His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (1914 – August 4, 2003) was bishop of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. He wrote masterfully about Christian prayer, and many Orthodox Christians in Great Britain and throughout the world consider him to be a saint.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

In one of the Psalms we can read the following words: Those who have sown with tears will reap with joy… If in the course of weeks of preparation we have seen all that is ugly and unworthy in us mirrored in the parables, if we have stood before the judgement of our conscience and of our God, then we have truly sown in tears our own salvation.

And yet, there is still time because even when we enter into the time of the harvest, God gives us a respite; as we progress towards the Kingdom of God, towards the Day of the Resurrection, we still can, at every moment, against the background of salvation, in the face of the victory of God, turn to Him with gratitude and yet, brokenheartedness, and say, ‘No, Lord! I am perhaps the worker of the eleventh hour, but receive me as Thou promised to do!’

Last week we have kept the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the day when the Church proclaimed that it was legitimate and right to paint icons of Christ; it was not a declaration about art, it was a deeply theological proclamation of the Incarnation.

The Old Testament said to us that God cannot be represented by any image because He was unbottomed mystery; He had even no Name except the mysterious name which only the High Priest know.

But in the New Testament we have learned, and we know from experience that God has become Man, that the fullness of the Godhead has abided and is still abiding forever in the flesh; and therefore God has a human name: Jesus, and He has got a human face that can be represented in icons. An icon is therefore a proclamation of our certainty that God has become man; and He has become man to achieve ultimate, tragic and glorious solidarity with us, to be one of us that we may be one of the children of God. He has become man that we may become gods, as the Scripture tells us.

And so, we could last week already rejoice; and this is why, a week before, when we were already preparing to meet this miracle, this wonder of the Incarnation, softly, in an almost inaudible way, the Church was singing the canon of Easter: Christ is risen from the dead! – because it is not a promise for the future, it is a certainty of the present, open to us like a door for us to enter through Christ, the Door as He calls Himself, into eternity.

And today we remember the name of Saint Gregory Palamas, one of the great Saints of Orthodoxy, who against heresy and doubt, proclaimed, from within the experience of the ascetics and of all believers, proclaimed that the grace of God is not a created Gift – it is God Himself, communicating Himself to us so that we are pervaded by His presence, that we gradually, if we only receive Him, open ourselves to Him, become transparent or at least translucent to His light, that we become incipiently and ever increasingly partakers of the Divine nature.

This is not simply a promise; this is a certainty which we have because this has happened to thousands and thousands of those men and women whom we venerate as the Saints of God: they have become partakers of the Divine nature, they are to us a revelation and certainty of what we are called to be and become.

And today one step more brings us into the joy, the glory of Easter. In a week’s time we will sing the Cross – the Cross which was a terror for the criminals, and has become now a sign of victory and salvation, because it is to us the sign that God’s love has no measure, no limits, is as deep as God is deep, all-embracing as God is all-embracing, and indeed, as tragically victorious as God is both tragic and victorious, awe-inspiring, and shining the quiet, joyful light which we sing in Vespers.

Let us then make ourselves ready to meet this event, the vision of the Cross, look at it, and see in it the sign of the Divine love, a new certainty of our possible salvation; and when the choir sings this time more loudly the canon of the Resurrection, let us realise that step by step God leads us into a victory which He has won, and which He wants to share with us.

And then we will move on; we will listen to the Saint who teaches us how to receive the grace which God is offering, how to become worthy of Him; and a step more – and we will see the victory of God in Saint Mary of Egypt and come to the threshold of Holy Week. But let us remember that we are now in the time of newness, a time when God’s victory is been revealed to us, that we are called to be enfolded by it, to respond to it by gratitude, a gratitude that will make us into new people – and also with joy!

And joy full of tears in response to the love of God, and a joy which is a responsible answer to the Divine love. Amen!

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St. Tikhon, the holy New-Confessor, Patriarch of Moscow and Enlightener of North America, began his episcopal service as bishop of the Aleutian Islands and North America from 1898-1907. His missionary zeal was nothing short of extraordinary, not only in its obvious presence in his own life and actions, and those of the clergy under his guidance and pastoral care, but also in the important place he desired it to hold in the life of the laity over whom he presided.

This Sunday, Brethren, begins the week of Orthodoxy, or the week of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, because it is today that the Holy Orthodox Church solemnly recalls its victory over the Iconoclast heresy and other heresies and gratefully remembers all who fought for the Orthodox faith in word, writing, teaching, suffering, or godly living.

Keeping the day of Orthodoxy, Orthodox people ought to remember it is their sacred duty to stand firm in their Orthodox faith and carefully to keep it.

For us it is a precious treasure: in it we were born and raised; all the important events of our life are related to it, and it is ever ready to give us its help and blessing in all our needs and good undertakings, however unimportant they may seem. It supplies us with strength, good cheer and consolation, it heals, purifies and saves us.

The Orthodox faith is also dear to us because it is the Faith of our Fathers. For its sake the Apostles bore pain and labored; martyrs and preachers suffered for it; champions, who were like unto the saints, shed their tears and their blood; pastors and teachers fought for it; and our ancestors stood for it, whose legacy it was that to us it should be dearer than the pupil of our eyes.

And as to us, their descendants – do we preserve the Orthodox faith, do we keep to its Gospels? Of yore, the prophet Elijah, this great worker for the glory of God, complained that the Sons of Israel have abandoned the Testament of the Lord, leaning away from it towards the gods of the heathen. Yet the Lord revealed to His prophet, that amongst the Israelites there still were seven thousand people who have not knelt before Baal (3 Kings 19 LXX). Likewise, no doubt, in our days also there are some true followers of Christ.

‘The Lord knoweth them that are His.’ (2 Tim 2.19)

We do occasionally meet sons of the Church, who are obedient to Her decrees, who honor their spiritual pastors, love the Church of God and the beauty of its exterior, who are eager to attend to its Divine Service and to lead a good life, who recognize their human failings and sincerely repent of their sins.

But are there many such among us? Are there not more people, ‘in whom the weeds of vanity and passion allow but little fruit to the influence of the Gospel, or even in whom it is altogether fruitless, who resist the truth of the Gospel, because of the increase of their sins, who renounce the gift of the Lord and repudiate the Grace of God’.

‘I have given birth to sons and have glorified them, yet they deny Me,’

said the Lord in the olden days concerning Israel. And today also there are many who were born, raised and glorified by the Lord in the Orthodox faith, yet who deny their faith, pay no attention to the teachings of the Church, do not keep its injunctions, do not listen to their spiritual pastors and remain cold towards the divine service and the Church of God.

How speedily some of us lose the Orthodox faith in this country of many creeds and tribes! They begin their apostasy with things, which in their eyes have but little importance. They judge it is ‘old fashioned’ and ‘not accepted amongst educated people’ to observe all such customs as: praying before and after meals, or even morning and night, to wear a cross, to keep icons in their houses and to keep church holidays and fast days.

They even do not stop at this, but go further: they seldom go to church and sometimes not at all, as a man has to have some rest on a Sunday (…in a saloon); they do not go to confession, they dispense with church marriage and delay baptizing their children.

And in this way their ties with Orthodox faith are broken!

They remember the Church on their deathbed, and some don’t even do that! To excuse their apostasy they naively say:

‘this is not the old country, this is America, and consequently it is impossible to observe all the demands of the Church.’,

as if the word of Christ is of use for the old country only and not for the whole world. As if the Orthodox faith is not the foundation of the world!

‘Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel into anger.’ (Is 1.4)

If you do not preserve the Orthodox faith and the commandments of God, the least you can do is not to humiliate your hearts by inventing false excuses for your sins!

If you do not honor our customs, the least you can do is not to laugh at things you do not know or understand.

If you do not accept the motherly care of the Holy Orthodox Church, the least you can do is to confess you act wrongly, that you are sinning against the Church and behave like children!

If you do, the Orthodox Church may forgive you, like a loving mother, your coldness and slights, and will receive you back into her embrace, as if you were erring children.

Holding to the Orthodox faith, as to something holy, loving it with all their hearts and prizing it above all, Orthodox people ought, moreover, to endeavor to spread it amongst people of other creeds.

Christ the Savior has said that

‘neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle stick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.’ (Mt 5.15)

The light of Orthodoxy was not lit to shine only on a small number of men. The Orthodox Church is universal; it remembers the words of its Founder: ‘Go ye into the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’ (Lk 16.15), ‘go ye therefore and teach all nations’ (Mt 28.19).

We ought to share our spiritual wealth, our truth, light and joy with others, who are deprived of these blessings, but often are seeking them and thirsting for them.

Once

‘a vision appeared to Paul in the night, there stood a man from Macedonia and prayed him, saying, come over into Macedonia, and help us,’ (Acts 16.9)

after which the apostle started for this country to preach Christ.

We also hear a similar inviting voice. We live surrounded by people of alien creeds; in the sea of other religions, our Church is a small island of salvation, towards which swim some of the people, plunged in the sea of life. ‘Come, hurry, help,’ we sometimes hear from the heathen of far Alaska, and oftener from those who are our brothers in blood and once were our brothers in faith also, the Uniates. ‘Receive us into your community, give us one of your good pastors, send us a Priest that we might have the Divine Service performed for us of a holy day, help us to build a church, to start a school for our children, so that they do not lose in America their faith and nationality,’ those are the wails we often hear, especially of late.

And are we to remain deaf and insensible? God save us from such a lack of sympathy. Otherwise woe unto us,

‘for we have taken away the key of knowledge, we entered not in ourselves, and them that were entering in we hindered.’ (Lk 11.52)

But who is to work for the spread of the Orthodox faith, for the increase of the children of the Orthodox Church? Pastors and missionaries, you answer. You are right; but are they to be alone?

St. Paul wisely compares the Church of Christ to a body, and the life of a body is shared by all the members. So it ought to be in the life of the Church also.

‘The whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.’ (Eph 4.16)

At the beginning, not only pastors alone suffered for the faith of Christ, but lay people also, men, women and even children. Heresies were fought against by lay people as well. Likewise, the spread of Christ’s faith ought to be near and precious to the heart of every Christian. In this work every member of the Church ought to take a lively and heart-felt interest.

This interest may show itself in personal preaching of the Gospel of Christ.

And to our great joy, we know of such examples amongst our lay brethren.

In Sitka, members of the Indian brotherhood do missionary work amongst other inhabitants of their villages. And one zealous brother took a trip to a distant village (Kilisno), and helped the local Priest very much in shielding the simple and credulous children of the Orthodox Church against alien influences, by his own explanations and persuasions.

Moreover, in many places of the United States, those who have left Uniatism to join Orthodoxy point out to their friends where the truth is to be found, and dispose them to enter the Orthodox Church.

Needless to say, it is not everybody among us who has the opportunity or the faculty to preach the gospel personally. And in view of this I shall indicate to you, Brethren, what every man can do for the spread of Orthodoxy and what he ought to do.

The Apostolic Epistles often disclose the fact, that when the Apostles went to distant places to preach, the faithful often helped them with their prayers and their offerings. Saint Paul sought this help of the Christians especially.

Consequently we can express the interests we take in the cause of the Gospel in praying to the Lord,

• that He should take this holy cause under His protection,
• that He should give its servants the strength to do their work worthily,
• that He should help them to conquer difficulties and dangers, which are part of the work,
• that He should not allow them to grow depressed or weaken in their zeal;
• that He should open the hearts of the unbelieving for the hearing and acceptance of the Gospel of Christ,
• that He should impart to them the word of truth,
• that He should unite them to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
• that He should confirm, increase and pacify His Church, keeping it forever invincible,

we pray for all this, but mostly with lips and but seldom with the heart.

Don’t we often hear such remarks as these:

‘what is the use of these special prayers for the newly initiated? They do not exist in our time, except, perhaps, in the out of the way places of America and Asia; let them pray for such where there are any; as to our country such prayers only needlessly prolong the service which is not short by any means, as it is.’

Woe to our lack of wisdom! Woe to our carelessness and idleness!

Offering earnest prayers for the successful preaching of Christ, we can also show our interest by helping it materially. It was so in the primitive Church, and the Apostles lovingly accepted material help to the cause of the preaching, seeing in it an expression of Christian love and zeal.

In our days, these offerings are especially needed, because for the lack of them the work often comes to a dead stop. For the lack of them preachers can not be sent out, or supported, churches can not be built or schools founded, the needy amongst the newly converted can not be helped. All this needs money and members of other religions always find a way of supplying it.

Perhaps, you will say, that these people are richer than ourselves. This is true enough, but great means are accumulated by small, and if everybody amongst us gave what he could towards this purpose, we also could raise considerable means. Accordingly, do not be ashamed of the smallness of your offering. If you have much, offer all you can, but do offer, do not lose the chance of helping the cause of the conversion of your neighbors to Christ, because by so doing, in the words of St. James,

‘you shall save your own soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins’ (Jas 5.19-20).

Orthodox people! In celebrating the day of Orthodoxy, you must devote yourselves to the Orthodox faith not in word or tongue only, but in deed and in truth.

NOTES:

[1] The book of 3 Kingdoms in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament is coordinate with the book of 1 Kings in the Hebrew Bible on which most English translations are based. As such, the text of 3 Kings 19 can be found in most English Bibles as 1 Kings 19.

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Our father, Archbishop Averky, was bishop of Syracuse and Abbot of Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

“This is the Apostolic faith, this is the faith of the Fathers, this is the Orthodox faith – confirm this universal faith.”

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, you will hear these solemn and significant words in the Rite of Orthodoxy which the Holy Church has established to be served on this day. The first week of Holy and Great Lent has ended a week of intensified prayer and ascetical repentance. Now the Holy Church, desiring to encourage and console us, has established for us in this first week of Great Lent, on its first Sunday, a spiritual celebration,one most dear and close to our hearts – The Triumph of Orthodoxy.

This celebration was first performed in 842 in Constantinople in the presence of the Blessed Empress Theodora by His Holiness Patriarch Methodius – in memory of the overthrow of the last terrible heresy to shake Christ’s Church, the heresy of iconoclasm. But in this celebration the Holy Church marks the triumph of the holy Orthodox faith in general, her victory over all impious heresies, false teachings and schisms.

Our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour founded His Church on earth so that all belonging to her could be saved, could elude the nets of the devil and enter into the Heavenly Kingdom prepared for them. The devil exerted all his strength to overthrow and destroy the Church of Christ and, through this, to hinder the salvation of men. At first he raised up terrible persecutions against the Church on the part of the Jews and pagans. For almost three centuries the blood of Christian martyrs flowed without ceasing. But the devil did not succeed in his task.

The blood of the martyrs, according to the apt expression of the Christian apologist Tertullian, became the “seeds of Christians.”

Christianity triumphed over its persecutors.

“The meek lambs of Christ’s flock transformed the wolf-like rage of their persecutors into lamb-like meekness.”

But the devil did not resist after the defeat he suffered at the hands of the martyrs .When the Church of Christ triumphed in the world he raised up a new, even more dangerous persecution against her: from within the Church, as the Holy Apostle Paul had foretold in his conversation with the Ephesian presbyters, men arose

“speaking perverse things.” Paul called such men “grievous wolves.” [Acts 20:29-30].

These were so-called “heretics” who tried to pervert the true teaching of Christ concerning faith and piety in order to make this teaching ineffective for men. When this happened, the Holy Church, in the person of its best servants, took up arms against these heretics in order to defend its true, undistored teaching. There began to be convoked first “local” and then “ecumenical” councils. Bishops came together from all the corners of the earth and through the Holy Spirit they gave voice to the pure and undistorted Truth, following the example of the First Apostolic Council of Jerusalem [Acts 15:6-29].

They also cut off heretics from the Church and anathematized them. This was in according with the clear commandment of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who said,

“If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.” [Matthew 18:17].

And in accordance with the commandment of the Holy Apostle Paul, that great “apostle to the nations” who said,

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” [Galatians 1:8].

And in another place he states:

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Maranatha [I Cor. 16:22].

Thus our moving, majestic and solemn Rite of Orthodoxy takes its beginning from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and from his great Apostle, called by Him to be the “apostle to the nation”, i.e. of the whole pagan world. From the ninth century on the Holy Church has established that this rite should be served on the first Sunday of Holy Great Lent and that it be name “Orthodox Sunday”.

The rite, brothers and sisters, is particularly important and significant in the evil times we are experiencing, times in which the Orthodox faith is wavering and shaking. This wavering and shaking of the Orthodox faith is due to those very persons who ought to be strengthening and supporting it in the souls of the faithful. Those who should be pillars of Holy Orthodoxy – high-ranking hierarchs including the heads of certain Local Churches – are departing from the Truth of Holy Orthodoxy.

It is terrible to have to say that even the head of the Constantinopolitan Church, which is known as the “Ecumenical” Church, the man considered to be the first hierarch of all Orthodoxy, has set out on this path!

On all of this there undoubtedly lies the print of the Apostasy about which the Holy Apostle Paul foretold [II Thess. 2-3] – the apostasy of Christians from Christ.

We are now face to face with this Apostasy. The major threat to true Christian faith, the Orthodox faith, is the so called “Ecumenical ‘Movement,” headed by what is known as the “World Council of Churches,” a body which denies the doctrine of the unity and infalliblility of the True Church of Christ and attempts to create from all the presently existing and distracted faiths, a new “false-Church” which, from our point of view, will without any doubt be the “Church” of Antichrist, that false-church which the Antichrist, whose coming is now being rapidly prepared in the world, will head.

From the teaching of the Word of God and the Holy Fathers of the Church, we know that the Antichrist will be both the religious and political leader of all humanity: he will stand at the head of the new universal false Church; he will also be the director of one new world government and will attempt to submit all to his absolute power.

The Orthodox faith – this is the “faith of the Apostles,” “the faith of the Fathers” – it is that faith which the Apostlic Fathers, the direct disciples of the Holy Apostles, and the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church and their lawful successors, established by the Holy Spirit, interpreted for us in their marvellous and inspired writings.

Brothers and sisters, we must hold this faith steadfastly if we desire eternal salvation! Now we shall perform with you this deeply instructive, moving and highly solemn rite which consists of two parts:

• the first part is the prayer of the Holy Church for all those who have gone astray or fallen away from the true Orthodox faith;
• in the second part the Holy Church pronounces dread anathema against all false teachers, heretics and schismatics who have grown stubborn in their malice and who do not wish to reunite with the true Church of Christ but instead struggle against her.

Then we shall sing “Eternal Memory” for all departed defenders of Holy Orthodoxy and “Many Years” for those defenders of the Holy Orthodox faith and Church who are still among the living.

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His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (1914 – August 4, 2003) was bishop of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. He wrote masterfully about Christian prayer, and many Orthodox Christians in Great Britain and throughout the world consider him to be a saint.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We are keeping today, as every year at the end of the first week of Lent, the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. And every year we must give thought to what is meant, not only as a historical event, but also in our personal lives.

First of all we must remember that the Triumph of Orthodoxy is not the Triumph of the Orthodox over other people. It is the Triumph of the Truth Divine in the hearts of those who belong to the Orthodox Church and who proclaim the Truth revealed by God in its integrity and directness.

Today we must thank God with all our hearts that He has revealed Himself to us, that He has dispelled darkness in the minds and hearts of thousands and thousands of people, that He who is the Truth has shared the knowledge of the perfect Truth Divine with us.

The occasion of this feast was the recognition of the legitimacy of venerating icons. By doing this we proclaim that God – invisible, ineffable, the God whom we cannot comprehend, has truly become man, that God has taken flesh, that He has lived in our midst full of humility, of simplicity, but of glory also.

And proclaiming this we venerate the icons not as idols, but as a declaration of the Truth of the Incarnation.

By doing this we must not forget that it is not the icons of wood and of paint, but God who reveals Himself in the world. Each of us, all men, were created in the image of God. We are all living icons, and this lays upon us a great responsibility because an icon may be defaced, an icon may be turned into a caricature and into a blasphemy. And we must think of ourselves and ask ourselves: are we worthy, are we capable of being called “icons”, images of God?

A western writer has said that meeting a Christian, those who surround him should see him as a vision, a revelation of something they have never perceived before, that the difference between a non-Christian and a Christian is as great, as radical, as striking, as the difference there is between a statue and a living person.

A statue may be beautiful, but it is made of stone or of wood, and it is dead.

A human being may not at first appear as possessed of such a beauty, but those who meet him should be able, as those who venerate an icon – blessed, consecrated by the Church – should see in him the shining of the presence of the Holy Spirit, see God revealing Himself in the humble form of a human being.

As long as we are not capable of being such a vision to those who surround us, we fail in our duty, we do not proclaim the Triumph of Orthodoxy through our life, we give a lie to what we proclaim. And therefore each of us, and all of us collectively, bear every responsibility for the fact that the world meeting Christians by the million is not converted by the vision of God’s presence in their midst, carried indeed in earthen vessels, but glorious, saintly, transfiguring the world.

What is true about us, simply, personally, is as true about our churches. Our churches were called by Christ as a family, a community of Christians to be a body of people who are united with one another by total love, by sacrificial love, a love that is God’s love to us. The Church was called, and is still called, to be a body of people whose characteristic is to be the incarnate love of God. Alas, in all our churches what we see is not the miracle of love divine.

From the very beginning, alas, the Church was built according to the images of the State – hierarchical, strict, formal. In this we have failed – to be truly what the early, first community of Christians were.

Tertullian writing in defence of the Christians said to the Emperor of Rome:

“When people meet us they are arrested and say: ‘How these people love one another!’”

We are not collectively a body of people about whom one could say this. And we must learn to recreate what God has willed for us, what has once existed: to recreate communities, churches, parishes, dioceses, patriarchates, the whole church, in such a way that the whole of life, the reality of life should be that of love. Alas, we have not learned this yet.

And so, when we keep the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy we must remember that God has conquered, that we are proclaiming the truth, God’s own Truth, Himself incarnate and revealed, and there is a great responsibility for all of us collectively and singly in this world, that we must not give the lie to what we proclaim by the way in which we live.

A western theologian has said that we may proclaim the whole truth of Orthodoxy and at the same time deface it, give it the lie by the way in which we live, showing with our life that all these were words, but not reality.

We must repent of this, we must change, we must become such that people meeting us should see God’s truth, God’s light, God’s love in us individually and collectively. As long as we have not done this we have not taken part in the Triumph of Orthodoxy. God has triumphed, but He has put us in charge of making his triumph the triumph of life for the whole world.

Therefore, let us learn to live according to the Gospel which is the Truth and the Life, not only individually but collectively, and build societies of Christians that are a revelation of it, so that the world looking at us may say:

“Let us re-shape our institutions, re-shape our relationships, renew all that has gone or remains old and become a new society in which the Law of God, the Life of God can prosper and triumph. Amen.”

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Our father, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, (d. 1983) was a prominent 20th century Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, and writer. He taught at St. Vladimir Theological Seminary in Crestwood, NY and at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, France.

His writings have been very influential in contemporary Orthodoxy, and have been translated into many languages.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rejoicing today in the triumph of Orthodoxy on this first Sunday of Lent, we joyfully commemorate three events: one event belonging to the past; one event to the present; and one event which still belongs to the future.

Whenever we have any feast or joy in the Church, we Orthodox first of all look back — for in our present life we depend on what happened in the past. We depend first of all, of course, on the first and the ultimate triumph — that of Christ Himself. Our faith is rooted in that strange defeat which became the most glorious victory — the defeat of a man nailed to the cross, who rose again from the dead, who is the Lord and the Master of the world.

This is the first triumph of Orthodoxy.

This is the content of all our commemorations and of all our joy. This man selected and chose twelve men, gave them power to preach about that defeat and that victory, and sent them to the whole world saying preach and baptize, build up the Church, announce the Kingdom of God. And you know, my brothers and sisters, how those twelve men — very simple men indeed, simple fishermen — went out and preached. The world hated them, the Roman Empire persecuted them, and they were covered with blood. But that blood was another victory. The Church grew, the Church covered the universe with the true faith. After 300 years of the most unequal conflict between the powerful Roman Empire and the powerless Christian Church, the Roman Empire accepted Christ as Lord and Master.

That was the second triumph of Orthodoxy.

The Roman Empire recognized the one whom it crucified and those whom it persecuted as the bearers of truth, and their teaching as the teaching of life eternal. The Church triumphed. But then the second period of troubles began.

The following centuries saw many attempts to distort the faith, to adjust it to human needs, to fill it with human content. In each generation there were those who could not accept that message of the cross and resurrection and life eternal. They tried to change it, and those changes we call heresies. Again there were persecutions. Again, Orthodox bishops, monks and laymen defended their faith and were condemned and went into exile and were covered with blood. And after five centuries of those conflicts and persecutions and discussions, the day came which we commemorate today, the day of the final victory of Orthodoxy as the true faith over all the heresies. It happened on the first Sunday of Lent in the year 843 in Constantinople.

After almost 100 years of persecution directed against the worship of the holy icons, the Church finally proclaimed that the truth had been defined, that the truth was fully in the possession of the Church. And since then all Orthodox people, wherever they live, have gathered on this Sunday to proclaim before the world their faith in that truth, their belief that their Church is truly apostolic, truly Orthodox, truly universal. This is the event of the past that we commemorate today.

But let us ask ourselves one question: Do all the triumphs of Orthodoxy, all the victories, belong to the past? Looking at the present today, we sometimes feel that our only consolation is to remember the past. Then Orthodoxy was glorious, then the Orthodox Church was powerful, then it dominated. But what about the present? My dear friends, if the triumph of Orthodoxy belongs to the past only, if there is nothing else for us to do but commemorate, to repeat to ourselves how glorious was the past, then Orthodoxy is dead. But we are here tonight to witness to the fact that Orthodoxy not only is not dead but also that it is once more and forever celebrating its own triumph — the triumph of Orthodoxy. We don’t have to fight heresies among ourselves, but we have other things that once more challenge our Orthodox faith.

Today, gathered here together, Orthodox of various national backgrounds, we proclaim and we glorify first of all our unity in Orthodoxy.

This is the triumph of Orthodoxy in the present.

This is a most wonderful event: that all of us, with all our differences, with all our limitations, with all our weaknesses, can come together and say we belong to that Orthodox faith, that we are one in Christ and in Orthodoxy. We are living very far from the traditional centers of Orthodoxy. We call ourselves Eastern Orthodox, and yet we are here in the West, so far from those glorious cities which were centers of the Orthodox faith for centuries — Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow. How far are those cities. And yet, don’t we have the feeling that something of a miracle has happened, that God has sent us here, far into the West, not just in order to settle here, to increase our income, to build up a community. He also has sent us as apostles of Orthodoxy, so that this faith, which historically was limited to the East, now is becoming a faith which is truly and completely universal.

This is a thrilling moment in the history of Orthodoxy.

That is why it is so important for us to be here tonight and to understand, to realize, to have that vision of what is going on. People were crossing the ocean, coming here, not thinking so much about their faith as about themselves, about their lives, about their future. They were usually poor people, they had a difficult life, and they built those little Orthodox churches everywhere in America not for other people but for themselves, just to remember their homes, to perpetuate their tradition. They didn’t think of the future. And yet this is what happened: the Orthodox Church was sent here through and with those poor men.

The truth itself, the fullness of the apostolic faith — all this came here, and here we are now, filling this hall and proclaiming this apostolic faith — the faith that has strengthened the universe. And this leads us to the event which still belongs to the future.

If today we can only proclaim, if we can only pray for that coming triumph of Orthodoxy in this country and in the world, our Orthodox faith forces us to believe that it is not by accident but by divine providence that the Orthodox faith today has reached all countries, all cities, all continents of the universe. After that historic weakness of our religion, after the persecutions by the Roman Empire, by the Turks, by the godless atheists, after all the troubles that we had to go through, today a new day begins. Something new is going to happen.

And it is this future of Orthodoxy that we have to rejoice about today.

We can already have a vision of that future when, in the West, a strong American Orthodox Church comes into existence. We can see how this faith, which for such a long time was an alien faith here, will become truly and completely universal in the sense that we will answer the questions of all men, and also all their questions.

For if we believe in that word:

“Orthodoxy,” “the true faith”;

if for one moment we try to understand what it means: the true, the full Christianity, as it has been proclaimed by Christ and His disciples; if our Church has preserved for all ages the message of the apostles and of the fathers and of the saints in its purest form, then, my dear friends, here is the answer to the questions and to the problems and to the sufferings of our world. You know that our world today is so complex. It is changing all the time. And the more it changes, the more people fear, the more they are frightened by the future, the morethey are preoccupied by what will happen to them. And this is where Orthodoxy must answer their problem; this is where Orthodoxy must accept the challenge of modern civilization and reveal to men of all nations, to all men in the whole world, that it has remained the force of God left in history for the transformation, for the deification, for the transfiguration of human life.

The past, the present, the future: At the beginning, one lonely man on the cross — the complete defeat. And if at that time we had been there with all our human calculations, we probably would have said: “That’s the end. Nothing else will happen.” The twelve left Him. There was no one, no one to hope. The world was in darkness. Everything seemed finished. And you know what happened three days later. Three days later He appeared. He appeared to His disciples, and their hearts were burning within them because they knew that He was the risen Lord. And since then, in every generation, there have been people with burning hearts, people who have felt that this victory of Christ had to be carried again and again into this world, to be proclaimed in order to win new human souls and to be the transforming force in history.

Today this responsibility belongs to us. We feel that we are weak. We feel that we are limited, we are divided, we are still separated in so many groups, we have so many obstacles to overcome. But today, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we close our eyes for a second and we rejoice in that unity which is already here: priests of various national churches praying together, people of all backgrounds uniting in prayer for the triumph of Orthodoxy. We are already in a triumph, and may God help us keep that triumph in our hearts, so that we never give up hope in that future event in the history of orthodoxy when Orthodoxy will become the victory which eternally overcomes all the obstacles, because that victory is the victory of Christ Himself.

As we approach the most important moment of the Eucharist, the priest says,

“Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess….”

What is the condition of the real triumph of Orthodoxy? What is the way leading to the real, the final, the ultimate victory of our faith? The answer comes from the Gospel. The answer comes from Christ Himself and from the whole tradition of Orthodoxy. It is love. Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess . . . confess our faith, our Orthodoxy.

Let us, from now on, feel responsible for each other. Let us understand that even if we are divided in small parishes, in small dioceses, we first of all belong to one another. We belong together, to Christ, to His Body, to the Church. Let us feel responsible for each other, and let us love one another.

Let us put above everything else the interests of Orthodoxy in this country. Let us understand that each one of us today has to be the apostle of Orthodoxy in a country which is not yet Orthodox, in a society which is asking us: “What do you believe?” “What is your faith?” And let us, above everything else, keep the memory, keep the experience, keep the taste of that unity which we are anticipating tonight.

At the end of the first century — when the Church was still a very small group, a very small minority, in a society which was definitely anti-Christian when the persecution was beginning — St. John the Divine, the beloved disciple of Christ, wrote these words: “And this is the victory, our faith, this is the victory.” There was no victory at that time, and yet he knew that in his faith he had the victory that can be applied to us today.

We have the promise of Christ, that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church.

We have the promise of Christ that if we have faith, all things are possible. We have the promise of the Holy Spirit, that He will fill all that which is weak, that He will help us at the moment when we need help. In other words, we have all the possibilities, we have everything that we need, and therefore the victory is ours. It is not a human victory which can be defined in terms of money, of human success, of human achievements.

What we are preaching tonight, what we are proclaiming tonight, what we are praying for tonight, is the victory of Christ in me, in us, in all of you in the Orthodox Church in America. And that victory of Christ in us, of the one who for us was crucified and rose again from the dead, that victory will be the victory of His Church.

Today is the triumph of Orthodoxy, and a hymn sung today states solemnly and simply:

“This is the Apostolic faith, this is the Orthodox faith, this is the faith of the Fathers, this is the faith that is the foundation of the world.”

My dear brothers and sisters, this is also our own faith.

We are chosen.

We are elected.

We are the happy few that can say of our faith, “apostolic,” “universal,” “the faith of our fathers,” “Orthodoxy,” “the truth.”

Having this wonderful treasure, let us preserve it, let us keep it, and let us also use it in such a way that this treasure becomes the victory of Christ in us and in His Church. Amen.

© 2010, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

This sermon was delivered by Archbishop Job at the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy celebrated during the Liturgical Institute held at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, June 29, 1984. The unity of his thought and thorough understanding of the Orthodox Tradition is plainly evident. He talks about the true renewal of the Church being a renewal of the life of the Spirit in the Church.

The theme of this year’s Institute is one that has needed serious reflection for quite some time. In fact, we must be realistic in confessing that no genuine theological, liturgical and spiritual renewal can take place in our Church sojourning in North America and throughout the world without understanding and practicing repentance.

Over the past thirty-five years our small Church has undergone various positive evolutionary stages. The most obvious and decisive stages have affected our approach to theology and liturgy. We are witnessing to the integration of theology and liturgy which has culminated in what has been called our Church’s eucharistic revival. Consequently, we are a Church which on the one hand is becoming more and more capable of articulating and proclaiming its ethos, while on the other hand it is more actively manifesting itself as the Body of Christ which gathers to give thanks to God the Father in the celebration of the Eucharist. Let no one doubt that this organic evolution has strengthened our links with the Church’s past, while at the same time opening up numerous and exciting vistas for the future.

Much has been accomplished. The organic evolution of our Church which sojourns in time and space continues. Nevertheless, in spite of what may be considered or termed “renewal,” the Church, the Body of the faithful, must continually purify itself; it must continually repent if renewal is to continue. Without repentance, without this purification, the “newness,” the youth of the Church will disappear and the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit will be indiscernible or simply denied. Without this fundamental act of repentance, the qualitative growth of the Church will never be realized. Yes, we are in the midst of a theological and eucharistic revival; however, such a re-birth can only be sustained and strengthened if the Church is repentant.

It is not an exaggeration to say that if the Church fails to repent, our mission in North America will also fail. It will fail not because we will have empty churches. It is quite possible that the churches will be full. We will have failed, however, because of our own infidelity to that which we have received and to what we have been called by Christ to be. Only through repentance is the Church continually renewed by the Holy Spirit. Only by cleansing ourselves will the vision of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church be kept clear. Only by repenting will our theological and eucharistic revival be meaningful and saving.

Without repentance the Church, comprised of hierarchs, priests and faithful, will be unable to sustain the blows of a pluralistic and secularistic society – a society which can be accurately termed as post-Christian and even overtly anti-Christian. As a living Church, we are confronted with many temptations and delusions. Every day, the faith of the Church, the faith of the believers, is put to the test.

The greatest and most dangerous temptation is the world’s continual and violent attempt to change the very nature and vision of the Church. Our enemy, especially in this country, is not comprised of flesh and blood. Our enemy, the enemy, is invisible and manages to infest the body of believers, beginning with the hierarchs, by corrupting the Church’s fundamental vision and mission which is to proclaim Christ crucified and risen, and to make disciples of all nations.

By our Baptism and Chrismation, we, the Church, are commanded to go out and to change the world in the same spirit as that of the Holy Apostles whose memory we celebrate today. The transfiguration of the world is only possible through repentance, and repentance must begin within the Church. We talk repeatedly of Church growth, yet this is too commonly understood in terms of numbers, also with various preoccupations such as more and more complex bureaucracy, budgets, appearances, committees and subcommittees, all of which somehow indicate that we have “arrived” – that we “have come a long way.” Continuing to be lured, or rather seduced by the world, there is the frightening possibility of total disaster – that the Church, while retaining the correct dogmatic formulas and liturgical forms, can be reduced to a clanging bell – a mere shell with little or no content and life.

The re-birth of Orthodox theology has directed the Church back to its liturgical, biblical and patristic roots, while simultaneously exposing and exorcising a “foreign” theology and piety. This return to the sources is nothing less than repentance, a repentance which has led to the conversion and restoration of the Orthodox mind, heart and soul. It is this repentance which has provided the foundation for spiritual renewal not only in this country but throughout the world.

As we stand together today as the Church gathered around Christ’s Altar let us open our hearts and repent. Let us confess not only our personal sins, but also the sins which we commit as a body gathered together to celebrate the Lord’s mystical banquet. As I stand before all of you this morning, I realize that I am placing myself in a very vulnerable position.

Nevertheless, in light of what has taken place here this week, if a confession is to be made, I have no other position to assume.

As the Church, let us confess that we are seduced by the powers of darkness into becoming a Church which is more and more preoccupied with creating an image of respectability so that it will be accepted by the standards of the world. Let us confess that we sometimes doubt that the Church has the power of the Holy Spirit to change the world.

Let us confess that we are often too ready to accept aspects of our American culture or lack of culture, which are not beneficial, not edifying, and are even spiritually destructive, forgetting that the Church has the responsibility to influence and direct the culture of the society in which it finds itself. Let us confess that we are prone to selfishly withholding the Church from the world, forgetting that it is given by God for the life of the world.

Let us confess that in spite of the Orthodox renaissance taking place during this century we continue to “politely” rationalize an un-Orthodox ecclesiology ranging from congregationalism and clericalism to a plurality of jurisdictions existing in the same territory. As for the latter, it has become the custom and norm simply to cease speaking the truth by concealing it under the bushel basket of diplomatic rhetoric.

Let us confess that in spite of the theological and sacramental renaissance of our time, our Church which is hierarchical by nature, is quickly becoming hierarchical in appearance only. Theological and sacramental renewal cannot be divorced from or viewed apart from a correct ecclesiology. More specifically, the bishop and priest must re-assume the position not only of “president” over the Eucharist, but as father, elder, teacher and servant. If all of us as the people of God are to recover a correct place in the make-up of the Church, this recovery must first be achieved by the hierarchy.

By confessing our weaknesses and shortcomings, all which comprise sin, and repenting of them, the vision of one local American Church will not fade away into the ivory tower of the academic theologian or canonical theoretician. Growing continually in the experience of the Church we will understand that not only must we all repent, but that all of us must be involved in the Sacrament of reconciliation. Sacramental reconciliation by bishop or priest does not occur in a vacuum. The entire community must again gradually become involved in the Sacrament of repentance and reconciliation in spite of the pragmatic aspects of so-called private confession.

Soon we will place our offerings upon the Altar of God. Before this is accomplished, let us recognize and confess our sins by submitting our hardened hearts to the grace of God. Let us be renewed as persons and as Church. Let us ask forgiveness of each other – a difficult act – so that as the living Body of Christ we may as community manifest the most perfect icon of His presence in the world. As Christ’s Church, as those called by God to be His people, let us with fear of God and with love draw near to the one High Priest receiving Him as our offering, as our sustenance, as Life Itself. Amen

© 2009, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Archbishop Job was an honest homilist, and this was the source of his preaching power. Like the late Bishop Innocent of Anchorage, Archbishop Job honestly and directly addressed the problems he faced in the Church.He spoke with love and passion for the Gospel of Christ, and with love for his beloved flock. This is one of his most inspiring sermons, given on Holy Monday, April 17, 2006.

His Eminence JOB, Archbishop of Chicago and the Midwest

Delivered at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Chicago, Illinois

1. The Completion of Great Lent

Great Lent is now over.  The school of repentance is closed but the ‘text book’, the Lenten Triodion, remains open and opportunities for repentance are still available to us – even for “those who have delayed until the eleventh hour’ (St. John Chrysostom).

2. The Holiest of Days

We have entered into the holiest of days where time is sanctified and we experience true reality through the liturgical life of the Church.  Great and Holy Week began Friday evening and two feasts, the Raising of Lazarus and the Entrance into Jerusalem are combined into one.  The joy manifested in the entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem is now fleeting.  Now we have entered into the time of Passion – Icon of Life – where darkness, sorrow, defeat, despair and death are all tempered by the light, joy, triumph, hope and life promised through Our Lord’s Resurrection.

3. Many Great Lents, many Great and Holy Weeks, many Paschas

It is indeed mind boggling to think how many millions of faithful have observed the Feast of Feasts; how many souls have been saved; how many lost?  And to be sure there has never been a time in the history of the Church – from Pentecost to our present day – without troubles besieging Her both from within and without.  The Church is not even exempt from trouble and difficulties when acting officially.  Indeed we can find many cases in our history as best exemplified by a synod that deposed St. John Chrysostom, a synod that endorsed and accepted iconoclasm, a synod that agreed to the selling out of Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence, a synod – Your Holy Synod – who shirked responsibility, allowed itself to be lulled into complacency, and let you down for so many years, and who have led the Church into this time of crisis.

4. Why Here?  Why Now?  Shouldn’t We Just Pray?  Holy Week: In invitation to Contemplate Reality

There may be those among you who are thinking, “Why is he bringing this up now?  We have more important things to meditate on, to pray about – the Passion of Our Lord.  Why doesn’t he just leave it alone?  Didn’t His Beatitude, in His archpastoral letter read last week, say to do just that?”

Yes!  In fact, Metropolitan HERMAN wrote:

It is time for this turmoil in our parishes, in our dioceses and throughout the Church to cease and desist, especially as we approach Holy Week.  We must lay aside these earthly cares and re-focus our spiritual lives on… “the one thing that is needed…that good part which will not be taken away.”  (Luke 10:42)

Unfortunately, I am afraid that I see it another way.  With respect to His Beatitude, I must express disagreement.  Let us look at these days which we had behind and before us and see if they don’t give us a clue as to where our minds should be:

- After the triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus cleansed the temple, not a politically correct thing to do.

- Today’s Gospel deals with the unfruitful fig tree.

- Tomorrow’s with the condemnation of the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees

- Today, we hear the frightening words of The Lord, “therefore I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and   given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”

- Tomorrow we will hear:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you shut up the Kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.  Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. (Matthew 23)

The Church at this time invites us to contemplate and confront these realities – painful and disturbing as they are, and not avoid them.

5. The Readings of Holy Week: A Lesson and Directive for us Today

Can we read these Gospel lessons and not be immediately reminded of the current state of our Orthodox Church in America?  The Fig Tree: beautiful to look at, inviting and with the promise of good fruit.  With the same mind let us think of our All-American Councils or pilgrimages to St. Tikhon’s where hierarchs, resplendent in gorgeous vestments put up a great façade so as to “Keep up with the Joneses” of other jurisdictions and to try to impress all with a proud and chest pounding roar of “we are autocephalous”.  Who are try trying to fool?

And so we must ask: where is the fruit?

One of my brother hierarchs wrote, “We don’t need accountability; we don’t need transparency; all we need is Christ?”  To me this sounds so pious, so convenient, so easy.  God protect us from such empty words!!

6. A Reality of Dysfunction

As lay people, as clergy, as dioceses, as hierarchs, as Holy Synod we must deal with REALITY – OUR reality, as unpleasant or even tragic as it is.  We must not “lay aside these earthly cares” at this time, but rather we must deal with them and recognize the dysfunction in our midst – a dysfunctional Synod, a dysfunctional Central Church Administration, a dysfunctional Metropolitan Council, dysfunctional dioceses and parishes, and dysfunctions in our own Diocesan Church.  Only after we recognize and admit these dysfunctions can there be RESPONSIBILITY, REPENTANCE, and FORGIVENESS.  Otherwise, if we remain as the barren fig tree, we may hear the words:

Woe to you, Orthodox Christians of today, hypocrites: for you bind the Book of Gospels in covers of gold and silver and jewels, but you fail to live by its teachings.

Woe to you, Orthodox Christians of today, hypocrites: for you give lip service to the precepts of the Church, and place your trust in the wisdom of this world.

Woe to you, Orthodox Christians of today, hypocrites: for you travel land and sea to win one convert, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, Orthodox Christians of today, hypocrites: for you hold to a semblance of faith but deny its power.

7. Intolerabilities

We must look at our poor Church and confess that it is intolerable:

-  that division in the Holy Synod, acute as never before seen, should not be addressed and remedied.

-  that the Holy Synod not address the anger, frustration, depression and cynicism among the clergy and informed lay people and assume pro-active leadership.

-  that the vision and enthusiasm, empowered by the gift of autocephaly 36 years ago, has faded into obscurity.

-   that words like humility, forgiveness, repentance, obedience should be used as “pious platitudes” reducing them to empty words.

-  that one person or group of persons – be they lay people, priests or hierarchs – should have unlimited power.

-  that the influence that our Church and many of her leaders once had among Orthodox and non-Orthodox in North America and abroad is lost or greatly reduced.

-  that our Orthodox ecclesiology, as we are experiencing now, is being put to such a cruel test.

- that one single dollar obtained from one of our faithful ones for a specific purpose, be utilized for another – regardless of excuse.

8. Discussion, Solidarity, Oneness of Mind, Dedication

This crisis has brought the best and the worst out of people in all levels of Church life.  In my opinion it has brought the best out of the faithful in the Diocese of the Midwest as witnessed by discussion, solidarity, oneness of mind and dedication.  We do not need pointing fingers or blame casters.  We must all assume our share of the responsibility for not being as faithful as we should and for not praying unceasingly as Paul the Apostle exhorts us to do.

I most of all am responsible and humbly ask your forgiveness.  Things are being done – drastic measures have been taken.  And so now we are able to follow The Lord in His Passion, having faced and accepted reality, as unpleasant and traumatic as it is.

Now I can quote His Beatitude:

Again, I ask for your understanding and forgiveness, and your prayers for [our first hierarch] for … our Holy Synod, for our clergy and for all our faithful.  The time has come for us to unite our efforts to restore peace and harmony in our Church.  If we are to become the co-workers with Christ that we are called to be, we must place our focus on our Savior.  His Saving mission, and our shared participation in that saving mission.  We must direct our energies to the work to which each of us has been called: our own salvation and the salvation of those around us … May Our Lord help us and strengthen us and bless our every good effort.

To Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to His voluntary Passion for us, be all glory, now and ever and unto ages of ages…

AMEN!

© 2009, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

By New Hieromartyr John, Archbishop of Riga and Latvia, who, for his unyielding witness to the Truth suffered many persecutions and was burned alive by communist assassins in the night of October 12, 1934.

From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples that it is necessary for Him to go away to Jerusalem, and to suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and to be killed, and to be raised the third day. And Peter took Him to himself and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘May God be gracious to Thee, Lord; this in no wise shall be to Thee.’ But He turned and said to Peter,

Get thee behind Me, Satan; thou art an offense to Me, for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.

Mt. 16:21-23

This revelation of the Lord concerning the sufferings which awaited Him, struck His disciples like a thunderclap from a clear sky. Earlier, He had told them that His path was also their path: The servant is not greater than his master.

He who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

Mt. 10:38

And in the lives of Christ’s true disciples there is a time of suffering passion when each must enter his own Jerusalem, ascend his Golgotha and the fateful cross, and take up the fateful cup – even unto death.

Even the sons of this world each have their own Golgotha. Unforeseen and uninvited, suffering enters the house. You must suffer whether you like it or not. The bitter “must.” This “must” is bitter even for the faithful disciple of Christ. And the cross of suffering frightens even him. In his soul is heard the voice of Peter: ‘have mercy on yourself, do not let this happen, protect yourself.’ And this is not surprising, for after all, the Great Sufferer Himself prayed:

If it be possible, take this cup from Me

Mt. 26:39; Mk. 14:36; Lk. 22:42.

This “must” is altogether necessary and we are powerless to stand against it.

From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples that it is necessary for Him to go away to Jerusalem, and to suffer many things….

Mt. 16:21

If the way of the Lord leads to Jerusalem, if His fate is to be decided by the scribes, the Pharisees, the elders, then it is natural that He must suffer and be killed. This Jerusalem towards which Christ directed His steps is not the Heavenly Jerusalem, but an earthly city filled with the spirit of this world, which had fallen away from its God, not recognizing, not comprehending the visitation of the Lord.

This is the same Jerusalem which, at the altar of the Lord, killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it [cf. Mt. 23:37; Lk. 11:47-51]. And the world, my brothers, even unto this day stands on that same foundation. Perhaps it does not have the same outward appearance. Nowadays they do not crucify people on crosses as they did Peter, nor are people stoned like Stephen. People have become too indifferent towards faith to suffer for its sake.

Our path is less rocky and whoever murmurs at the harshness and the evil of this world should know that he is far from suffering unto blood. Nevertheless, now as never before, the words of the Lord contain a sacred truth:

If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world–but I chose you for Myself out of the world–therefore the world hateth you

Jn. 15:19

It cannot do otherwise.

The natural desire of man’s heart is to live at peace with everyone. Many a youthful heart has decided to follow the path of reliance on oneself: ‘I want to get along with everyone; I must not antagonize anyone.’ But even the best-intentioned soon realize that this is impossible. Even the meekest lamb is sure to meet on his way a ferocious wolf that says: ‘You are a thorn in my side.’

He who believes must confess his faith. He who desires to serve God in this world must act according to his faith. But every confession inevitably arouses antagonism and every action is sure to meet with hostility. To see that his honest persuasion and striving are not recognized by the world; that his good deeds are everywhere met with opposition; that there where he sows only love, he must reap evil – this is obviously very grievous to the follower of Christ. And he is often ready to ask, together with his Master: ‘What evil has been done to you? Or how have I offended thee?’ [from the hymns of Great and Holy Friday of Passion Week]. The truth which you proclaim and which you confess and which the world cannot gainsay, or the righteousness manifest in your life which silently reproaches the world, or the peace of the Lord written on your face which the world cannot forgive, or the heavenly other-worldliness of your behavior which shames and accuses their earthly way of life – this is how you have offended the world. And the world would sooner pardon you of ten vices and crimes which get you on a level with others, than forgive one good deed which elevates you above the rest. Why did Cain murder Abel? Because Cain’s actions were evil and the actions of Abel were good and righteous [cf. 1 Jn. 3:12]. Why did the scribes and Pharisees condemn the Savior? Because He was Light and darkness cannot abide the light [cf. Jn 3:16-21].

Do not be astonished then, my dear brothers, if the world hates you. It is to be expected. This is nothing unusual. Do not let evil mockings and the vicious hatred of evil doers lead you astray. Go along the straight road with the name of the Lord, through the world which lies in evil and think in yourself “I must…” and the world cannot do otherwise. It would not be the world if it did not prefer the lies of its errors to truth; egoism to love; its laziness to zeal for God; worldly vanity to righteousness. I am not a disciple of Christ, not His soldier, if I do what is pleasing to everyone, if I go along the broad path together with the crowd instead of keeping to the narrow path where there are few travelers.

And so let us step forward in the name of the Lord with the conscious awareness that “I must.”

There is another aspect to this “I must.” When the Son of Man told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and there to suffer much and to die, He was aware that this was necessary even for Himself.

Because He was obedient unto death, even death on the cross, God raised Him up and gave Him a name above every name.

Phil. 2:8-9

If the Heavenly Father so willed that even His only-begotten Son would drink from the cup of suffering, is it for us sinners who are so imperfect to shun this cup of suffering, this school of suffering, when we are such a long way from perfection and still have so much to learn in order to become worthy disciples of the Great Sufferer?

Some think: ‘How much more fervently and willingly I would serve my Lord if only my life’s path were easier, if it were not so thickly strewn with sharp rocks.’ In saying this, you yourself obviously do not know who and what you are, what is beneficial for you and what is harmful, what you need and what you do not need. It is true when they say that a man tolerates least of all his own well-being. Days of happiness, days of success, when everything goes according to one’s own wishes – how many times have such days woven a fatal net which captures the soul? What dissoluteness grows on man’s heart, like rust on the blade of an unused battle-sword, or like a garden which becomes overgrown if not tended by the gardener’s shears. Tell me, O Christian, what preserves you from haughtiness which so easily penetrates even the strongest hearts, even the hearts of Christ’s disciples? Is it not the cross of suffering? What humbles the passionate inclinations of the flesh which so quickly and easily spread in times of well being and prosperity, like insects in a swamp on a sunny day? What teaches you to shun this uncleanness? Is it not the rod of misfortunes and sorrows? What arouses you from the sleep of self-assurance, lulled to sleep as we so easily are by times of happiness: Or what is more conducive to a routine of laziness than cloudless, carefree days of prosperity? At such times a storm can only be regarded as a blessing. What will draw you out of the dangerous state of insensibility? Will not sorrows? Will not illness? What tears us away from our worldly attachments, the love for the world and all that is in it? Is it not necessity and misfortunes? Do not trials teach us to take life more seriously? Do not sorrows teach us to be prepared for death? Wild brambles of the heart cannot be uprooted without the pruning shears of the Heavenly Gardener and the good fruit of truth and righteousness will not grow without the rain of tears and sorrows. Nowhere can true obedience be better tested than in the bearing of the bitter cup of sorrows, when one can only say:

…not my will, but Thine be done, Father

cf. Mt. 26:39; Mk. 14:36; Lk. 22:42

And submission to God’s will is never manifested so clearly as in days and hours of storm when in the midst of menacing and frightful waves the Christian gives himself totally into the hands of Him Whose very hand holds these waves and tempests.

When can the steadfastness, courage, and strength of a soldier of Christ be better demonstrated than when trials and obstacles must be turned into deeds, than in the war against evil, or in times of danger? All the noble strength of the Christian soul, of the Christian character shines forth most brightly in times of distress, misfortunes and sufferings. All the miracles of God’s grace are most evident in times when the waters of grief and misfortunes flood our souls and we are forced to recognize our helplessness, our weakness and draw all strength and understanding from Almighty God.

Or, when God Himself chastises you and calls you to account, are you going to ask “what for” and “why”? Or when the Lords sends you to the school of the cross, will you say: “I have not need of its teachings”? Rather you must say: “I need this; I must go to this school of the cross; I must suffer with Christ in order to be raised with Him” [cf. Rom. 6:3-8; 2 Tim. 2:11-12]. When the Lord chastens me I must think and feel like a child chastened by the loving right hand of the Lord, like a grapevine under the pruning shears of the gardener, like iron beneath the smith’s hammer, like gold in the purifying fire. This “I must” is of God and I must not shrink from it.

If you, my friends, agree to what I say, here in the house of God, then hold onto this principle when you are visited by grief, and yours becomes the way of the cross. These are basic truths which must be repeated before each bed of sickness and with each student entering the school of sorrows. Pastors know this. He who preached these truths a thousand times to others must repeat them for himself in every situation. Thou, Lord, help us to understand more fully and to plant deep within ourselves this lesson of the divine “I must.”

Even the ancient Greeks and other people bowed before the divine will, before sacred duty, before immutable destiny, man’s dependence upon Providence. The submission of one’s will before this divine “I must,” the exact fulfillment of divine decrees – in the wise this was called wisdom, in heroes, it was courage, in the righteous, sanctity. How much more willingly must we Christians fulfill our duty when we know that we are not being led by blind faith, but by the good will of the Father which led even Christ to Golgotha and the Cross, but through Golgotha and the Cross to the glorious Resurrection. And so we must put our faith and trust in Him even when we cannot comprehend the meaning of the guidance. Mankind would have been deprived of so much goodness, such glory and blessedness, if the Savior had harkened to the voice of Peter: ‘defend yourself’.

Let each soul bow before the divine “I must;” for the will of God is good, perfect, guiding all men to salvation. And you, O son of dust and corruption, bend your neck under His almighty hand before which your strength is as nothing. Trust to divine wisdom before which your light is but a dark shadow. Give yourself over to the fatherly guidance of Him who desires not enmity and sorrows, but peace and blessedness for all mankind. When you submit your thoughts and your will to His thought and will, then no cup will be for you too bitter, and no cross too heavy. You will be able to withstand it. Such is the will of God.

If your spouse, children, friends, and everyone you love surround you; if they try to persuade you to have pity on yourself, not to destroy yourself – do not look at their tears, do not listen to their pleadings. Point to the Heavens and say: “Do not burden my heart; thus it is pleasing to God and I must. You are reasoning according to man’s wisdom and not God’s.” And if from your own heart there cries out the voice of flesh and blood, and begins to persuade you: “…this cannot happen to you; defend yourself…” – turn away from this counsel of your own heart and follow after that which glorifies God.

We can more easily bear our afflictions if we keep in mind the example of the Savior. See with what peaceful and holy determination He goes to His Passion. And then follow Him along the path of the cross until with His last breath you hear from His lips the divine words:

It is finished.

Jn. 19:30

And then ask yourself: are not you inspired by this example? Do you not understand now the commandment:

…he who wishes to follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow after Me?

Mt. 16:24; Mk. 8:34; Lk. 9:23

Do you not share the conviction of that disciple who said: “I cannot wear a crown of roses when my Savior is wearing a crown of thorns”?

At the cross of Christ even the most suffering souls among us can find consolation. I have endured, and even now endure much, but my Divine Savior endures still more.

And if you find this example too lofty, read what the holy Apostle Paul says:

Thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils in the city in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

2 Cor. 11:23-30

See what he endured for Christ’s sake, how many times he was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and then understand how far we are from him. Everywhere the cross is the sign of Christianity.

A Christian cannot be without his cross. Amen.

© 2009, Preachers Institute. All rights reserved. On republishing this, please provide a link to the original post.

Metropolitan Jonah, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, preaches a word of humility, love, repentance, and “with open arms” calls out to the members of the Anglican Church of North America at their recent convention.

You can comment on it in the forum.

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In this sermon, Fr. Josiah presents an intriguing idea: What happens if Christians experience Ascension, but do not experience Pentecost.

Introduction: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

The last ten days in the Church have been unusual.  In some sense we have been living between two realities.  On the leave-taking of Pascha we ceased the sustained celebration of the Holy Resurrection of the Lord as well as our saying, “Christ is risen.  Truly He is risen.”  The next day we celebrated the Glorious Ascension of our Savior into the heavens to sit at the right hand of the Father.   For these days between Ascension and Pentecost we have been in a waiting mode.  We, like the Apostles of old, have been heeding our Lord’s ascension instructions to “wait in Jerusalem to be clothed with power from on high” (St. Lk. 24:49).  We have been waiting for the Holy Spirit to come.

Why were the Apostles waiting?

The obvious answer to this question is that they were waiting because the Lord Jesus commanded them to tarry until Pentecost.  There is, however, much more to this waiting than that.  We must understand very clearly the difference between the apostles before Pentecost and after Pentecost.  Something dramatic happened to them that changed them personally.  They were transformed.  Fear turned into martyric boldness; fishermen became the world’s teachers;  doubt was replaced by mountain-moving faith.  All because of Pentecost.

The Necessity of Pentecost.

Some of us do not understand the necessity of Pentecost.  Pentecost is many things, and we have spoken about these realities before.  Pentecost is revelation of the Holy Trinity to the world. This is why this Feast is also called “Trinity Day” in the Church.  The Apostles knew the Father.  They had become the disciples of the Son.  And now they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost is also the birthday of the New Testament Church.  It is the democratization of the Spirit of God to all believers.  It is the unification of all mankind, and the definitive beginning to the reversal of the chaos of the Tower of Babel.  All of these things we have previously discussed, but today I wish to point out that Holy Pentecost is the evidence that Christianity is not a man-made or earthly religion.  It is not a set of ethical standards.  It is not for moral guidance.  Christianity is a miraculous and divine communion between God and man.  Christianity is the spiritualization or divination of man.

If Christianity were simply a man-made religion, even if it were the best and most beautiful man-made religion, there would be no need for the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem these days awaiting Pentecost.  Why would they need to?  They had for years lived in close contact with Christ, and had been His most intimate students.  They could have simply begun to write and teach and pass on what they had learned.  They had been fully trained, and so it is time to start training.  This is how it is with every other of the world’s religions.  Not so with Christianity.  Christianity is not about ideas, moral guidance, ethical norms, social structures, etc..  Christianity, of course, is not free from these things, but this is not what Holy Orthodoxy is about.  Holy Orthodoxy is about the coming of the Holy Spirit into man.  It is about human transformation and deification, not ideas.  There is no Christianity without Pentecost.  Orthodoxy without the Holy Spirit is not Orthodoxy.

Many Christians tragically live between Ascension and Pentecost.

With that said is it not tragic how often we live with our Orthodoxy as a set of ideas.  We think we are Orthodox because we believe certain things in our heads and were born or converted to a certain family or at a certain time.  If the Apostles had remained in the state they were in between Ascension and Pentecost they would never have brought the Gospel to the world.  They would never have become the great saints they did.  They would never have crushed the demons like they did.  They did all of these things because they were living in union with the Holy Spirit of God.

Sometimes we Orthodox evidence little proof that we are living post-Pentecost.  Our faith is weak. We are bound by sins.  We have little Christian joy.  We read or listen to the Acts of the Apostles and think that the Apostles were living a different way of life.  We pick up and read a book on the life of a particular saint and the saint’s mode of being appears to us to be foreign and almost unintelligible.  Why? Because we are not living in the Holy Spirit.  We are more like the fearful and doubting disciples prior to Pentecost.  Others around us seem to be radiant.  They endure trials with joy.  They don’t worry.  Why?  Because they are in a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit.  They are sincerely praying the Prayer to the Holy Spirit,  “O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art in all places and filleth all things, the Treasury of Good Things and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls O Good One.” The Holy Spirit is in these ones abiding in them, cleanses them, and saving them!

Christianity without Pentecost is Empty Form!

If our Orthodox life is not permeated with the presence of the Holy Spirit it is all in vain!  Consider first that the Holy Sacraments or Mysteries of the Church are all dependent completely upon the Holy Spirit.  Baptism saves us because we are not born of the water alone, but of water and the Spirit (St. Jn. 3:3-5).  Chrismation itself is an individual’s personal Pentecost.  The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Ordination is the special bequeathal of the Holy Spirit to men, and the substance of the priesthood is that priests bear the Holy Spirit in the community.  This is why our Lord gathered the twelve together and breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whoever’s sins you remit are remitted.  Whoever’s sins you retain are retained” (St. John 20:23).  Marriage is simply temporal and earthly if it is not consecrated by the Holy Spirit and bound together in His love.  Holy Unction without the Holy Spirit is simply a complex skin treatment!  It is the Holy Spirit in the sacred oil healing our souls and bodies!  Confession is insincere and pointless unless it is a Spirit-inspired compunction and a Spirit-empowered absolution.  And think of the Mystery of Mysteries and the Sacrament of Sacraments:  the Holy Eucharist.  The existence of the Holy Eucharist is completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit Whom the priest calls down upon the Holy Table in the epiklesis:  “changing them by Thy Holy Spirit.”

This liturgical reality is beautifully evidenced in many different saints’ lives, especially those saints who were bishops or priests responsible for the celebration of the eucharist.  The story is told of St. Basil the Great that he had hanging over his altar a beautiful oil lamp made in the form of a golden dove. Always at the time of the transformation of the gifts the dove would begin to swing.  A similar story is told about our Holy Father John of San Francisco and Shanghai.  St. John would see the Holy Spirit descend as fire into the holy chalice at the epiklesis as he served liturgy.  On one occasion the liturgy was delayed because St. John would not go on since he saw no fire.  Wondering why he turned to his deacon and saw his face was covered over in a black cloud.  Asking the deacon what was wrong the deacon confessed that he had not prepared for the liturgy properly.  Once the deacon divested and left the altar the fire came and liturgy could continue.

All of the Holy Mysteries are empty forms without the Holy Spirit, and this may be said about all matters of our faith and practice.  Fasting is simply dieting if it is not an attempt to acquire the Holy Spirit.  It is not a coincidence that our Lord went into the desert to fast for forty days “led by the Holy Spirit” (St. Lk. 4:1). Sin is not overcome except by the Holy Spirit.  He is One Who enables us to “mortify the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13).  We could go on and on. There is no prayer without the Holy Spirit praying in us.  There is no church without the Holy Spirit.  There is no Church Temple without the Holy Spirit. This is why when we erect a true church temple the bishop chrismates the altar and the temple itself.  The Temple has its own Pentecost for it truly becomes not simply a functional gathering place, but the House of God and Temple of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit lives there.  If He does not then the Temple become a Temple of Satan (Rev. 2:9).

Our Goal is to Acquire the Holy Spirit.

In the light of truth we see then that St. Seraphim was correct when he was asked by someone, “What is the purpose of this life?”, and he answered, “The acquisition of the Holy Spirit.”  “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (St.Lk. 11:11-13).  All of our Christian effort and spiritual struggle is guided toward this one thing: obtaining an increase of the Holy Spirit.  This is what it means to become spiritual.  This is the goal of Christianity:  the union of man with God by the Holy Spirit.  Let us not betray the true nature of our religion by living as though Orthodoxy was about ideas, morals, etc.  Nonsense.  Christianity is about becoming one with the True God: by grace becoming what He is.  Now some of you may be thinking, “But how do we experience Pentecost? What do I do if I feel stuck between Ascension and Pentecost?”  An answer to these questions will be given in next Sunday’s homily.

Now to God the Father, and to the Ascended Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit poured forth today be all glory.Amen.

Fr. Josiah Trenham is the pastor of St. Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside, CA.

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