How Can the Faithful Free Themselves from the Old, Fallen Man?

Archimandrite George Kapsanis (+2014),

Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Venerable Gregory, Mount Athos

 

 

We all feel that we bear the traces of the old man. His principal characteristic is self-love, that is, the unhealthy, egocentric “love” of ourselves. Self-love prevents us from truly and selflessly loving God and our fellow man. From self-love the passions are born.

Being subject to the passions, as we are, we cannot relate to other human persons and to things without passion. Our relationships become passionate and selfish, preventing us from truly enjoying our fellow human beings and the other good things of this world. This ultimately leads us to loneliness, emptiness, and a dead end.

Therefore, when we speak of the old man, we mean the unhealthy egocentrism from which all of us suffer, some to a lesser and others to a greater degree.

How can we free ourselves from this serious spiritual illness that poisons our entire existence?

Only someone free from this illness could become our physician. Only a new man could give us, too, the possibility of overcoming the illness of the old man and becoming new men ourselves.

We all know that this new man is the God-Man, our Saviour Christ, who, according to Scripture, “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”

Out of His infinite love for us, Jesus Christ offers Himself to us so that we may be united with Him and thus receive His own new life.

Through Holy Baptism, Chrismation, and Holy Communion, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ and given life by Christ.

Every Christian who participates in the life of Christ, within His Body, which is the Church, has received, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit, the seeds of new life. He must, however, also struggle to be cleansed ever more thoroughly of the passions and adorned with the virtues.

Let us put it simply: The more a person empties himself of his selfishness, the more he is filled with true love and the Grace of God. The more the old man diminishes, the more the new man grows. This passage from the old man to the new is not easy, because the passions have deep roots within us and are not easily uprooted.

Continuous struggle over many years is needed for purification from the passions. This is the struggle of repentance. Every day we must repent of our oldness, that is, our sinfulness, our subjection to the passions, our egocentrism, and our inability to love God our Father and our fellow man wholeheartedly. And every day we are called to struggle to acquire love, humility, sincere confession, self-control, righteousness, forgiveness of wrongs, and prayer.

Thus, little by little, a new spiritual birth takes place within us: the birth of the new man, who is endowed with the Grace of God.

But just as every childbirth is accompanied by birth pangs, so too spiritual birth presupposes the pangs of repentance. When we crucify the old man, we suffer pain, but it is then that the new man rises within us. We are crucified together with Christ so that we may also rise together with Him.

Thus, through our patient and daily struggle of repentance, we shall be freed from the old, fallen man and transformed into new men. This is what happened in the lives of our saints, who show us the way through their wondrous lives.

What Is the Remembrance of Death, and What Is Its Meaning?

The remembrance of death helps us overcome the old man because it brings humility to our souls. When we forget death, we have the illusion that we shall live forever on earth, and this increases our arrogance, our greed, our worship of the flesh, and our inclination to exploit other people. The remembrance of death gives us a sense of our limitations on earth and of the significance that our actions, words, and thoughts have for eternity and life after death.

Thus, it helps us to approach this present life with seriousness, in the light of eternity, and not to squander our earthly life wastefully, thoughtlessly, and frivolously, disregarding the consequences.

For this reason, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates also said that “those who philosophize rightly practice dying, and of all people they fear death the least.”

Saint John Chrysostom advises us to visit cemeteries frequently in order to reflect upon the vanity of human affairs.

We all know that after visiting a cemetery, we are humbler, more compassionate, less attached to material things, and more open to God and our fellow man.

The remembrance of death, about which Saint John of the Ladder and other Holy Fathers have written extensively, has nothing to do with any unhealthy, melancholic, or neurotic state. Such a state is not beneficial to the soul, because it brings despair and must be overcome with the help of one's spiritual father.

The remembrance of death according to God is a grace-filled and spiritual state that brings humility, peace, and joy to the soul. It is a gift of God, and we must ask Him for it.

How Is the Remembrance of God Attained?

The more a person overcomes an egocentric way of life and loves God, the more he thinks of God.

A person thinks about what occupies his mind and what he loves. The Lord Himself said: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

The study of the word of God in Holy Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, our association with spiritual people who love God, fervent prayer, regular attendance at the sacred services, and our frequent and worthy participation in Holy Communion increase our love for God and, consequently, our remembrance of God.

Saint Gregory the Theologian advises us: “We ought to remember God more often than we breathe.” That is, we should think of and remember God more frequently than we breathe.

The continual remembrance of God brings deep peace and joy to the soul, even amid the most difficult circumstances of life.

What Is Noetic Prayer and Prayer of the Heart?

The remembrance of God in a person manifests communion with God and is therefore a form of prayer. The struggle to invoke continually the holy name of Christ through the prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,” constantly renews within a person the remembrance of God and communion with Him. This is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Pray without ceasing.”

Through the remembrance of God and prayer, man reveals the true nobility of his nature, which stands at the boundary between the visible and invisible worlds and is “a living being called to become god”; he transcends natural necessity, extends his existence toward God, and feels free from everything that holds him captive on earth.

For prayer to be genuine, however, it must be the prayer of the whole person, and not merely of the lips, or merely of the mind, or merely of the heart.

Perfect prayer is both noetic prayer and prayer of the heart. The mind prays within the heart, which is the center of our existence. That is, the whole person prays from his innermost depths and center, fulfilling God's commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with all thy heart, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” The whole person offers himself to God.

For this prayer, the single-phrase prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner” is used, which, through its brief invocation, helps to concentrate the mind and draw it into the heart.

The Holy Fathers known as the Neptic Fathers wrote from their own experience about the manner and method of this prayer. There is a collection of the writings of these Holy Fathers called the Philokalia. And the word Philokalia is itself significant. Through noetic prayer and prayer of the heart, the faithful Christian is united with God and beholds God, who is the most beautiful of all that exists in the world, the supreme Beauty.

Since there is a danger of confusion between prayer of the heart and the various methods of meditation and prayer practiced in Eastern religions, I think it necessary to clarify a few points:

1. Not only the single-phrase prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ...,” but also every prayer of the Church, such as the fundamental, divinely given Lord’s Prayer, the “Our Father,” must be noetic and of the heart, that is, it must proceed from the depths of our being.

2. For us Orthodox Christians, acquiring the gift of unceasing noetic prayer and prayer of the heart is not primarily a matter of method and technique, but a matter of a contrite heart, that is, a heart that repents, grieves over its sins, and humbles itself. Without such a heart, no method or technique of prayer, such as the use of inhalation and exhalation, can bring about true prayer.

3. Prayer of the heart and noetic prayer presuppose our participation in the life of the Church, in her Mysteries, the observance of God's commandments, and obedience to a spiritual father. It is not, therefore, an individualistic or private approach to God. Within the Church, the humble Christian receives the Grace of God, and this Grace, with his own cooperation and willingness, of course, brings about true prayer within him.

In concluding the subject of prayer, I would like to say that modern man has a particular need for prayer so that he may avoid being absorbed by the profoundly materialistic way of life of our times, forgetting his Godlikeness, that is, his divine origin and divine destiny.

He also needs prayer in order to preserve his inner unity, balance, and peace amid the terrible fragmentation, imbalance, and outward preoccupation of the modern world. And so that, through a constant awareness of God's presence and providence in his life, he may avoid becoming anxious, falling into despair, and experiencing the world as empty and meaningless.

Through the continual invocation of the most sweet and holy name of Christ, he will feel Christ in his heart, avoid sin, cultivate feelings of love for God and his fellow men, find peace within himself, and bring peace to those around him.

Allow me to offer some brotherly advice drawn from the spiritual tradition of Mount Athos: The more often we say the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ...” with longing throughout the day, the closer we shall be to God, and the more Grace and strength we shall receive to face the various difficulties and temptations of life.

In These Times of Apostasy, How Do You See the Future of Hellenism and Orthodoxy?

With great sorrow, we observe that there is indeed, among a segment of modern Greeks, apostasy from the God of our Fathers and an anti-Christian and anti-ecclesiastical spirit, which sometimes develops into open or insidious persecution of the Church—organized, systematic, and relentless.

Atheism and anti-Christianity are becoming the establishment in our country, seeking to turn Greeks against Christ. They make use of education, school textbooks, radio, television, and the press. They also employ ridicule and the marginalization of those who still dare to express their faith and love for the Church. Indeed, we have reached such a demonic state of affairs that even atheist teachers of theology in schools engage in atheistic propaganda.

If one adds to these the consequences that the influx of tourism and the Western materialistic way of life into our country, as well as our entry into the melting pot of the European Union, have had on the morals and faith of our people, one realizes that we are passing through the greatest spiritual danger we have ever faced as a Greek Orthodox nation.

The worst thing is that we have not become aware of the danger; there is no proper spiritual vigilance and resistance; there are no prophetic figures—with few exceptions—who, with self-sacrifice and boldness, will denounce the instruments of the Antichrist, call the devout people to spiritual mobilization, and voice Orthodox Hellenism’s new ‘NO’ to the new and even worse spiritual captivity that threatens our Nation.

I believe that the efforts of the enemies of our Nation to de-Christianize the Greeks are aimed at stripping us of our Greek identity, so that we Greeks, spiritually and nationally enslaved, may become easy prey for international interests and totalitarian ideologies.

The enemies of the Church are making a relentless effort to ridicule our traditional Christian faith in the eyes of those Greeks who are not firmly established in the faith, especially the young, and to draw them away from the Church...

If we modern Greeks lose Christ or push Him to the margins, we shall also lose our spiritual freedom and the possibility for the life-giving tradition of Orthodox humanism to continue bearing fruit in this land.

For this reason, it is time for all of us to struggle, to offer spiritual resistance, to confess and bear witness to our faith, whatever the cost to us.

I believe that today, too, our struggle is for faith and fatherland, or, as the fighters of 1821 would have put it: “For the holy faith of Christ and the freedom of our fatherland.” For spiritual freedom, which is also the necessary prerequisite for our national independence! We modern Greeks who remain faithful to the values for which they sacrificed themselves—and I believe we are the great majority—are called today to continue their bloody struggle.

More dangerous to our country even than foreign invaders who covet our ancestral land is anti-Christian atheism, because it kills our souls and corrupts our consciences and convictions.

At critical periods in our history, God raised up enlightened men such as Saint Cosmas of Aetolia and Makriyannis, who awakened the people and strengthened them in the Orthodox faith and their national consciousness.

I believe that today, too, the Grace of God and the Champion Leader of our Nation will provide some means for our salvation, in response to the struggle, suffering, repentance, and tears of those who have not bowed down before the modern Baals of apostasy.

We also have the example of Russia, where seventy years of persecution against the Church were unable to extinguish the faith among the broader sections of the devout Russian people, but rather strengthened it and made it shine more brightly.

Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the Crucified and Risen One, and not the devil, has the final word in history, and for this reason, however dark the skies may grow, we always remain hopeful.

 

Greek source: Αγιορείτικη Μαρτυρία, Issue 2, pp. 70–75.

Greek source online: https://katanixi.gr/pos-mporei-na-apallagei-o-pistos-apo-ton-palaio-ptotiko-anthropo/