The Value of Obedience

Bishop Chrysostomos of Christianoupolis

An address delivered on the occasion of the annual reception honoring the Name Day of His Eminence, Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili at the Holy Monastery of Sts. Cyprian and Justina in Fili, Greece, October 3/16,1991.

 

 

Your Eminence, our Spiritual Father:

Entreating your heartfelt blessing that the Grace of the Lord might strengthen me in the task which I am at this moment undertaking, I would like, as an introductory note, to say the following. Many times in the past, words about obedience have been spoken from this podium, these words based on Patristic texts, the lives of the Saints, and our own humble experience as monastics.

This evening, however, may we be allowed to consider the value of obedience neither from the perspective of Patristic texts nor with our own words. Let it suffice that we learn about this subject from a very virtuous and elderly monk who has lived the greatest part of his life as one under obedience. He is well known for his true obedience, an obedience filled with self-denial, sacrifice, and reverence for his Elder. Lor reasons of discretion, we shall not here divulge his name or the place where he lives as a monk.

From a recorded talk by the Elder, however, we will take several selected quotations which will help us to understand in a more profound way four basic and essential characteristics of blessed obedience. To these passages we might assign the following titles:

a) One thought, a single thought alone, can separate us from our Elder.

b) Do nothing which is hidden from or in opposition to the spirit of your Elder.

c) Take care not to bring distress to your Elder. And

d) It is necessary to have faith in your Elder.

The advice which we shall hear from this virtuous monk is genuine, based on experience, filled with spiritual power and simplicity, and flavored with the salt of Grace. It is advice which a disciple needs in order to be made firm in the holy contest of obedience—obedience principally to one's spiritual Father, but extending also to all of one's Brothers. For true submission in Christ so adorns a disciple with the blessed character of obedience that he is always obliging, humble, obedient to all, and filled with joy; indeed, the little child of the Gospels. With regard to such humility, I would like to offer a characteristic example from our own times:

A monk once visited the Elder Silouan of Mt. Athos. The holy Elder asked the monk how he was. The monk, his face filled with joy, responded:

"I feel great joy."

"And why are you so joyful?"

"All of the brothers love me."

"And why do they love you?"

"Because I am obedient to all of them. When they send me off to do something, I say, 'May it be blessed.'"

But let us now hear the vivifying words of the virtuous Elder:

One thought, a single thought alone, can separate us front our Elder. A single thought can separate us from our Elder. I remember one Saturday when I went to my Elder...to liturgize. The previous Tuesday I had entertained a thought in my mind which was contrary to the Elder's thinking. Moreover, I was correct, and not my Elder, as the eventual outcome of the matter revealed. But when I went to him, he said:

"Father, you had a thought which separated you from me. Correct this." Between Tuesday and Saturday, I had forgotten about it, so I asked my Elder what the thought was. He answered me: "I do not know. Search your thoughts today, yesterday, and the day before yesterday and you will find it." But I still could not remember it. Having finished the Divine Liturgy, I finally remembered the thought which had been contrary to the Elder's opinion and about which I had been right. Nonetheless, God confirmed the Elder and not the disciple.

If some disciple comes to you and tells you about something he is thinking, never consider him right in this. He has strayed from his Elder. He has become a deserter. Tell him to do obedience to his Elder. The place where God has put him is where he will be saved. The Patron Saint of his monastery...will save him, it being sufficient that he show patience and do obedience.

Do nothing which is hidden front or in opposition to the spirit of your Elder. And do not wander far from the protection of your Elder. Anything that you wish to do, let it be known to your Elder. Do nothing in secret.

Last evening we were given apricots. This brought to mind one of my errors. Since we have a garden, I had asked someone to bring me a tree from the city.

I had no sooner set out to plant it than my Elder said to me: "Come up here. What are you doing there? Nothing will grow there where you are planting." So it was. The Elder was not in agreement with what I was doing. In seven years, I produced only one blossom, since I did not have the agreement of my Elder.

Take to yourself your Elder's spirit: "Elder, shall I do this?" Keep your eyes fixed on the Elder's spirit. "Do it, my child, you have a blessing." Have no fear, it will work out. If the Elder has any objection to something, abandon it, or you will come to naught, as did I not only with my apricots, but with apples, too. I planted three apple trees. My Elder's spirit was the same: "You are always messing with trees. You never learn." The trees did not grow at all and I was obliged to pull them out. The same thing happened to my grapevines. When your Elder is not in agreement with what you are doing, know that you will fail. Do you want to have success? Test to see that the will of your Elder and your intention are in agreement. If they are, then have no fear. You will succeed. If the Elder has reservations, then do not force him. Fathers, I tell you this from experience. I once pushed my Elder with regard to a certain thing. For two years or more I was punished for this. I have reached the point of saying that anyone who pushes his Elder to do something which his disciple wants, but which the Elder does not want, becomes a second Judas. I tell you this from bitter experience.

Take care not to bring distress to your elder. Believe me, I am speaking to you from experience. I am speaking with you sincerely. A disciple who has reached the perfection of obedience has no fear of God. Nor does he fear the Judgment or the Second Coming. He fears only bringing distress to the soul of his Elder. An Elder is God made visible. Should you bring distress to your Elder, you cause distress to God. If you give rest to your Elder, you comfort God. So it is that the Holy Fathers knew and taught that obedience is life, whereas disobedience is death. Neither Holy Communion, struggles, acts of hospitality, nor noetic prayer suffice here. In the sight of obedience, all of these are rendered null. Even if you should commune ten times a day and lack obedience, you are headed for Hell.

It is a great thing to bring comfort to the soul of your Elder. Thus you also comfort the soul of Christ. Once I did something against my Elder's wishes and the result was that God fled from within me. Of such subtle import is an Elder.

When I was a layman, a student in high school, we had a contest in mathematics one day. (I was a good student in mathematics). That morning I had a disagreement with my father. In the contest, I solved the problem we were given, finding the result to be a fraction. However, I was told that I must find a whole number (4). I tried two or three times to do so, but I always came up with the fraction "12/3." Since I had caused grief to my father that morning, something prevented me from seeing that I had to reduce the fraction. And imagine, I was just a layman.

If you have some thought, tell it to your Elder and listen to what he tells you. It will be from God. His advice may seem to you amiss. But it is not. The devil twists things, so that we will not deny our own wills and have absolute trust in our Elder. Otherwise, if we persist in our thought, all that we have expended to come to the monastery is but a waste.

It is necessary to have faith in your Elder.

Question: The tempter many times puts various ideas into our heads about different issues, presenting them in such a way that we think that we are right and others are wrong. He also at times causes us to get into our minds that our Elder and the other Fathers are doing us some injustice. How can we get such things out of our minds?

Answer: You have lessened your faith, efforts at self-denial, and your love for your Elder. That is why we are hurled into such conflict. When, however, we believe that our Elder is the mouth of Christ, then we will not be beset by doubts. Sometimes the thought comes to us that our Elder is not endowed with discretion, etc. But if you see an error in your Elder, know that you are the guilty one; for your faith in him has been diminished. If the All-Holy Mother of God were to appear to you and say something, would you say: "No, Mother of God, it is not so"? Of course not. Thus it is with your Elder.

You will say to me: "How can I attain to self-denial and faith in my Elder?" We need to force ourselves. We must cultivate these kinds of thoughts about our Elder: "I have come here to be saved by the prayers of my Holy Elder. When the Elder stops praying for me, I am bound for Hell. The Elder's prayer will save me." With these kinds of thoughts you establish yourself on firm foundations. You are established on rock. If you should lose courage in your Elder (because the Elder is this or that), then you are not in a good state. And if this should go on for one, two, four, or five years, then all is lost, finished. You will forget your monastery and see it only in a distant way. For this reason, always listen to every word of your Elder—on every subject, whether spiritual, administrative, or whatever. And always, in whatever you do, find a Saint who can help you in this.

But beware. The Saint does not come first, and afterwards your Elder. If you do not do obedience to your Elder, not even the Saint can help you. Always say, first of all, "Through the prayers of my Holy Father...." Are you going into the city or somewhere else? Have no fear. Are you cooking? "Through the prayers of my Holy Father...." And wherever you go, do this. Do you know what power this prayer has? In time you will understand what power the invocation of your Elder's prayer has. An Elder has power even in the other life. He can from this life save the soul of one who did not live correctly and whom the Elder fears might have lost his soul.

I tell you this with certainty: A monk who does perfect obedience achieves the state of passionlessness not only spiritually, but bodily. However, take care. I am not speaking of obedience with rewards—like the Elder who once told his disciple to make some sweet, but whose disciple answered: "I will not make something sweet unless you get me some shoes." Thus he dashed everything monastic.

Briefly, then, these are the things that a virtuous disciple from our time counsels. A monk must be found in such continual vigilance that he will accept not even a single thought which can separate him from his Elder. As well, he must take care not to do anything which is hidden from or in opposition to the spirit of his Elder. He must struggle never to bring even the slightest distress to his Elder and to have steadfast faith in him

When a disciple, by means of prayer and daily practical exercise, cultivates these four things, it is certain that he will be endowed with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and, indeed, sweetness in his thoughts.

"Believe me," the elderly, virtuous disciple whom we have quoted says, "believe me: when a man is obedient, he has such sweetness in his thoughts that he says: Ί want nothing else. May this be my lot in Paradise.'"

Your Eminence, our spiritual Father:

We ask for your heartfelt prayers, that we might be made strong in this contest of obedience within the bounds which we have just described. The soulful blessings of your love are much needed by us, for we have deep knowledge of the power of an Elder's blessing and what great security a disciple senses thereby in every circumstance of this life and even at the hour of his death.

We are told in the writings of the Fathers that a certain monk, who was not mindful of his spiritual duties, reached the hour of his death. But his soul would not depart. He was uneasy, perturbed, irritated, and making an uproar. The spiritual Fathers of the Skete read the prayers for the departure of the soul from the body. Nothing. The turmoil and the struggle of the moribund monk grew worse. So, the Fathers asked the monk's Elder to do the following:

"Put your hand on the head of your disciple and tell him: 'My child, John, yield to death, and I will take upon myself your burden.' Then distribute alms by offering all-night vigils and giving prayer-ropes to poor ascetics. As well, you will do prostrations on his part to anyone he might have offended."

As soon as the Elder placed his hand on the monk's head and said these words, the monk became completely quiet and gave up his soul peacefully.

Now, to show even more clearly the power of the blessing of one's spiritual Father, allow me to cite yet another characteristic incident.

In the Skete of Kavosokalyvia [on Mt. Athos], at the kalyve [a small monastic house] dedicated to the Entrance of the Theotokos, an Elder, Gregory by name, had a disciple who, just before he died, said to his revered Elder:

"Elder, the demons came and asked why I did not do my canon on such-and-such days."

"Just tell them," the Elder said, "that I will take your omissions upon myself."

The disciple smiled with satisfaction and died in peace.

Your Eminence, our Spiritual Father:

Beseeching yet once again your invaluable and saving prayers and blessings for our perfection in Christ, we feel at this moment a need to thank you for all of the sacrifices and labors to which you have continually subjected yourself for our own salvation. Forgive us, for many times we are lured away by our weaknesses and bring you distress. We beg you to have patience and not to cease in your God-pleasing efforts for our salvation.

Allow us, finally, with all of our hearts to wish that the Grace of God might keep you always "in safety, honor, and length of days, rightly dividing the Word of Truth," through the intercessions of our Ever-Blessed Lady, the Theotokos, the holy and glorious Martyrs and Protectors of our monastery, Saints Cyprian and Justina, and of all the Saints, that we might enjoy together in the other world the protection and guidance of your fatherly love and blessings.

I have erred, forgive me.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. IX (1992), No. 2-3, pp. 36-38.