Hieromartyr Neophyte Lyubimov (+1918)
Russian source: Ufa
Diocesan Gazette, 1895, no. 5, pp. 156–165.
Beloved,
if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:11)
By the words of the Apostle John,
we are commanded to love one another. The commandment of love for another, that
is, for our neighbor, was given by God in the Old Testament Church to the
people of Israel chosen by Him. The Savior repeated it in His gracious Kingdom,
calling the teaching about love for one’s neighbor a new commandment, since it
concerned not only the chosen people of God, as it was among the Jews, but all
people without distinction of confessions and nationalities, social conditions,
levels of education, of one sex or another, and of age. In Christ Jesus there
is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is
all and in all.
According to the Lord’s
commandment, embracing in our soul all people living in the world as our
neighbors, and sincerely wishing them every good, we can and must love the
neighbors who surround us, especially those close to us and who have in view to
receive from us some benefactions and services. These include first of all the
members of one family and household: parents and children, brothers and
sisters, and other relatives; further, those who serve and work with us in the
same institution and strive toward the same goal for the good of society and
the state; finally, all the sons and daughters of our beloved fatherland and
those of the same faith, as branches of one vine, which is Christ, the Savior
of the world.
Meanwhile, do we not constantly
encounter in life, as though an inevitable phenomenon, that people are at
enmity with one another, strive to do harm and evil, inflict personal insults,
slander in absence, defame an honest name, humiliate and ridicule it, bring one
to poverty, and so forth? Must we really endure with complete cold-bloodedness
and Christian patience everything that is done by our neighbors to the
detriment of our material condition and that unfavorably affects our mental and
moral state—consequently every lie, falsehood, slander, every offense, illness,
misfortune, and the like—without expressing by word or deed any opposition to
the evil spreading among people, our neighbors, with whom we live and with whom
we most often have to deal?
True, Christ the Savior commanded
His followers not to resist evil; but His teaching cannot be understood
unconditionally. Christ did not require of people complete non-resistance to an
evil person in all cases of life, for such a teaching stands in contradiction
to moral feeling, righteousness and truth, and to divine and human laws.
Indeed, if all good people,
without any struggle, were to yield the field of action to evil people for the
sake of their vile and base deeds, then the words of the Apostle Paul, “Put
away the wicked person from among yourselves, put to death… evil desire” (1
Cor. 5:13; Col. 3:5), would lose all significance for Christian society. And
meanwhile, on the basis of these sayings of the Word of God, everything that
hinders us on the path of striving for truth and for doing good deeds, that
opposes the fulfillment of divine commandments, we must remove both from
ourselves and from others as something evil and displeasing to God, even if
this evil is constituted by our neighbors.
The feeling of self-preservation
of every person—as a law of nature—urgently requires of us not to subject
ourselves voluntarily to reproach and humiliation by evil people who strive to
do only what is harmful to our physical well-being and moral perfection. It
likewise lays upon us the duty of guarding the health, honor, and dignity of
our neighbor, since, according to the Lord’s commandment, we must love him as
ourselves and assist him by all measures dependent on us in the fulfillment of
divine and human laws, good deeds, and pure aspirations.
If all the evil inflicted upon us
by our neighbors were borne by us unquestioningly, without showing any
resistance to the enemy, then evil would spread on earth to such an extent that
the good would be completely suppressed and destroyed; then everything base,
greedy, and savage, all evildoers and moral monsters, all filthy dregs of human
society would rise to the surface and lay on earth the foundation of a new
life, the goal of which would be the perfection of evil in all its
manifestations. There are people in whom, figuratively speaking, the appetite
grows the more they eat; their malice becomes stronger the more nourishment
they find in human compliance, and the less they encounter resistance to their
inhuman instincts. Not to resist such people means to develop nobility in a
bloodthirsty wolf by entrusting to his supervision a defenseless lamb.
Can one rely on the honesty of
such people, when in them there is seen neither fear of God nor manifestation
of a pure conscience? Not being able to understand your Christian meekness,
they will extract from your non-resistance all possible benefit for themselves,
will make you their slaves, will turn you into unanswerable animals, will force
you to forget your human rights, dignity, and higher calling. Non-resistance to
the enemy is possible only on the part of a person who has become so morally
impoverished that for him good and evil are indifferent, and the will of a
coarse and insolent oppressor has replaced the entire height of the moral law.
Only a personality with clouded
consciousness and extinguished moral feelings can indifferently look upon how
an evil person dishonors him and those dear to him, and remain calm at the
sight of what human malice, greed, shamelessness, and bestial bloodthirstiness
are capable of. The purpose of our life is by no means that we should be
crushed by evil people, but that we should resist them, struggle with them,
overcome them, and thereby destroy falsehood, injustice, malice, and deceit,
and in their place establish truth, justice, love, and peace.
Therefore, on the basis of the
Word of God, rejection of all vicious deeds of man, of his impure designs and
evil intentions, is possible. One must not show kindness to an evil person,
cordiality and goodwill for his rude and dishonest deeds against us, because
everything bad deserves not praise, but rejection. “Answer a fool according
to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:5), teaches the
Wise One; and this means: openly and boldly proclaim holy truth before the
ungodly, do not allow them arrogantly to raise their head high; rebuke, shame,
and uproot the evil nesting in them; do not fear their malice and cunning.
Fight for truth—God is your helper, your conscience will give you peace, and
honest and truthful people will treat you with full respect and gratitude.
If we recall certain deeds from
the life of Christ the Savior, in which His greatest moral image was reflected,
we shall see in them confirmation of the thoughts we express. He, the Divine
Teacher, zealous for the glory of God, manifested toward people such
extraordinary authority in word that by its power He brought all into fear and
trembling; His enemies heard from Him formidable rebukes that shook them to the
depths of their souls; by them He punished the leaders and rulers of the Jewish
people. When He saw them hardened in mortal sins over the course of several
centuries, spreading evil over a wide space like a brood of vipers, He
threatened them with severe punishment in this and the future life for
violation of the law and corruption of the people.
And once, when the Savior entered
the Temple of Jerusalem and found there not a house of prayer but a den of
robbers, who were defiling and disgracing the most holy place of prayer by
unseemly deeds, He was stirred in spirit, took a whip, and drove all the
sellers and buyers out of the temple, overturned the tables of the
money-changers and the benches of those selling doves, and sternly and
authoritatively forbade anyone to carry anything through the Divine dwelling.
Such was the zeal shown by the Lord in destroying evil in the human world and
in establishing righteousness and truth on earth.
And when the Savior was before
the high priest Annas at trial and a servant struck Him on the cheek, the
Savior did not, in the name of meekness, turn to him the other cheek, but
remarked: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why
do you strike Me?” (John 18:23). The Son of God here demands the
manifestation of truth from His enemy and defends Himself against the one who
is offending Him. If the God-Man had turned the other cheek to His enemy, He
would have become an instigator of great evil, and thereby would have
strengthened both his malice and his guilt.
The Apostle of Christ, Paul, when
the high priest Ananias ordered him to be struck on the mouth at trial before
the Sanhedrin, was so stirred in spirit at such lawless action that in
righteous indignation he exclaimed: “God will strike you, you whitewashed
wall” (Acts 23:3). Thus, it is impossible for us to allow evil people to
mock us as much as they wish and in whatever way they can; then we would be
contributing to the corruption of our enemy, and not to his upbringing in
morally good deeds and intentions.
A sacred duty lies upon us to
block evil deeds by all means and not to spare the criminal under the guise of
a desire to show him love, relying on the fact that a Christian must be
distinguished by meekness and harmlessness. We do not show love to the evildoer
when we spare him; on the contrary, we ruin him by allowing him to perfect
himself more and more in evil, and thus distance himself from the Kingdom of
God. Nor should our behavior be called Christian meekness when we pay no
attention to the wrongs inflicted upon us, but rather it is selfish evasiveness
or blameworthy indifference to them.
Human patience can have limits,
and it lasts only so long as we see that the attitude of our neighbor toward us
is not accompanied by harm to us. Manifestations of Christian harmlessness can
have application and be accompanied by moral benefit only when the offender
possesses a more or less developed moral sense. And therein lies the
misfortune, that this is not always so.
But on the other hand, Christ the
Savior, being just toward the sinful person, rebuking and punishing in him
vicious deeds, designs, and intentions, never pushed him away from Himself,
never treated him with contempt, was always indulgent and compassionate toward
one wandering on the path of evil and falsehood, striving by His divine
meekness and all-forgiving love to draw him to Himself.
And we, following the example of
the Lord, must not respond to the offense of our enemy with revenge and
repayment for the evil directed or already committed against us, but, in
fulfillment of the Lord’s commandments, must overcome him with meekness and harmlessness,
with love, forgiveness, mercy, and readiness to serve. The absence of revenge
will most likely restrain or disarm our enemy, dull the most fierce hatred—love
will become for him a heavy trial, like a trial with burning coals, will awaken
in his heart a consciousness of guilt before you; you will more quickly be
reconciled with him and will find in him not an ill-wisher, but a faithful
friend.
Even where righteous anger takes
place because of human injustice, meekness must wholly prevail, not allowing
anger to degenerate into sinful anger, into an impure passion that knows
neither measure nor aim. The Apostle Paul says concerning this: “Do not
avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath of God, for it is
written: Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19).
We have other grounds as well for
living in peace with people who are vicious, who hate and offend us. They are
creations of God, bearing the image and likeness of the Creator and Providence,
endowed with the same nature as we, which is manifested on earth in the
splendor of God-likeness. A reflection of divine glory is displayed in every
human being, even in the most humiliated one of the human race. Whatever the
weaknesses or shortcomings of our neighbor may be, they do not conceal from us
and do not destroy in him those human dignities which require from us every
attention, respect, and caution.
He belongs to that race whose
representative is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; he is one of those whom the
Head of humanity calls His lesser brother, a child of God, for whom His blood
was shed and His soul laid down, for whose sanctification the Holy Spirit was
sent down, by whom he was sealed on the day of his redemption. He, our enemy,
may be grafted, like a branch, onto the divine vine—our Redeemer—and may become
a holy member of the body of Christ.
Rejection of the person, even
though vicious, is all the more impermissible and unlawful because alongside
vice there is in every person a spark of good. God therefore loves him also—as
His creation—and by His mercy preserves his life for many days for repentance
and preparation for the future life, and, as a good Father, gives him—His
child—all that he needs. For him also the Lord commands the sun to rise and
sends rain.
How then, after this, are we not
to respect our neighbor, even if he is a vicious person? One must not forget
the words of Paul: “God is able to make him stand” (Rom. 14:4); “love
believes all things, hopes all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). And this means that
with God’s help he can become a good and holy person, while you, because of
your malice, will fall deeply, will appear as a great sinner, and will receive
punishment from God and from people.
Let us therefore, beloved
listeners, respect those who are hostile to us, nurture toward them a brotherly
disposition, have compassion for them in their ruin, pray for their conversion
to God, forgive them offenses, harbor no malice against them, and willingly
help them in their needs. If they are hungry—feed them; if they are
thirsty—give them something to drink; by doing this, we heap burning coals upon
their heads. “Do not be overcome by evil,” it is said in the Word of God, “but
overcome evil with good.” Forgiveness of enemies is a sign of a lofty and truly
Christian soul. Non-Christian peoples knew how to love only those who loved
them and to do good only to those who did good to them. If we now act in the
same way, we will be no different from pagans. Let us love our evildoers with
Christian love; through this we shall draw nearer to God and make ourselves
like Him, who is good and merciful not only to good people, but also to evil
ones.
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