hierarchs accepted a martyr’s end, did not enter into union with the God-fighters, and did not violate the Orthodox confession of faith. The small remnants of its pastors and believers who survived after the shipwreck were reunited with their Sister—the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, to which there also joined certain pastors of the Moscow Patriarchate who had entered into a canonical rupture with the administration of the MP, according to the second half of the 15th canon of the First–Second Council, and who formed parish communities and then dioceses within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of ROCOR in the Fatherland, in accordance with the Statute on the Parishes of the Free Russian Church, adopted by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on May 2/15, 1990. The hierarchy of ROCOR was unable to defend its pastors and flock in the Fatherland who had joined ROCOR and who, in violation of the canons, were subjected to unjust condemnations and prohibitions; they were simply pushed away, with complete trust placed in the accusations of their accusers. Soon we heard the statement of a responsible hierarch of ROCOR that the creation of free parishes in the Fatherland had been a mistake, an absurdity. Could the Holy Spirit, who acts in agreement with the bishops of the Church at the Council of Bishops, have been mistaken? This would already be blasphemy.

The members of the ROCOR Commission, having been enticed by the so-called “Social Concept” of the ROC MP, which supposedly annulled the “Declaration” of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), failed to discern that the ROC MP, as before, remains dependent on state structures, which it serves, as Metropolitan Sergius taught, “not out of fear, but out of conscience”; that the MP is a component part of these state structures; that its highest hierarchs, for example in Ukraine, are people’s deputies from political parties. The Russian Orthodox Church is separated from the state only formally, that is, on paper.

The Commission of the Russian Church Abroad and its hierarchs were unable to insist that the MP withdraw from the pan-heresy which it had conciliarily recognized—the ecumenical movement—and humbly implored their opponents to leave it, which, naturally, did not occur. They were unable to insist, and indeed did not insist, that the MP break Eucharistic communion with the new-calendarists, ecumenists, and new-paschalists, with whom it must now enter into Eucharistic communion—for example, with the “Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America” and with the “Finnish Orthodox Church.”

Thus, what occurred was not the reconciliation of equal church regions, but a unia, by the signing of which the church region of the Russian Church in the diaspora, bypassing the All-Russian Local Council, found itself in canonical dependence upon another church region that had refused historical repentance for the sins of Sergianism and ecumenism, and the bringing forth of worthy fruits of repentance for these sins, and which had proclaimed to the whole world that among the three monotheistic religions there exists unity in the veneration of the One God and a common ethic…

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, its faithful pastors and flock, cannot agree with this. Trusting only in God, Who at the time appointed by Him “will grant peace and correction to His Church,” offering up their prayers, patiently and with love addressing those who disagree with them, they will pass along their path by the narrow way, through valleys and sorrows, in brotherly communion with the Orthodox Churches that are of one mind with them, strengthened by the prayers of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, and of the great hierarchs of the Russian diaspora, bearing witness to the world of their standing in the Truth. The Venerable Joseph of Volokolamsk reminds us of the words of St. Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria: “It is better to gather in a house of prayer without them than, together with them, to be cast into Gehenna of fire with Annas and Caiaphas.” [26]

 

[1] In the notes of Bishop Nikodim Milash to the 13th canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, mention is made of Uniate priests whom Pope Benedict XIV permitted to remain married. This relates to the second millennium after Christ.

[2] The authoritative Russian theologian V. V. Bolotov notes that in the third century, between the Roman and the African Churches, as a result of the dispute concerning the baptism of heretics, “a rupture occurred, but not a schism.”

[3] The Canons of the Orthodox Church, Vol. II. 1994, pp. 307–308.

[4] St. John, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, writes: “The search for compromise will become the characteristic disposition of people. The directness of confession will disappear. People will subtly justify their fall, and gentle evil will support such a general disposition, and in people there will be formed the habit of apostasy and the sweetness of compromise and sin” (See: John, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, Discourse on the Last Judgment. — In the collection: Archbishop John (Maximovitch). Archpastor. Man of Prayer. Ascetic. San Francisco, 1991, p. 184).

[5] See: Ludmila Perepelkina, “The Abomination of Desolation.” Ecumenism and Church Liberalism. Saint Petersburg, 1998, p. 221.

[6] The Canons of the Orthodox Church, Vol. II. Op. cit., pp. 307–308.

[7] Ambrose (Pogodin), Archimandrite, St. Mark of Ephesus and the Florentine Union. Jordanville, 1963, p. 10.

[8] Ibid., op. cit., p. 17.

[9] Ibid., op. cit., p. 174.

[10] Ambrose (Pogodin), Archimandrite, op. cit., p. 220.

[11] Ibid., op. cit., pp. 226–227.

[12] Ibid., p. 322.

[13] Ibid., p. 338.

[14] Ibid., p. 357.

[15] Ibid., p. 370.

[16] Oksiuk, I. F. Union. A Historical Essay. p. 9.

[17] Oksiuk, I. F. Op. cit., p. 11.

[18] Ibid., p. 12.

[19] Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) of Moscow. History of the Russian Church. Vol. 9. St. Petersburg, 1879, pp. 584–585.

[20] Georges Florovsky, Archpriest. The Ways of Russian Theology. Paris, 1937, p. 38.

[21] In 1983 the Council of Bishops of ROCOR proclaimed: “To those who attack the Church of Christ and teach that She is divided into branches (…) ANATHEMA.” (Orthodox Russia—a church and social publication of ROCOR issued by the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, USA, 1984, No. 10, p. 3).

[22] The Canons of the Orthodox Church. Vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1911, p. 307.

[23] Ambrose (Pogodin), Archimandrite. Op. cit., p. 33.

[24] Ibid., p. 308.

[25] Koyalovich, M. The Lithuanian Church Union. Vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1859, p. 89.

[26] Ludmila Perepelkina. Op. cit., p. 67.

 

Russian source:

https://sinod.ruschurchabroad.org/070710.htm#%D0%94%D0%9E%D0%9A%D0%9B%D0%90%D0%94_%D0%9F%D0%A0%D0%9E%D0%A2%D0%9E%D0%98%D0%95%D0%A0%D0%95%D0%AF_%D0%92%D0%90%D0%9B%D0%95%D0%A0%D0%98%D0%AF_%D0%90%D0%9B%D0%95%D0%9A%D0%A1%D0%95%D0%95%D0%92%D0%90

Ecumenism and the Decline of Our Faith

The following excerpts are from the book The Light of the World (Crestwood, NY, 1982), authored by the late Serge Verhovskoy, former professor at St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary. They provide critical insight into a process of decline in the faith that few of Professor Verhovskoy's successors understand or care to acknowledge.

 

What are the greatest temptations undermining our faithfulness to Orthodoxy and clearly weakening our society? One is that, unfortunately, many Orthodox have hardly any faith and keep only external, earthly relations with the Church. Much more dangerous, however, is the wave of false theology with which the entire Christian world is being corrupted and which is inevitably penetrating more and more into our Church. Some statements of our hierarchs and theologians no longer sound like statements of witnesses to Orthodoxy. The greatest danger is the almost open rejection of the primary and fundamental value and existential meaning of truth. Truth is considered as of no importance for life. Many think that a minimum of knowledge is sufficient for our activity, and that so- called "good relations" with our fellow men do not require communion in truth and faith, which is rather an obstacle for them. We are told openly that the entire teaching of the Church must be totally reconsidered and adjusted to one goal only, which is the immediate unification of all the Christian denominations into an absolute minimum of faith and in a common activity in this world. And this disdain of truth and the minimization of faith is [sic] directly connected in our time with the conscious acceptance of immorality. Those who do not accept the moral principles of the New Testament will inevitably fall into immorality.

...Some Orthodox are so moved by sheer sentimentality that they are, so to speak, ready to kiss the heterodox and recognize their supposed "Orthodoxy," as if by such spectacular actions and superficial proclamations of unity all Christians, so deeply disunited for centuries, can suddenly become members of one Church! Furthermore, some Orthodox think that if they will establish the best possible relations with Western Christians, diluting the Orthodox faith in the sea of ecumenism, they will be helped by these Western Christians in the extremely difficult situations in which many of our Orthodox Churches now find themselves. This, however, is pure illusion. The West did not save us from the Moslems in the fifteenth century, and it will not save us from any of our present terrible problems. Besides, the very idea of betraying our faith to buy favors from the West is an abomination.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 2, p. 12.

 

Even a hasty prayer…

by Father Thomas Kulp

Our Heavenly Father rejoices in our every gesture towards salvation, no matter how small or insignificant. It may seem that our faith is weak and that our efforts to serve God are not so impressive. However, it is wrong to think that, simply because we cannot do something great and important for God, we might just as well do nothing at all. No! None of us is too busy to offer up a prayer or two during the day, to speak a word of kindness to a discouraged friend, or to greet a stranger with a smile. Even to read a short verse of Scripture and to reflect on the goodness of God are far from futile things.

Truly God takes into account all of the little things that we do. For every good word, for every good deed, or for every upright entreaty that we offer up to God, we will receive reward of a hundredfold. It is not that the All-Perfect God needs anything from us. Our laziness in doing nothing good does not detract from the Author of all goodness. It is we who suffer if we do not take advantage of every opportunity that God gives us to draw closer to Him.

Our words, thoughts, and actions also have a much greater effect on the lives of others than we generally realize. Sometimes the smallest gesture of kindness and compassion will draw someone away from the path of destruction. Perhaps a single good deed in and of itself cannot accomplish much. But these small and simple acts of kindness taken together over the course of time may eventually help others, and certainly they can become the building-blocks of our own salvation.

Let me illustrate how important small things are in our spiritual lives—even a hasty prayer said on the spur of the moment—by citing an incident from the life of an Orthodox monk. It seems that this monk was overcome by the desire for some dried fish. As there was none in his monastery, he decided to go to the market to get some. He knew that this desire was wrong, since a monk should be content with what he has. Moreover, he well knew that the marketplace was filled with temptations. Nonetheless, unable to resist his desire, he set out.

On the way to the market, the monk suddenly remembered the prayer rope in his pocket and decided that it would be good for him to offer up a short prayer to God, the usual one used by Orthodox monks, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Having done so, he continued on his way. He had gone only a short distance when, in front of him, a cart-load of tubs came tumbling down on his path, just missing him. Had he been in their path a moment sooner, he would undoubtedly have been killed.

That night as he slept, a Heavenly visitor appeared to the monk and explained to him the significance of what had happened. The monk's failure to resist temptation had given Satan a chance to destroy him. Fortunately, his Guardian Angel foresaw the impending disaster and put into the monk's mind the thought of prayer. It was his brief prayer on the spur of the moment which had delayed him and thus saved him from a certain death. Thus we see that even a hasty turning towards God, when the desire comes upon us, can reap abundant rewards.

We must never neglect to do whatever little good lies within our power. We must not turn a deaf ear to the prompting of our consciences or reject any opportunity, however insignificant, to raise our hearts and minds towards God, whether through a good word, a kind gesture, or a hasty prayer. We are enjoined by Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, in the awareness that we shall all be judged one day according to the quality of our spiritual lives and the good things that we have done here on earth. Today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow may be too late!

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. X (1993), No. 2, pp. 52-53.

An Orthodox Hero Reposes (1992): Metropolitan Sylvestru

 

On March 18, according to the Church Calendar [sic: March 5/18], Metropolitan Sylvestru [Onofrei], Chief Hierarch of the some two million Romanian Old Calendarists, reposed at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Slatioara, Romania. His sudden death brought tens of thousands of mourners from all over Romania for funeral services that began on the afternoon of the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas. Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, a close friend of Metropolitan Sylvestru (indeed a spiritual brother), attended the funeral as a representative of our Church. Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna was unable to arrange for a flight to Bucharest in time for the funeral ceremonies, but the parishes of our Exarchate sent telegrams of condolence to the Sister Church in Romania. Representatives of the Romanian state also attended the funeral.

Metropolitan Sylvestru was a spiritual son of the Blessed Metropolitan Glycherie, former Abbot of one of the sketes of the famous Neamt Monastery and the first Bishop consecrated by Metropolitan Galaction, who stood up in resistance to the introduction of the Papal Calendar into the Romanian Church earlier this century. Under the holy Metropolitan Glycherie, who was falsely deposed, defrocked, imprisoned and persecuted for his fidelity to Holy Tradition, first under the pro-Uniate government of Romania and then later under the Communists, the True Orthodox Church of Romania grew to more than one million, mostly concentrated in Moldavia.

At the repose of Metropolitan Glycherie, Metropolitan Sylvestru assumed the guidance of the Romanian Old Calendar Church, leading it through the recent revolution, gaining government recognition of its status, and overseeing the construction of more than fifty new Churches. Under Metropolitan Sylvestru, the Romanian Old Calendarists also doubled in number.

His Eminence was deeply loved by our clergy and Faithful in Greece and in America. Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna, speaking at a memorial service in his honor following Sunday Vespers on the Feast Day of the St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, described Metropolitan Sylvestru as a "true hero" of Orthodoxy, a pillar to which he looked with the same awe and love that he has for his own spiritual Father, Metropolitan Cyprian. "The loss of Metropolitan Sylvestru," he observed, "is a great loss for traditional Orthodox. He was a man who suffered for his Faith and who thus taught us much simply by the presence that such suffering creates. Men like these are the Apostles of our days—sharp contrasts to the weak, sickly and compromising Shepherds who are leading the modernists into apostasy. Metropolitan Sylvestru went to a death camp because of his Faith and survived to instruct all of us by his example. ...His love for our own Metropolitan brought him near to us, just as he and Metropolitan Cyprian were brought near to one another by their enduring, Apostolic commitment to our unchanging Orthodox Faith. While I feel a deep sense of loss in my heart, I also feel great joy that such a man—as the former Princess of Romania, Mother Alexandra, said of Metropolitan Glycherie when I told her of his repose some years ago—'will shine among the Saints of the Church of Romania.'"

Metropolitan Sylvestru, at the request of Metropolitan Cyprian, was awarded the Diploma in Orthodox Theological Studies honoris causa from the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies this past year, in recognition of his dedication to the Church, his sacrifices for its Holy Traditions, and his wise and deep knowledge of the theological truths of Orthodoxy.

On the Sunday of St. Thomas, following Pascha, a memorial service (μνημόσυνον) was held in the afternoon at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Slatioara to commemorate the forty-day anniversary of the Metropolitan's repose. Representing our Church were Metropolitan Cyprian, Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna, Bishop Auxentios of Photiki, and Father Gregory Telepneff, pastor of the St. John Chrysostomos Church in Colma, CA.

The enthronement of the new Metropolitan, the former Bishop Vlasie, took place shortly before the memorial service for Metropolitan Sylvestru. In a simple, moving ceremony, His Eminence was taken to his throne, which was placed outside in the midst of the tens of thousands of worshippers present for the event. Bishop Gennady read the statement of election by the Holy Synod, and the new Metropolitan was given his staff by Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, on behalf of our Church in Greece. Bishop Demosthene and Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna then addressed the crowd, followed by a moving address by Metropolitan Cyprian, in which His Eminence noted that he saw in the face of the new Metropolitan the visage of his friend and brother, Metropolitan Sylvestru.

In his own address, the new Metropolitan, who possesses a profound knowledge of Patristics and Church history, spoke of the Apostolic foundations of the Church of Romania, calling to mind in his moving imagery the magnificent witness of his predecessors. Following a meal in the monastery refectory, in the company of the ninety members of the Brotherhood and numerous clergy, His Eminence, Metropolitan Vlasie announced the nomination of a new Bishop, the much respected Archimandrite Pahomie, Abbot of the Church's monastery in Cucova. With tearful thanksgiving, all present welcomed this news.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. IX (1992), No. 4, pp. 2-3.

 

"Judge Not..."

By Fr. Thomas Kulp

 

 

St. Macarios the Great often said to his disciple, "Condemn no man, and you will be saved." If you think that this is an easy formula for salvation—think again!

None of us can get through a single day without judging or condemning someone, if not with our lips, then with a glance, a gesture, or a thought. Remember that God judges us not only according to our actual deeds; He sees right into the depths of our hearts. He can read our innermost thoughts like an open book.

Our Lord assures us that whoever looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery with her in his heart. The same principle applies to every aspect of our spiritual lives. It is the very attitude of condemnation, however secret and hidden, that must be rooted out of the heart as a deadly poison.

So does Christ warn us, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged... For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." Unless we judge and condemn ourselves first, we ourselves shall stand convicted on the final day of reckoning. This is the real key to a God-pleasing life. We cannot see clearly to remove the splinter in our brother's eye, unless we have first removed the plank from our own.

You may say that you are as good as the next guy, or perhaps better than most. But how have you arrived at this conclusion, unless you have already judged others by your own exalted standards and found them lacking? It is impossible for us to think ourselves better than others, unless we have first judged them.

We are all guilty of this sin. In fact, we do it so often that we are hardly even aware of it. As soon as someone says or does something that offends us, we are right away passing judgment on him.

None of what I have said means, of course, that we must be naive fools, willing to take everyone at face value. We do not necessarily condemn someone when we judge him to be bad company for ourselves or our children. There are people with whom we do better not to associate. Nor are we wrong to chastise those who may have gone astray. It is one thing to judge and condemn our brother, quite another to condone and accept obvious evil.

Our first step is to put our house in order. When we see a sinner, our reaction must always be, "There, but for the Grace of God, go I." If we are not guilty of the same sin, praise God for his mercy. If we begin to evaluate others by first condemning ourselves, the thought of judging others will never occur to us. We are all imperfect. Can we therefore waste our time condemning others when we will one day stand naked and defenseless before the Judgement Seat?

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 4, p. 6.

Two University Professors on the Ever-Memorable Fr. Theodoretos (Mavros)

Hieromonk Theodoretos — Eternal be his memory!

By Dimitris Hatzinikolaou,

Associate Professor of the University of Ioannina

 

On October 4, 2007 (N.S.), the Church of Christ, militant and under persecution, lost a true Christian, a confessor and fighter on the front line against the greatest enemy of Orthodoxy, the heresy of Ecumenism. The reference is to the well-known anti-ecumenist Fr. Theodoretos, Hieromonk. Fr. Theodoretos passed through this temporary world as a noble, guileless man, humble in heart like a child, kindly, gentle, disinterested, an untiring worker for the salvation of his fellow men and for the purity of the Evangelical and Patristic word, consistent in his words and deeds, and an uncompromising opponent of every distortion and every plot against Orthodoxy and Greece. Sorrow grips our hearts.

The writer came to know Fr. Theodoretos in the year 1999, when he felt that he had a duty to confess Orthodoxy in practice, which is of course the duty of every believer. Having perceived the betrayal and blasphemy against Orthodoxy of unprecedented magnitude, I began to ask theologians and others who were involved in ecclesiastical matters what ought to be done; and more specifically, whether I should perhaps join the Old Calendar Church. The theologians whom I asked emphatically said no, yet without establishing their opinion with substantial arguments. Instead, they referred me to the book of Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos entitled The Two Extremes: Ecumenism and Zealotry. After reading this book I was persuaded that I should not join the Old Calendar Church, but should wait “until the proper time.” Even worse, despite the gross ignorance that I had concerning ecclesiastical history and the Patristic teaching on the matter, I attempted to persuade other troubled persons to do the same, repeating the unsound arguments of Fr. Epiphanios. The end to this downward course was given by a certain brother who, when I proposed that he read The Two Extremes, replied as follows: “You should read The Antidote by Fr. Theodoretos!” This indeed I did. Other related books and articles followed. From among all these, the one that holds the first place in my soul is the book of Fr. Theodoretos entitled Dialogues of the Desert on Ecumenism (Second Edition, 2002). From that time, my communication with Fr. Theodoretos, the love with which he surrounded my entire family, the patience with which he guided me in theological matters, his reproof for my errors, his corrections of incorrect formulations in my articles—which I always sent to him for comments and corrections before submitting them for publication—were not merely precious, but decisive for me. The void left by his repose is impossible to fill.

Fr. Theodoretos, being an important theologian, cut off his own will and was perfected in obedience to his Elder, Fr. Kallinikos. In order to do this, he sacrificed a brilliant career at the University. (He was an assistant to Professor Markos Siotis when he resigned in order to become a monk.) For the sake of Christ, he despised all corruptible and transient things and devoted himself to obedience, prayer, fasting, the confession of the Orthodox Faith, the study and dissemination of the word of God (indeed at his own expense). As a knower of Patristic Theology, he left as a legacy an important body of writings, which summarizes the Orthodox teaching and Tradition regarding the confrontation of heresies and their adherents. This work can today easily be used even by non-theologians for confronting the heretical ecumenists and their defenders, who unfortunately multiply day by day. From the depths of our heart, we feel the need to exclaim: Hieromonk Theodoretos — eternal be his memory!

 

Hieromonk Theodoretos

By Petros Koutsoukos,

Professor of the University of Patras

 

 

At the end of the day of the leave-taking of the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross and, after the celebration of the Vespers of the feast and commemoration of Saint Kosmas and the twenty-six Venerable Martyrs with him who were martyred on Mount Athos for the Faith once delivered to the Saints (Sept. 21-22, O.S.), the Lord chose to call to rest His chosen and tireless laborer in His vineyard, the Athonite Hieromonk Fr. Theodoretos.

The timing of the departure of Fr. Theodoretos was anything but accidental. It coincided with feasts and commemorations of sacrifice and confession of the Truth.

In this way, the Lord of life and death perhaps wished to convey a message to us who remain behind: to underline the fact that the life of Fr. Theodoretos was a life of sacrifice and confession.

Such a life not only befits, but is also the duty of every pious and Orthodox Christian.

I consider myself particularly blessed, because I had many times the opportunity to meet, to converse, and to pray together with this venerable father.

However, I first came to know Fr. Theodoretos through his pen, and afterward I met him in person.

His writings—confessional in character, absolutely well-documented, written with scientific integrity and methodology—had made a particular impression on me, and I must confess that when I first met him, I was surprised by the childlike sweetness of his manner and the gentleness of his character.

One thing, however, was immediately evident—that which inflamed him, set him on fire, and could not be hidden: the Truth!

The Truth without conditions and without limits!

Such souls are a rare thing in our times.

This holy zeal of his was his wealth and the driving force of his life.

He loved Theology from his youth and soon perceived that this sacred science cannot be confined to academic lecture halls, where worldly turmoil is often disorienting.

He therefore abandoned every academic prospect and withdrew into the monastic schools of the Holy Mountain, choosing rather as his mentors in the science of sciences the professors of the Desert, and especially the Holy Kollyvades Fathers.

His progress did not delay in becoming evident through his struggles on behalf of the Truth. With the blessing of his Elder always, his cell became a pulpit against the pan-heresy of Ecumenism.

A powerful pulpit, because it was not only words, but above all action.

For this reason, the guilty and those in power were greatly disturbed (as the poet also says) and in the end punished him with exile.

The Athonite, the small, combative, confessional periodical—with all the difficulties involved in its publication—was for years a sleepless bastion, a shining beacon, a support for the struggling anti-ecumenists.

It was a particular joy for me when, during a pilgrimage of mine to the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration in Boston in 1986, I learned that three days earlier he had been ordained a hieromonk by the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, which at that time was struggling against Ecumenism.

A new battlement, new struggles, greater responsibilities.

With special emotion I recall mystical services and Divine Liturgies in his little cell in Kapsala, where with sacred feeling he told me that there: “was the katholikon where the great Kollyvades Father, Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, chanted services and participated in sacred rites.”

With a view toward the summit of Athos, on the small balcony of his humble cell, I had the special blessing to listen to his sorrow over the indifference toward the Truth—an indifference that is becoming widespread.

He saw the readiness—though not always—for words, and the unwillingness for deeds—for action.

Fr. Theodoretos grieved deeply when he saw the decline of moral character—both among the clergy and the laity—when he saw the dulling of the Orthodox conscience, when he saw the godless letters that flood the schools and the minds of unformed children, to whom there is an attempt to convey the message that our ancestor is an animal and not the ancient Adam, as the Mother Church teaches with her infallible mouth.

For this reason, his last work, before the Lord called him to rest from his labor and sacrificial course, was addressed to the students—the Greek students, the future of our homeland.

A work—a cry of anguish—so that the lie may not pass into the tender hearts of our children.

His monastic life was not cloudless, nor did he live with the approval of his contemporaries, for he was concerned first with how to please the Lord.

He walked this path with consistency—the path which the Lord Himself first walked and afterward all the Saints, without any exception.

Looking at his radiant example, I would like to say to him very simply and humbly:

—You leave behind, Fr. Theodoretos, both for us who knew you and for those who will come to know you in the future through your unique writings, a legacy and an example to follow the Truth at whatever cost.

Your example reminds us that the first virtue for a Christian is the courage to confess the Truth.

For this reason, the Spirit of God, in the Apocalypse, emphasizes to us that “the lake burning with fire and brimstone shall be the portion of the cowardly and the unbelieving...” (Rev. 21:8), placing first the “cowardly.”

Courage indeed has a cost, and you, Fr. Theodoretos, paid that cost!

Yet by this you purchased an enviable place of rest, toward which you now proceed with rejoicing steps.

And we who remain behind become poorer by one martyr of the Truth; a battlement is emptied. Yet—mystery!—together with our sorrow we also have joy, because we sense the certainty that we acquire another battlement, this time in Heaven!

Another battlement of intercession before the Giver of the contest, so that we too may pass through the valley of weeping in piety and in the confession of the Truth, both in word and in deed.

Eternal be your memory, Confessor and Professor of the Desert, Fr. Theodoretos! Intercede for us!

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2014/10/blog-post_4.html

 

Should “zealous” Christians fear hell?

By Archimandrite Lazar (Abashidze) (+2018)

Source: О тайных недугах души [On the Hidden Ailments of the Soul]

 

 

A Christian who has chosen an incorrect path of inner life, one founded not on true repentance but on a certain hidden pride and, together with it, on other passions, does not always notice this himself; even all the signs of this illness may be so deeply concealed that only an experienced spiritual father will be able to detect it. In such a case it must be noted that those around him always notice something unhealthy in the actions of the deluded person sooner than he himself does; therefore, when we are reproved, we must always reflect and many times apply, measure this reproof to ourselves—it is entirely possible that it is not accidental.

In the spiritual struggle, how often the enemy strives to deceive us! The Holy Fathers say that evil spirits also employ such a device: they take away the instruments with which they inflamed our passions and, as it were, withdraw from the person; thus all battles subside and the ailments of the soul are not noticed at all. But when he relaxes and considers himself safe, then the enemy thrusts his poisoned arrow into some most vulnerable part of the soul, kindles within it some most burning hidden passion that has gathered new strength and thirsts for satisfaction. And then the unfortunate man cannot withstand the sudden uprising within himself of such a dark power and easily falls. But the evil spirits know another cunning as well: they may withdraw for a long time, even leaving behind in a person, after their departure, what seem to be the most saving and grace-filled dispositions of the soul—something like zeal for good deeds, for holy labors, ardent fervor for prayer, for fasting, for vigil; even a trembling desire to perform works of mercy, to love all people, to help the poor and rescue the unfortunate; even the strength of patience to endure at times reproaches and slander, the desire to speak humbly of oneself and to undertake certain labors of repentance, and the like. All this not only operates in a person without opposition from the demons, but they themselves also imperceptibly inflame and encourage such movements and dispositions of the soul—yet at the same time the evil spirits subtly touch our vainglory and in the depth of the heart continue to offer their incense to the idol of our pride. The demons seem to have withdrawn, but they carefully watch that this little flame of pride in our soul does not go out. And so: a person lives outwardly in an excellent manner—zealous, modest, truthful, merciful, non-possessive, as though conscientious in everything; he even sometimes grieves over his sins, sometimes even painfully experiences some small offense of his own; he thirsts for purity and perfection; he endures insults, performs many and many things that appear entirely worthy of virtue; yet at the same time that incense to another god—to the idol of the “I”—does not cease to burn in the depths of the heart, becoming thicker with each ascetic labor, and with every “good” deed feeding our pride more and more.

How then can this evil be avoided? Under every unreasonable undertaking of ours, though outwardly good in appearance, the demon of pride tries to place his own censer; the inexperienced Christian does not always know how to examine well what he relies upon at the very beginning of his activity, from what source the roots of this tree of his ascetic striving draw their sap, who in reality encourages these labors of his and appropriates them to himself. The matter is that the true good in us must have its foundation only in the evangelical commandments, and must be carried out either from fear, or from obedience, or from love for God (according to the spiritual height of our life), but in no way for anything else: not for the sake of ascetic striving itself, or “spirituality,” or “goodness” separated from the Gospel, or “morality,” or “holiness,” or even “perfection,” and other lofty virtues understood in an abstract way. Rather, we must strive to perform our deeds in such a way as to fulfill the will of God, having a single aim—to please God. Whatever good a person may do, he cannot place hope in any of it; he must always say: “I am an unprofitable servant; I have done what I was obliged to do, and I have done it weakly and negligently” (Luke 17:10). The commandments of God are so infinitely deep that none of us can fully fulfill them; but the more someone strives to fulfill them, the more he will see his own weakness, his own imperfection, the sinful corruption and estrangement from God within himself. From this awareness there remains for him only to humble himself without end, to reproach himself, until he says, like the Apostle Paul: “of sinners I am first” (1 Tim. 1:15); there remains for him only to hope in the mercy of God, recognizing in himself no merits whatsoever.

But it is not so in the case when a person has as the measure of his deeds not the infinite, but the limited, the earthly; then he assigns a value to his deeds, measuring their weight and significance. Then there arises a morbid zeal, an inconsolable sorrow even over his small lapses—from fear of losing something of his wealth. With such reliance upon his own labors, a person becomes in his own eyes a rich man who diligently gathers and multiplies good; every one of his feats, even the smallest good action, he immediately weighs and places into his storehouse—and this instead of the poverty commanded to us (that we should regard ourselves as completely poor in spirit)!

Such self-satisfied labors, of course, do not have the depth required of deeds truly dedicated to God; they, like those planted in shallow soil, have no roots in the depth of true faith, but their roots spread along the surface and drink the impure juices of various passions. Therefore, in order to understand upon what such ascetic striving rests, one must look not at its external feats, but at the inner self-perception: does a person truly consider himself a sinner, weak, unworthy—not only in words, not even merely with the mind or on the surface of feeling, but in the depth of the heart? There, does he sigh over himself, does he condemn himself, or does the triumph of a victor rejoice there, the joyful acknowledgment of his own significance and God-pleasingness? This can be clearly seen from the following: whether such a person considers himself perishing, fully deserving of the torments of hell and being in real danger of being condemned to go into this eternal hell, so that only by the mercy of God can he be saved, and not by any of his own virtues; that he needs many prayers on his behalf, and that his own deeds and prayers are not sufficient for salvation. But if such a “zealous” Christian, while calling himself sinful, nevertheless is quite firmly convinced that it cannot possibly happen that he would end up in the prisons of hell, having so many good deeds, then such a disposition of heart is a misfortune! A completely different example is given to us by the holy fathers, who even on earth had already attained an angelic state, could perform wondrous miracles, possessed the gift of foresight, had visions and revelations from God; yet when they were dying, they wept inconsolably over themselves and sincerely considered themselves condemned to hell.

When the time of the repose of the holy Abba Agathon had come, the brethren, noticing fear in his face, said: “Father! Do you also fear?” He answered: “Although I have tried with all my strength to keep the commandments of God, yet I am a man—and I do not know whether my deeds are pleasing to God.” The brethren asked: “Are you not certain that your deeds are pleasing to God?” The elder said: “It is impossible for me to be assured of this until I stand before God, for the judgment of God is one thing and the judgment of man another.” [47]

When the time of the repose of Abba Arsenius came, the brethren who were with him saw that he was weeping. The brethren said to him: “Father! Do you also feel fear?” He answered: “I do feel fear. The fear which I experience at this hour has been with me from the time when I became a monk.” [48]

[St.] Poemen the Great used to say to his brethren: “Believe me: where Satan will be cast, there I also will be cast.” [49]

For many years the elder [St.] Silouan bore lofty ascetic labors and endured many painful struggles with demons. Thus, one night, during the elder’s prayer, the evil spirits strongly harassed him and did not allow him to pray with purity. In sorrow and with pain of heart he cried out to the Lord, asking Him to teach him how he should pray and what he should do so that the demons would not hinder him. And he heard an answer in his soul: “The proud always suffer thus from demons.” “Lord,” said the elder, “teach me what I must do so that my soul may become humble.” And again, in his heart came the answer from God: “Keep thy mind in hell and do not despair.” After this the elder Silouan understood that the whole ascetic struggle must be directed toward the acquisition of humility. From that day his “favorite song,” as he himself expressed it, became: “Soon I shall die, and my wretched soul will descend into the narrow black hell, and there alone I shall suffer in the dark flame and will weep for the Lord: ‘Where art Thou, Light of my soul? Why hast Thou forsaken me? I cannot live without Thee.’” [50]

[St.] John Climacus relates that one ascetic monk, from the thought of death, would often fall into ecstasy and, as though deprived of his senses or struck by an epileptic seizure, was carried away by the brethren who were with him, almost without breath. [51]

To confirm the thought that we must always remain in repentance and contrition, the same father recounts the following frightening account: there lived in those regions a certain Stephen who, loving a desert and silent life, spent many years in monastic struggles and shone with various virtues, being especially adorned with fasting and tears. This father withdrew to the places of the hermits in order to undertake a harsher and stricter repentance, and there he lived for several years in an uninhabited desert. Before his death he returned to his cell. A day before his death he fell into ecstasy; with open eyes he looked now to the right and now to the left side of his bed, and as though being interrogated by someone, he said aloud before all who were present sometimes thus: “Yes, indeed, this is true; but I fasted for so many years for this.” At other times: “No, I did not do this; you are lying.” Then again he would say: “Yes, truly so, but I wept and served the brethren.” At times he objected: “No, you slander me.” To another charge he replied: “Yes, indeed so, and I do not know what to say to this; but God has mercy.” Truly it was a terrible and fearful spectacle, says St. John, this invisible and merciless interrogation; and what was most dreadful of all was that he was accused even of things that he had not done. Alas! the silent-dweller and hermit said of some of his sins: “I do not know what to say to this,” although he had spent about forty years in monastic life and had the gift of tears. Woe to me! Woe to me! Where then was the word of Ezekiel, to say to the interrogators: “In whatever I find you, in that I judge you, says God” (Ezek. 33:13, 16)? He could say nothing of the sort. And why? Glory to the One who alone knows. Some also said that in the desert he even fed a leopard from his own hands. During this interrogation his soul departed from the body; and it remained unknown what the decision and outcome of this judgment was and what sentence followed. [52]

The fathers also relate the following account: a certain clairvoyant elder came to a city when a monk highly esteemed by all was dying there. All the inhabitants of the city considered him a holy elder and greatly glorified him; they wept over his death, regarded it as a great loss for themselves, and many hoped through his prayers to be delivered from every temptation. The traveling clairvoyant monk was present at this event, and a terrible vision was revealed to him: he saw dreadful Ethiopians appear with tridents, and a voice was heard from on high: “Give him no rest, because he did not give Me rest for even one hour.” And so these Ethiopians, piercing the soul of the dying man with their tridents, drew it out and dragged it away. Peter of Damascus, a holy father of the eighth century, explains this case as follows: the cause of this was the monk’s exaltation of mind (pride), for if he had had other sins, he could not have concealed them from people, much less committed them every hour. But only pride can, through self-pleasing, conceal itself almost from everyone and even from the very person who possesses it, unless he is allowed to fall into temptations, by which the soul is exposed and comes to know its weakness and folly. Therefore the Holy Spirit did not find rest even for one hour in that wretched soul, because it always held this thought and rejoiced in it as in some good deed; because of this it became darkened like the demons. Not seeing himself as sinning, perhaps that man nourished within himself a single passion instead of others, and that one alone was sufficient for the demons, as being able to take the place of the other vices. [53]

There the holy Peter of Damascus also says: “No one will receive benefit from other virtues, even if he were to live in heaven, if he has pride, through which the devil, Adam, and many others greatly fell. Therefore no one should reject fear until he has reached the haven of perfect love and is outside the world and the body.” [54]

When Abba Macarius the Great came to the skete of Mount Nitria, a great multitude of brethren gathered to him. The elders asked him to speak a word of instruction to the brethren. He, weeping, said to them: “Brethren! Let your eyes shed tears before your departure to that place where our tears will burn our bodies.” All wept and, falling on their faces, said: “Father, pray for us.” [55]

“Now, during earthly life, often descend with your mind into hell, so that your soul and body may not descend there eternally,” taught St. Tikhon, Bishop of Zadonsk. [56]

Only this path—of self-condemnation, of distrust of oneself, of considering oneself the worst of sinners and worthy of every torment—the holy fathers recognized as saving and safe. Having chosen the correct path of spiritual life, it is in no way possible not to pass along the path of fear and trembling for one’s soul; all who were saved walked by it.

 

References

47. Bishop Ignatius Bryanchaninov. Otechnik. p. 61, no. 25.

48. Ibid., p. 53, no. 16.

49. Ibid., p. 329, no. 21.

50. Elder Silouan. ch. 2, pp. 20–22.

51. John Climacus. Step 6, 17.

52. John Climacus. Step 7, 50.

53. Works of Peter of Damascus, book 2, discourse 24, pp. 127–128.

54. Ibid., p. 117.

55. Bishop Ignatius Bryanchaninov. Otechnik. p. 310, no. 7.

56. Ibid., p. 364, no. 24.

 

Online: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Lazar_Abashidze/o-tajnyh-nedugah-dushi/#0_7