Journalist Who Asked "Is God Dead?" Has Died

John T. Elson, Editor Who Asked ‘Is God Dead?’ at Time, Dies at 78

WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: September 17, 2009
New York Times

All journalists want to write a story that makes a big splash. John T. Elson, the religion editor at Time magazine, was no exception. But in 1966 he got more than he bargained for.

For more than a year, Mr. Elson had labored over an article examining radical new approaches to thinking about God that were gaining currency in seminaries and universities and spilling over to the public at large.

When finally completed, it became the cover story for the issue of April 8, as Easter and Passover approached. The cover itself was eye-catching, the first one in Time’s 43-year history to appear without a photograph or an illustration. Giant blood-red letters against a black background spelled out the question “Is God Dead?”

The issue caused an uproar, equaled only by John Lennon’s offhand remark, published in a magazine for teenagers a few months later, that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. The “Is God Dead?” issue gave Time its biggest newsstand sales in more than 20 years and elicited 3,500 letters to the editor, the most in its history to that point. It remains a signpost of the 1960s, testimony to the wrenching social changes transforming the United States.

The quiet, studious Mr. Elson, who died on Sept. 7 at the age of 78, was an unlikely bomb-thrower, and his article, for those who ventured past the cover, reflected his scholarly bent. Meekly titled on the inside as “Toward a Hidden God,” it began: “Is God dead? It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.”

For the next six pages, readers were guided through thickets of theological controversy and a shifting religious landscape. Profound changes taking place in the relationship of believers to their faith were often expressed through the words of people, both eminent and ordinary, grappling with the same fundamental problems. Simone de Beauvoir, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Billy Graham and William Sloane Coffin were quoted. So were a Tel Aviv streetwalker, a Dutch charwoman and a Hollywood screenwriter.

More than 30 Time foreign correspondents were also involved in the project, conducting some 300 interviews to measure contemporary thinking about God around the world.

“Secularization, science, urbanization — all have made it comparatively easy for the modern man to ask where God is and hard for the man of faith to give a convincing answer, even to himself,” Mr. Elson wrote.

John Truscott Elson was born on April 29, 1931, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Robert T. Elson, was a newspaper reporter in Canada who later became a high-ranking editor at Time and Life and helped write two volumes of the three-volume “Time, Inc.,” the company’s official history. He died in 1987.

John Elson was educated at St. Anselm’s Priory School in Washington. He received a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame in 1953 and a master’s degree in English from Columbia in 1954.

That year, he married Rosemary Knorr. She said her husband died at home in Manhattan after being in poor health for the last two years. Mr. Elson is also survived by two children, Hilary Elson Alter of Lake Zurich, Ill., and Amanda Elson of Wyomissing, Pa.; two sisters, Elizabeth Elson of Manhattan and Brigid Elson of Toronto; a brother, R. Anthony Elson of Chevy Chase, Md.; and a grandchild.

After serving with the Air Force in Japan, Mr. Elson worked for the Canadian Press news agency before being recruited by Time and assigned to its Detroit bureau. As an editor, he started out on the lowest rung, in the milestones and miscellany departments, and rose to assistant managing editor. Along the way, he edited every section in the magazine except business. He retired in 1987 but continued to write for the magazine until 1993.

It was as religion editor that Mr. Elson made his most lasting mark. He wrote numerous cover stories on religious issues — “Is God Dead?” was the 10th — and committed the magazine to serious coverage of ideas and arguments normally encountered in more specialized journals.

“He was catholic with a capital C and a small c in his interests, deeply and widely read,” Jim Kelly, former managing editor of Time, said in an interview last week. “His ability to absorb an enormous amount of information and turn it into a readable story was remarkable.”

Unquestionably, Mr. Elson touched a nerve. Clergymen took up the challenge thrown down by the “Is God Dead?” cover line in Sunday sermons. Church publications and newspaper editorials chimed in.

“Your ugly cover is a blasphemous outrage and, appearing as it does, during Passover and Easter week, an affront to every believing Jew and Christian,” one reader wrote. Others wrote to explain their faith in fervent terms. Atheists gloated or scoffed.

Some expressed their feelings in a single word. Norine McGuire of Chicago, responding to Time’s bombshell of a question, wrote: “Sir: No.” Immediately below her letter, Time ran one from Richard L. Storatz of Notre Dame, Ind.: “Sir: Yes.”

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The Last Days of Elder Tychon the Athonite: A Blessed Repose

Elder Tychon (+ September 10/23, 1968)

By Elder Paisios the Athonite

In 1968, he [Elder Tychon] had a presentiment of his death, because he continually referred to death. Even the little bodily strength remaining had now deserted him. After the Feast of the Dormition (August 15), he took to his bed and drank only water, because he was burning inside. Despite the fact that he was in this condition, he did not want anyone to stay with him, so as not to have any interruption to his unceasing prayer.

When he had reached the last week of his life on earth, he then told me to stay by his side, because we were about to be parted, since he was leaving for true life. Even during those ten days he did not allow me to stay with him all the time, but directed me to go to the small cell next door, so that I, too, could pray after offering him just a little help. Of course, I did not have the wherewithal to relieve him properly, but since he had never given his weary body any relief, even a little help seemed a great deal to him.

One day, I had saved two lemons and made him a lemon drink. As soon as he drank it, he was refreshed and looked at me strangely saying:

"Well, well, that is good water. Where did you find it? May Christ grant you forty golden crowns."

It seemed that he had never drank lemonade, or if he had, it would have been when he was very young and had forgotten the taste of it.

He was completely bedridden by now, having lost whatever little bodily strength he had left. Since he could no longer get up to go to the Chapel of the Precious Cross, where he had celebrated with piety for so many years, he asked me to fetch the Cross from the Altar Table as a consolation. When he saw the Cross, his eyes glistened, and after kissing it with due reverence, he held it tightly in his hand with all the strength that was left in him. I had also tied a sprig of basil to the Cross and asked him:

"Does it smell nice, Elder?"

He answered:

"Paradise, my son, smells a lot better."

On one of his last days, I had gone out to get him a little water. When I opened the door of his cell afterwards, he looked at me strangely and said:

"Is that you, Saint Sergius?"

"No, Elder, it is me, Paisios."

"Just now, my son, the Mother of God, Saint Sergius and Saint Seraphim were here. Where did they go?"

I realized something was going on, so I asked him:

"What did the Mother of God say to you?"

"That we will have the Feast and then she will take me."

It was afternoon on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, September 7, 1968 and three days later, on September 10, he rested in the Lord.

On the second to last day, the Elder said to me:

"Tomorrow I will die and I want you not to sleep, so that I can bless you."

I felt really sorry for him that evening, because he tired himself out with his hand on my head all the time, for three hours, blessing me and embracing me for the last time. To express his gratitude for the little water I had given him in his last days, he said to me:

"My sweet Paisios, we will have love between us unto the ages of ages, my child. It is precious, our love. You will make your prayer here and I will make mine from heaven. I believe that God will have mercy on me, because being a monk for sixty years, my son, I was constantly saying: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me."

He also said:

"Now I will be celebrating in Paradise. You pray here and I will come and see you every year. If you come and live in this cell, it will be a joy to me, but whatever God wants, my son. I also have provisions for you, tinned food for three years," and he pointed to six small tins of sardines next to him and another four tins of squid, which somebody had brought him a long time ago and had remained since then where the visitor had put them. (With me those tins would not have lasted even a week.)

The Elder again repeated:

"You and me, we will have precious love unto the ages of ages, and I will come every year and see you." And all the while tears were streaming from his eyes.

Since I had the chance actually to live with him for a while and get to know him better, it is true that those last ten days I stayed with him were God's greatest blessing for me, because I was helped more than at any other time. What made the biggest impression on me was the warmth of his interest in the salvation of the soul! Next to his bed were letters ready for me to post to bishops he knew, so that they would commemorate him as soon as he died. He also gave me instructions to bring a bishop to read prayers over his grave, and then leave him there - not to have his relics exhumed - until the Second Coming of Christ.

In the meantime, I had let the monastery know that Father Tychon was approaching his end and Father Basil came so that we could prepare him. You could see, by now, that Father Tychon was passing away like an icon lamp when the oil in the glass has run out and there is only a little left in the wick flickering its last.

Thus, his sanctified soul departed, leaving behind his body and a great emptiness. The two of us prepared him. In the morning we let the other fathers know. They came and the priests whom he knew devoutly read the burial service. Of course, his departure left us with pain in our souls, because his very presence took away pain and imparted comfort. The elder will now visit us from heaven and will help us all the more. In any case, he himself promised he would: "I will come and see you every year."

Three whole years passed without him appearing to me, and this set me thinking: "Perhaps I am at fault over something." After three years he made his first visit to me. If by "every year" the elder meant that he would start after three years, then that is a comfort to me, because then I am not to blame in the matter.

The first time was on September 10, 1971, in the evening after midnight. While I was saying the Jesus Prayer, I suddenly saw the elder come into the cell! I leapt up and embraced his feet, which I kissed with devotion. I don't know how, but somehow he freed himself from my arms and, as he was leaving, I saw that he went into the chapel and disappeared. Naturally, when events like that happen you are at a loss. Nor can you explain them logically, which is why they are called miracles. I immediately lit the candle, because I had only the candle-lamp going when this happened, so I could note in my diary the day when the elder had appeared to me and remember it. When I saw that it was the day when the elder had fallen asleep in the Lord (September 10), I was very sad and chastised myself for not even having noticed which day it was. I am sure the good father will forgive me, because that day, from dawn to dusk, I had visitors at the hut and was so tired and befuddled that I completely forgot. Otherwise, I would have done something for my own benefit and to bring a little joy to the elder with an all-night vigil.

I don't know if he had appeared to anyone else before his first visit to me. In any case, he appeared to a monk neither of us knew, Father Andrew, who used to be at the Monastery of Karakallou. It happened at my cell in the following way:

Father Andrew had come to my cell so I could help him in something he wanted. Naturally, he didn't know me and I didn't know him. So he waited outside my cell, under the olive tree, because he thought I was away. I was inside in the workshop and couldn't be heard, because I was varnishing small icons. When I had finished, I chanted the "Holy God" and went out. As soon as he saw me, Father Andrew was astonished and related the following incident with great wonder:

"While I was waiting under the olive tree, I had closed my eyes, but still aware of my surroundings. Suddenly, I see an elder coming out of the rosemary bush and he says to me:

'Who are you waiting for?'

'Father Paisios,' I answered.

'He is over there,' he said and pointed towards the cell.

Just at the moment he was pointing, I heard you chanting the 'Holy God' and you came out. He was some Saint or other, Father Paisios, because I can recognise them. I have seen things like that before!"

Then I told him a few things about the elder and said that his grave was over by the rosemary. I had planted rosemary all around and it had grown so that the grave was no longer visible; I didn't want his relics to be trodden on, since he had given me instructions not to have him exhumed....

May the prayers of Father Tychon and all the known and unknown saints help us through the difficult times in which we live. Amen.

The grave of Elder Tychon

From the book Athonite Fathers and Athonite Matters)

See also: The Cell of the Precious Cross of Papa Tychon and Elder Paisios

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Three Dead End Approaches in Verifying God's Existence...and One Sure Way

[The article below which is posted on evolutionnews.org I thought was interesting because in the three view points presented concerning the proofs for the existence of God, two present the over-reliance on the reasoning faculties and the other does away with reason and science altogether. They are all dead end streets and all three are a denial of science. The arguments presented by Karen Armstrong are more sentimental and emotional in a pietistic/New Age sort of way that does not represent in any way the empirical viewpoint which is based on observation. Richard Dawkins claims to present a scientific argument against God's existence, but in reality he is presenting metaphysical ideas to reason away God's existence. Michael Egnor also relies too heavily on metaphysical argumentation to argue based solely on reason that "God’s existence is logically demonstrable".

From an Orthodox Christian perspective, all three try to make something that appears logically certain to be reality. Though metaphysics can lead to a certain logical certainty about something, only empiricism can verify and confirm a philosophical or emotional argument. Without empirical proof for God and an actual observation, there is ultimately no proof for God's existence to confirm what is inferred through logic.

The weakness of all religious traditions outside of Orthodox Christianity is that they do not provide the means to empirically prove the existence of God. They can only confuse logic or emotion with reality, and this leads to thousands of possible conclusions that lead nowhere. Orthodoxy provides the scientific method of verfiability through the process by which man can acquire the Holy Spirit and through glorification (union with God) actually perceive God (Matt. 5:8), and this through inner faith which illumines reason. In Orthodox theology, one definition of a Saint could be that it is someone who has verified the existence of God through empirical observation. - J.S.]

Dawkins vs. Armstrong

Michael Egnor
September 17, 2009

Recently the Wall Street Journal published dueling articles by Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins entitled Man vs. God. The editors’ choice of Dawkins to represent the atheist viewpoint is understandable enough; in the interest of balance, it seems that the WSJ editors searched hard to find a theist who mangles theism as effectively as Dawkins mangles atheism. Author Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun given to syncretism who believes that "we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence,” answered the WSJ’s "Mangler of Theology" Ad, and Dawkins had his disputant.

Armstrong:

"…Darwin may have done religion—and God—a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive. In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart."

Indeed, there are deep flaws in modern theology, but Darwin didn't reveal them; he concealed and exploited them. He exploited a deep error that had arisen out of Descartes’ rejection of Thomist metaphysics and his embrace of Mechanical Philosophy. Descartes and his successors dispensed with the hylomorphic understanding of nature—with Aristotle’s and Aquinas' understanding of substances as a composite of matter and form and the invocation of four causes (material, efficient, formal, and final) in nature—and replaced it with an anemic metaphysics of truncated material and efficient causes.

Mechanical Philosophy explains the world as a system of disparate mechanisms, mechanical particles and parts randomly bumping about and constrained only by laws of force, without intrinsic essence or teleology. It is a woefully impoverished attempt at metaphysics; it serves well Francis Bacon's dream of a model of nature that can be manipulated, but it utterly lacks the rich explanatory power of the traditional hylomorphic understanding of nature that is the foundation of Western philosophy and natural science. Mechanical Philosophy ignores teleology and organizational principles in nature; it is an impoverished description of nature as particles in motion. It has survived in spite of its inadequacy because of the remarkable success of scientific endeavors that have focused on the these limited mechanical aspects of nature. The focus on mechanical aspects of nature (material and efficient causes) obviously doesn't mean that such a focus is a complete description of nature, but it worked to advance the manipulation of nature, and over centuries we came to believe (falsely) that this truncated philosophy could be a comprehensive explanation of the natural world. There were of course ideologues who understood something else about Mechanical Philosophy: as it denies teleology in nature, it provides a wedge with which to deny the existence of God. For atheists, Mechanical Philosophy was a gift from... well, a gift.

Mechanical Philosophy is a methodology for manipulating nature; it explains nothing. Now don't get me wrong: I'm all for manipulating nature. I'm a neurosurgeon, and I manipulate nature professionally. I take out brain tumors, using very mechanical means, and during surgery inference to material and efficient causes suits me just fine. Applied science is a methodology, and for some purposes, that methodology is good enough. But the person on whom I'm operating can't be explained by the scientific method or by truncated notions of material and efficient causes. In fact, nothing in nature can really be explained without inference to all aspects of causation—material, efficient, formal, and final. And of course, hylomorphism (the metaphysical view that incorporates the four causes) necessarily leads to other conclusions, such as the existence of a Prime Mover/First Cause/Necessary Being. I'm fine with that, because I'm a Christian, and the necessary existence of a Creator seems obvious to me. I'm not an atheist, and therefore I don't begin with a bias that precludes a rigorous understanding of organizational principles and teleology in nature.

Perhaps the most obvious stumbling block of Mechanical Philosophy is its inability to explain life and the mind. Most people don't know or care about hylomorphism or Descartes or philosophical disputes that date back centuries, but they have the good sense to see that "particles in motion" is an impoverished framework for explaining biology and for explaining the immaterial aspects of the mind. They understand that it's not merely that "particles in motion" doesn't explain life and the mind; they understand that it can't explain life and the mind. Darwin's "accomplishment" was to offer a faux-explanation—chance (ateleology) and necessity (tautology)—to account for life. (Materialists are still scrambling, quite unsuccessfully, to provide a mechanical explanation for the mind). But Mechanical Philosophy has no explanatory power; it merely provides, under some circumstances, a methodology for applied science.

Essences (forms) and teleology pervade nature, and Mechanical Philosophy by its own precepts is blind to such aspects of reality. Darwin provided a faux-mechanism by which the living world acquired essences (species) and teleological attributes (specified complexity), without the invocation of real essence (form) or teleology. Darwin's error was to perpetuate an antecedent and much deeper philosophical error; he provided a faux-mechanism to explain life without reference to organizational principles and teleology in nature. Darwin concealed and exploited flaws in Mechanical Philosophy and in the anemic theology that it spawned; he didn’t reveal them.

Armstrong continues:

"But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to 'the God beyond God,' Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously 'very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry.' Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton's Mechanick and, later, William Paley's Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity."

She gets it part-right. God isn’t a "Mechanick," because His creation isn’t mechanical (brought about merely by material and efficient causes). Nature has essence and teleology that transcend "Mechanicks." The theological embrace of the Divine Mechanick was a theological catastrophe.

Armstrong observes:

"But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid. God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis…"

She’s right. But then she falls off her rhetorical cliff:

"…finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God's existence. Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace…"

Armstrong couldn't be more wrong. Darwin didn’t show that “there could be no proof for God’s existence”; nothing he wrote touched any of the classical demonstrations for the existence of God, which are logical demonstrations, not empirical hypotheses. Contra Armstrong, demonstrations of God’s existence are well within the competence of reason, because the philosophical and theological system constructed by Aristotle and Aquinas is the basis for reason. God undoubtedly provides “an inner haven of peace,” but His existence is, and as we shall see must be, demonstrable by reason.

With theists like Armstrong, theism needs no enemies. Richard Dawkins sees this. He observes:

"Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: 'Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism.'"

Dawkins is remarkably lucid:

"The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right."

Dawkins is right (my fingers cramp as I type this). Armstrong’s theology is a muddled mess; it’s little more than an apology for atheism. Her assertion that God is That which "help[s] us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace" is just functional atheism cloaked in New Age psycho-babble. The Incarnation of Armstrong's God isn't Christ; it's Oprah.

Remarkably, and to Dawkins’ (Arrrgh..) credit, Dawkins refuses to accept Armstrong’s easily assailed straw man. Dawkins seems to grasp, with perplexing clarity, the incalculable damage "theists" like Armstrong do to the case for belief in God. God is not a sentiment or a celebrity therapist. He is the Foundation of Existence. He is the Source of reason, and His existence is demonstrable by reason. If He is none of these, He doesn’t exist. Real theologians and philosophers, and countless faithful and faithless alike, understand that God’s existence is a radical claim about fact.

Rigorous philosophical arguments that demonstrate the existence of God bear no resemblance to Armstrong’s woolly syncretistic meditations. The arguments with which New Atheists must struggle are the meticulous theistic arguments of Aristotle and Augustine and Maimonides and Averroes and Aquinas and Konig and Maritain and Gilson and Moreland and Plantinga and Craig. Not Armstrong. The debate with New Atheism is a debate about the rationality of belief in God, and the basis for that rational belief is built on several millennia of profound philosophical insight. The effective theist answer to New Atheist casuistry is not to point out that we feel awe and a sense of mystery and that the object of that awe must be God; the theist answer to New Atheists is that God’s existence is logically demonstrable, and that His existence is the indispensable basis for reason, science, and morality.

Richard Dawkins points out that people who believe in God believe that He “exists in objective reality.” Armstrong’s Wall Street Journal essay is the epitome of rhetorical incompetence: she provided Dawkins with an opportunity to get something right.

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The American Ministry of Elder Joachim of St. Anne's Skete and the Miracle of His Beard

Elder Joachim, known as John Nicholaides in the world, was born in Kalamata, Greece in 1895 and raised by a pious Orthodox family. He had the blessing of having as his spiritual father the great ascetic of Kalamata, Elder Elias Panagoulakis.

Following high school, John travelled to America for studies. In America John encountered a materialistic spirit like he had never known, but thoughout his studies he became more and more firm in the faith of his fathers.

Being taught by his spiritual father in Kalamata to not seek the priesthood, since one must be called by either God or man for such an elevated office, he dared not consider such a ministry for his life. Bishop Panteleimon of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre pursuaded him and elevated him to the diaconate and priesthood amidst an enthousiastic Greek parish who proclaimed him "Axios!"

The Greek community of America found great inspiration by the imposing and saintly presence of Fr. Joachim (his monastic name), and found within his sermons a living faith. For his missionary zeal in America he was awarded the Medallion of the All-Holy Sepulchre by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Fr. Joachim greatly respected and loved the traditions of Orthodoxy and upheld them faithfully in America amidst all the temptations. This proved to be an aid in his mission in America rather than a hindrance. On at least one occasion he so impressed the non-Orthodox with his traditional Orthodox priestly dress and appearance, dressed in his rason (cassock) and with a full beard, that a crowd surrounded him in the city street and a discussion began. In English he proclaimed to the Americans that God and Orthodoxy are alive and that man can live in God. The crowd became so big that both pedestrians and traffic ceased moving, and this lasted for a considerable time.

Unfortunately Fr. Joachim's ministry in the United States, which was beginning to bear much fruit, was cut short due to his impaired health. He started to became weak before every celebration of the Divine Liturgy and had to take injections. His doctors advised that he return to Greece for some rest, to his disappointment and the grief of his flock. In 1930 he left for the Holy Mountain of Athos. Elder Joachim reposed on September 22, 1950.

HIS BEARD

(Taken from Archimandrite Cherubim's Contemporary Ascetics of Mount Athos)

We must not omit saying a few words about Fr. Joachim’s rare and exceptional beard.

When he lived in America, he observed with sorrow the modernist spirit which had begun to affect even ecclesiastical matters. He saw [Orthodox] priests who thought they could function better in society if they departed from Orthodox tradition. In that worldly atmosphere, Fr. Joachim behaved courageously. He couldn’t stand to see Orthodox priests taking off their precious rason or cutting their hair and beard. It is worth noting that before being tonsured, he made the following prayer to the Mother of God:

“Most Holy Theotokos, when I become a priest, please give me long hair and beard, so that I will look like the priests in my country.“

The Mother of God did not deny him his supplication, but fulfilled his desire abundantly. As we stated earlier, the Americans wondered at his imposing appearance and his long, full beard. When he finally journeyed to Mount Athos, an astonishing thing happened. His beard grew and lengthened all the way down to his legs – a phenomenon very rare even in his fatherland. We attributed this to the prayer he made (to look like a priest) to the Mother of God. In order to move freely and restrain the remarks of others, he was forced to carry his beard in a sack tied around his neck.

In his latter years, the fathers asked him to be photographed with his priestly vestments and beard. At first he wouldn’t do it, but after being asked a second time by the fathers, he gave in. The photograph was saved, and can be seen at the end of the text.



(Thanks to OrthodoxHistory.org, we have a clearer picture of who Archbishop Panteleimon was as well his ministry in America here and here. The latter link even gives us the clue that the Metochion of the Jerusalem Patriarchate was likely located in New York City.)

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Elder Daniel Katounakiotis and the Deluded Monk

Elder Daniel Katounakiotis (Reposed on September 21, 1929)

One of the most illumined and discerning fathers of Mount Athos in modern times was Elder Daniel, who built for the Athonite fathers a holy hut in Katounakia's desert. There, his group of monks in obedience were named after him - "The Danielites" - because of their elder's rare and charismatic personality.

He became famous as a wise spiritual guide to many cenobitic monks, hermits and lay people because of his virtue and his education, which came from experience. Inspired by the Holy Spirit he was especially able to discern whatever traps and ambushes were set by evil spirits who, in the warfare launched by Satan, come unexpectedly. These temptations that come unexpectedly include all actions of a person, which display false virtues, delusions, exaggerations, and actions without a blessing, boasting and vanity. All these things lead to satanic pride.

One of those brothers who were misled by Satan was the Konstamonitan monk Damaskinos. He thought that he could become a recluse like one of the heroic ascetics without asking his abbot's blessing. He decided not to go outside of the monastery at all. He went from his cell only to the church and to the trapeza, and completed his obedience tasks as assigned. He spent ten years of his life thinking he was a recluse, but filled with such pride!

Meanwhile, because he thought himself so virtuous, his pride was increasing along with contempt for others, criticism, and disputes and quarels with the rest of the monks. Because the problem was not being corrected, the abbot sent for the revered Elder Daniel, who came willingly because he was always ready to help.

The discerning Father Daniel called to himself the deluded Damaskinos, and with a characteristically sweet manner reasoned with him and slowly brought him to his senses and to repentance. Father Daniel used examples from the Old and New Testaments, Moses, the Israelites, and the Fathers, and said to him: "Brother, be careful from now on not to trust yourself and your own thoughts, but repeat that wise saying of Abba Dorotheos, 'Cursed be your thoughts and the knowledge you create.'"

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Counsel for Youth from Elder Daniel Katounakiotis

Blessed Elder Daniel Katounakiotis (Reposed on September 21, 1929)

To the beloved brothers Constantine and John, I pray from my soul.

With great joy, I recently received your two letters, which I read with great zeal and diligence. It is my duty that I answer and guide you accordingly. I will, however, address my response to both of you, since the two of you are God-loving brothers, and both of you have equal need of spiritual guidance and education. You are therefore obligated not only to ask, but to listen to what the Fathers have said.

It is true that I was distressed, reading in your letter that you have been negligent in your obligations and have fallen away into many childish foolishnesses. I was also overjoyed that you have come to repentance and desire that I instruct you in which road of repentance to take, in order that you may receive the mercy of Our Benevolent God, Whom you have, by your childish misbehavior, seriously grieved.

To offend God and to stray from the straight path of His commandments is not unusual; all human nature easily slips and quite often falls into sin. However, to remain in evil is a grievous mistake, and we must be very careful, for woe unto us if we are found unrepentant at the time of our departure.

Among many of the methods which the devil -- the enemy and destroyer of our souls -- uses to deceive those who correctly practice Orthodox Christianity, particularly youth, is to present another trap, by which he has been able to deceive many young men and completely lead them to perdition.

The evil one first presents this trap under a guise which appears to be good and sympathetic, making it appear as an enticement to youth, and urging them to freedom, laughter, joking and gesticulations, outspokenness, and finally to the use and misuse of alcohol, all of which do not appear disastrous to the world, but which are characterized as a means of “freedom”, by use of political and clever auspices. Thus, getting used to bad habits, youth become filled with passions and are then mocked by demons and men alike. The trap is covered with a heavy shadow and with abstract justifications, making it appear that all these are very small sins and after the passing of this age all of these will be averted; and after all, these are things only hermits and monastics in the mountains should avoid.

If only they could fathom what great slipping away is brought about by these claims, they would want to depart from these pretexts and applicable excuses as from a deadly snake. It is the aim of the baiting Satan to first instill in a youth all these small sins, and thus paralyze his senses, inciting him to joking, indecent pictures, facetiousness and drunkenness, which gives birth to all the passions.

I beg you to ask, with much supervision, a passionate friend, lewd and unrepentant, to tell you how he was driven to such abominable passions. In answer you will learn from him that the main reason and beginning of passions were a result of his first beginnings in carelessness and indifference to the above causes. Just as the carnal passions come from negligence in small things, so also in the spiritual: from childish foolishness a person comes to the level of unrepentance and despair.

It is true that Our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing the slipping away of human nature, receives with open arms the returned sinner. At the same time, however, He says: “Watch and pray, for ye know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.” He thereby motivates us to be always prepared and to have in our vessels the oil of repentance and every other virtue, so as not to be excluded from the bridal chamber like the foolish virgins. True, there exists repentance, and when a young man is pure and avoids bad company and drunkenness, but deviates slightly, then repentance quickly wipes out the young sins. When, however, through bad habits the body becomes a slave to sin, it becomes very difficult, and out of many, only a few will be able to be liberated from the [enemy’s] sophisticated snares.

Knowing these things, my beloved Constantine and John, from henceforth do not, for God’s sake, surrender yourselves to the paralyzing laxity of your senses, not to flirtations and joking, nor drunkenness and bad companions, from which the fear of God is lost and you are captivated by the demon of self-love and profligacy. But choose rather the virtuous life according to God, imitating your spiritual father in everything. He is the only one who will educate you in the state according to God and will show you forth as heavenly citizens.

In order to travel firmly the path of God you must:

1. Show great obedience, trust and acceptance towards your Superior (spiritual father), always telling him the truth.

2. Stop entirely talkativeness and joking, because, as we have said, where there is talkativeness (outspokenness) the fear of God departs.

3. Have a specific time each evening for prayer, which your Superior will assign.

4. When you are in church, be entirely concentrated on listening to the Divine Liturgy, so that the grace of the Holy Spirit will enter your heart.

5. Keep without fail all the prescribed fasts of the Church, and do not imitate the ruinous ways of today’s generation.

6. Whenever possible, avoid wine and particularly alcoholic drinks which arouse the carnal passions.

7. When you have free time, spend it by reading Patristic books.

8. Be careful of some spiritual fathers and teachers, who pretend to teach you virtues and repentance but introduce voluptuousness, by doing away with the fasts and discouraging youth from asceticism, temperance and from reading Patristic texts, and also speak against the monastic life. What harm this brings to pious young men is useless to mention, for I have seen many, who were enticed by these deceptive exhortations, become unwitting victims.

9. Have great reverence especially for Our Lady Theotokos, who will always guide you on the path to your salvation.

In closing, I reverently kiss you,

Monk Daniel Katounakiotis

Katounakia, Holy Mountain

June 19, 1902

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The Prophet Jonah in the Writings of the Church Fathers

Jonah the Prophet (Feast Day - September 21)

St. Methodius

The history of Jonah contains a great mystery. For it seems that the fish signifies Time, ‎which never stands still, but is always going on, and consumes the things which are made by long ‎and shorter intervals.

‎But Jonah, who fled from the presence of God, is himself the first man who, having ‎transgressed the law, fled from being seen naked of immortality, having lost through sin his ‎confidence in the Deity.

‎The ship in which he embarked, and which was tempest-tossed, is this brief and hard life ‎in the present time. Just as though we had turned and removed from that blessed and secure life, ‎to that which was most tempestuous and unstable, as from solid land to a ship. For what a ship is ‎to the land, that our present life is to eternal life.

‎The storm and the tempests which beat against us are the temptations of this life, ‎which in the world, as in a tempestuous sea, do not permit us to have a fair voyage free from ‎pain, in a calm sea, and one which is free from evils. ‎

The casting of Jonah from the ship into the sea, signifies the fall of the first man from ‎life to death, who received that sentence because, through having sinned, he fell from ‎righteousness: “You are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”

‎His being swallowed by the whale signifies our inevitable removal by time. For the belly ‎in which Jonah, when he was swallowed, was concealed, is the all-receiving earth, which ‎receives all things which are consumed by time.

‎As Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of the fish and was delivered up ‎sound again, all of us who have passed through the three stages of our present life on earth—the ‎beginning, middle, and end— rise again. For our present time consists of three intervals: the past, ‎the future, and the present. Thus, the Lord spent three days in the earth as a symbol to teach us ‎clearly that our resurrection shall take place after these intervals of time have been fulfilled. Our ‎resurrection shall be the beginning of the future age and the end of this. In that age, there is ‎neither past nor future, but only the present.

‎Moreover, Jonah having spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, was ‎not destroyed by his flesh being dissolved, as is the case with that natural decomposition which ‎takes place in the belly, in the case of those meats which enter into it, on account of the greater ‎heat in the liquids, that it might be shown that these bodies of ours may remain undestroyed. For ‎consider that God had images of Himself made as of gold, that is of a purer spiritual substance, ‎as the angels; and others of clay or brass, as ourselves. He united the soul which was made in ‎the image of God to that which was earthy. As, then, we must here honor all the images of a king, ‎on account of the form which is in them, so also it is incredible that we who are the images of God ‎should be altogether destroyed as being without honor. Whence also the Word descended into ‎our world, and was incarnate of our body, in order that, having fashioned it to a more divine ‎image, He might raise it incorrupt, although it had been dissolved by time. And, indeed, when we ‎trace out the dispensation which was figuratively set forth by the prophet, we shall find the whole ‎discourse visibly extending to this.‎

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

And when we examine the story of Jonah, great is the force of the resemblance. Jesus was sent to ‎preach repentance; Jonah also was sent: but whereas the one fled, not knowing what should come to pass; ‎the other came willingly, to give repentance unto salvation. Jonah was asleep in the ship, and snoring ‎amidst the stormy sea; while Jesus also slept, the sea, according to God’s providence, began to rise, to show ‎in the sequel the might of Him who slept. To the one they said, “Why are you sleeping? Arise, call ‎your God, that God may save us;” but in the other case they say unto the Master, “Lord, save us.” Then ‎they said, "Call upon thy God"; here they say, "save Thou". But the one says, "Take me, and cast me into the ‎sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you"; the other, Himself rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a ‎great calm. The one was cast into a whale’s belly: but the other of His own accord went down, where the ‎invisible whale of death is. And He went down of His own accord, that death might cast up those whom he ‎had devoured, according to that which is written, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; and from ‎the hand of death I will redeem them".

St. Jerome

For a complete commentary on the Book of Jonah by St. Jerome, see here.


St. Gregory the Theologian

Jonah was fleeing from the face of God, or rather, thought that he was fleeing: but ‎he was overtaken by the sea, and the storm, and the lot, and the whale’s belly, and the ‎three days’ entombment, the type of a greater mystery. He fled from having to announce ‎the dread and awful message to the Ninevites, and from being subsequently, if the city ‎was saved by repentance, convicted of falsehood: not that he was displeased at the ‎salvation of the wicked, but he was ashamed of being made an instrument of falsehood, ‎and exceedingly zealous for the credit of prophecy, which was in danger of being ‎destroyed in his person, since most men are unable to penetrate the depth of the Divine ‎dispensation in such cases.‎

But, as I have learned from a man skilled in these subjects, and able to grasp the ‎depth of the prophet, by means of a reasonable explanation of what seems unreasonable ‎in the history, it was not this which caused Jonah to flee, and carried him to Joppa and ‎again from Joppa to Tarshish, when he entrusted his stolen self to the sea: for it was not ‎likely that such a prophet should be ignorant of the design of God, viz., to bring about, by ‎means of the threat, the escape of the Ninevites from the threatened doom, according to ‎His great wisdom, and unsearchable judgments, and according to His ways which are ‎beyond our tracing and finding out; nor that, if he knew this he would refuse to cooperate with God in the use of the means which He designed for their salvation. Besides, ‎to imagine that Jonah hoped to hide himself at sea, and escape by his flight the great eye ‎of God, is surely utterly absurd and stupid, and unworthy of credit, not only in the case of ‎a prophet, but even in the case of any sensible man, who has only a slight perception of ‎God, Whose power is over all.

On the contrary, as my instructor said, and as I am myself convinced, Jonah ‎knew better than anyone the purpose of his message to the Ninevites, and that, in ‎planning his flight, although he changed his place, he did not escape from God. Nor is ‎this possible for any one else, either by concealing himself in the bosom of the earth, or ‎in the depths of the sea, or by soaring on wings, if there be any means of doing so, and ‎rising into the air, or by abiding in the lowest depths of hell, or by enveloping himself in a ‎thick cloud, or by any other of the many devices for ensuring escape. For God alone of all ‎things cannot be escaped from or contended with; if He wills to seize and bring them ‎under His hand, He outstrips the swift, He outwits the wise, He overthrows the strong, He ‎abases the lofty, He subdues rashness, He represses power.

Jonah then was not ignorant of the mighty hand of God, with which he threatened ‎other men, nor did he imagine that he could utterly escape the Divine power; this we are ‎not to believe: but when he saw the falling away of Israel, and perceived the passing over ‎of the grace of prophecy to the Gentiles — this was the cause of his retirement from ‎preaching and of his delay in fulfilling the command; accordingly he left the watchtower ‎of joy, for this is the meaning of Joppa in Hebrew, I mean his former dignity and ‎reputation, and flung himself into the deep of sorrow: and hence he is tempest-tossed, and ‎falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his ‎flight, and is cast into sea, and swallowed, but not destroyed, by the whale; but there he ‎calls upon God, and, marvelous as it is, on the third day he, like Christ, is delivered: but ‎my treatment of this topic must stand over, and shall shortly, if God permit, be more ‎deliberately worked out....‎

St. John Chrysostom

For Jonah was a servant, but I am the Master; and he came forth from the great fish, but I rose from death. He proclaimed destruction, but I am come preaching the good tidings of the kingdom. The Ninevites indeed believed without a sign, but I have exhibited many signs. They heard nothing more than those words, but I have made it impossible to deny the truth. The Ninevites came to be ministered to, but I, the very Master and Lord of all, have come not threatening, not demanding an account, but bringing pardon. They were barbarians, but these - the faithful - have conversed with unnumbered prophets. And of Jonah nothing had been prophesied in advance, but of me everything was foretold, and all the facts have agreed with their words. And Jonah indeed, when he was to go forth, instead ran away that he might not be ridiculed. But I, knowing that I am both to be crucified and mocked, have come nonetheless. While Jonah did not endure so much as to be reproached for those who were saved, I underwent even death, and that the most shameful death, and after this I sent others again. And Jonah was a strange sort of person and an alien to the Ninevites, and unknown; but I a kinsman after the flesh and of the same forefathers.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich

HYMN OF PRAISE: The Holy Prophet Jonah

Nineveh! Nineveh resounds with sin,
And God sends Jonah to heal Nineveh.
Jonah does not want to, and flees from God!
Oh, where will you go, Jonah, to hide from the Most High?
Jonah sleeps; he sleeps and the tempest rises.
God moves slowly, but He will find you in time.
Hurled into the waves, swallowed by the whale,
"From whom did I flee?'' Jonah asks himself.
"I fled from Him, from Whom one cannot hide!''
God chastises Jonah and yet delivers him,
And, by His providence, glorifies him forever.
Jonah, you do not want to speak to the Ninevites,
But through your punishment you will prophesy the immortal Christ.
You do not want to by words? Then you must, by deeds,
Prophesy Christ and the death and resurrection of the body!
Your deeds, Jonah, will not fade away,
And Christ the Lord will speak of you to men,
That, through you, the mercy of the Living God might be revealed,
By which you will be saved, as well as Nineveh.
Through you, the power of repentance shall be revealed-
The power of repentance and God's forgiveness.
You pitied the gourd, and God pitied men.
Help us to repent, O God, and save us from condemnation.

Apolytikion in the Third Tone
To the Ninevites, thou wast a trumpet, blaring fearful threats of Heaven's judgments, at the which they repented with all their hearts; and from the sea-monster's belly didst thou foreshow the Lord's divine Resurrection to all the world. Hence, entreat Him to bring out of corruption all of us, who honour thee, O Jonas, as a friend of God.

Kontakion in the Third Tone
Thou didst pass three days and nights within the sea-monster's entrails, showing forth the Lord's descent into the belly of Hades; for when He had freely suffered His saving Passion, He arose out of the sepulchre on the third day. Hence, we honour thee, O Prophet, who wast deemed worthy to be a figure of Christ.

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Abkhazian Orthodox Seek Independence from Georgia

Territorial Row between Russian, Abkhazian and Georgian Orthodox

By Ecumenical News International
21 Sept. 2009

The leader of Orthodox Christians in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia, has declared that his diocese is breaking with the Patriarchate of Georgia in defiance of the Moscow Patriarchate - writes Sophia Kishkovsky.

The announcement of last week is the latest echo of conflict in the volatile Caucasus region since Russia's war with Georgia over South Ossetia in August 2008. That followed a string of armed conflicts leading back to the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The decision was made at a meeting of diocesan clergy in Sukhumi, capital of Abkhazia.

"Seventeen years ago Georgia committed, not only a military and political, but also spiritual aggression against Abkhazia," said the Rev Vissarion Apliaa, who has been the de facto leader of the Orthodox church in Abkhazia since the Georgian bishop could not safely attend meetings.

He was speaking on Abkhazian television on 16 September, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. "Abkhazia in no way can be an integral part of Georgia, and the Sukhum-Abkhazian Diocese that was within the Georgian Catholicosate ceased to exist," said Apliaa.

He stated that the church would be known as the Abkhazian Orthodox Church, and he told the RIA Novosti news agency he would seek the assistance of the Moscow Patriachate. But in statements on 16 September, officials of the Moscow Patriarchate said the Russian church supports the canonical borders of the Georgian church.

The Rev Nikolai Balashov, deputy chairperson of the Moscow Patriarchate's external church relations department, told RIA Novosti the Russsian Orthodox Church had yet to receive official information on the issue.

"At the same time, we remain convinced that the complex question of the pastoral care of Orthodox believers in Abkhazia must be resolved in a process of fraternal consultations between representatives of the Russian and Georgian Orthodox churches," said Balashov.

After President Dmitri Medvedev announced in August that Russia was recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Moscow Patriarchate stressed that canonical borders cannot be dictated by changes in political borders.

To date only Nicaragua and Venezuela have recognised the political independence of Georgia's breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Georgian Orthodox Church said on 16 September that the world's canonical Orthodox churches would not recognise the independence of the Abkhazian church.

Patriarch Ilia of the Georgian Orthodox Church told reporters in Tbilisi that the Abkhazian decision could not be taken seriously. "We should not take it into consideration," he said, according to the GeoHotNews agency. "Nobody has a right to declare independence without the Mother Church."

During the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, both the late Patriarch Aleksei II and Patriarch Ilia lamented the bloodshed and called for peace, stressing a common Orthodox Christian heritage. Patriarch Kirill I, Aleksei's successor, has carried on the line of reconciliation.

Metropolitan Nikoloz said, "It is impossible to divide our peoples, it is impossible to divide our churches."

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New Athos Monastery in Abkhazia

In 1874 Russian monks from the overcrowded Rossikon (Saint Panteleimon) Monastery on Mount Athos arrived to the Caucasus in order to find a place for possible resettlement. They feared that the Ottoman Empire would oust the Russians from Athos after the outbreak of the impending Russo-Turkish War. They selected Psyrtskha, and the Neo-Byzantine New Athos Monastery, dedicated to St. Simon the Canaanite, and was constructed there in the 1880's with funds provided by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Eventually Russian monks were permitted to stay in the "old" Athos, and the New Athos monastery had much less occupancy than anticipated.

In 1924, during the Soviet persecution of religion, the monastery was closed. It was later used as a storage facility, tourist base, hospital and museum. Its return to the Orthodox Church began in 1994, after the end of the war. The scenic setting of the New Athos monastery by the sea has made it a popular destination with Russian tourists visiting Abkhazia.

This grandiose and majestic construction took 15 years to be erected and today is one of the most famous shrines of Orthodox Christianity. The monastery is located 75 meters above sea level at the foot of Mount Iberia near the ancient St. Simon Canaanite Church. From the distance the monastery looks like a fairy tale city from Russian folklore, with majestic domes with crosses and golden cupolas of churches. Four monastic buildings (with cells and household premises) form a closed square inside in which there is a huge territory.

The big churches are the three-domed Church of the Ascension, Andrew the First-Called Church and Athos Saints Church. Next to them there is a wide multi-colored road leading to the high arched gate. In the centre of the western building stands the 50 m bell tower with a clock. Under the bell tower there is the monastic refectory which frescos painted walls just like in the small churches. But the most grandiose construction of the monastery is St. Panteleimon Cathedral. It is impressive not only by its size: length – 53.3 m, width – 33.7 m, but also the beauty and architecture of the interior. The cathedral is crowned with five domes. The central one is 40 m high. The interior walls were richly painted in 1911-1914. The frescos vary in the combination of blue, brown and golden tones. The cathedral is the largest cult structure of Abkhazia. More than three thousand people can be present there simultaneously.

Saint Simon the Canaanite Church


Simon the Canaanite – one of Jesus Christ's Apostles – came with the first Christian missions there in the first century AD. According to the tradition the angry local residents killed the righteous person with stones where New Athos Monastery is located. Long before the monks came there from Mount Athos a temple was built on the site of Simon's burial. This temple is one of the oldest active ones in New Athos. It stands on the left bank of the Psyrtskhi River. The temple over the tomb of the Apostle was constructed during the period from the 11th to 13th centuries. The last reconstruction was completed in 1882. Later it became the Tskhum Cathedral.

The church building also served the place of burial for clergymen of the Tskhum diocese. One of the stones in the altar wall has the inscription in Greek about the burial procedure related to the Greek period of Anakopia. The church was richly decorated by wall paintings. Today you can see the fragments of the restored ancient frescos. Every year thousands of pilgrims gather in the church to honor the memory of St. Simon the Canaanite on May 23rd.

Saint Simon the Canaanite Cave

Next to St. Simon the Canaanite Church there is a cave where he lived and prayed during his last years. The cave is a natural recession in the rock (Psyrtskhi Gorge). The cave walls are decorated with ancient mosaics, crosses, inscriptions, icons, lamps. In 1884 the cave was sanctified. Since then the icons of St. Andrew the First-Called and St. Simon the Canaanite has been kept there. The believers leave notes there with requests for health and peace of souls.

The cave is located not far from the St. Simon's place of martyrdom. One of the stones there bears his footprint.


This is a news report from 2008 which depicts New Athos Monastery. Monks from the New Athos Monastery were performing services for both Georgians and Abkhazians in the hope of uniting them through their common Faith.

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A LETTER OF CONSOLATION TO THE BEREAVED

Rachel weeping for her children

A LETTER OF CONSOLATION TO THE BEREAVED

“The Jews of the Old Testament wept for Jacob and for Moses for forty days. Today, however, during the funeral of the faithful, the Church raises hymns and prayers and psalms. We glorify and thank God, because ‘He crowned the departing,’ because ‘He relieved the pains,’ because ‘He expelled the fear,’ and has the deceased believer near Him. This is why the hymns and psalms reveal that in the event of death there is pleasure and joy following the glorious Resurrection of the Savior Jesus Christ. For the psalms and hymns are symbols of joy. According to the Apostolic word: ‘Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises’ (James 5:13). This is why we sing psalms over the dead—psalms which move us to have courage and not to despair over the death of our brother.” -St. John Chrysostom


My Beloved,

Today, a member of your family has departed from this transitory and imperfect world. Your loved one was with you for many years. You had unforgettable days together, days of joy and days of sorrow. You would have wanted to be together longer, but even if you had been together for a thousand years, it would not have been long enough. Time passes quickly and death comes, it cannot be avoided. Who lives and will not face death? So death came and your beloved one has been taken from your loving embrace. There is a new grave in your family’s burial ground and you now mourn at the graveside. Your beloved one no longer exists.

What did I say? No longer exists? NO! That is not true! Your beloved one whose funeral was conducted, and who was buried today with the prayers of the Church, does indeed exist! You ask, how? An ancient Greek philosopher – indeed the greatest philosopher of all - Socrates, spoke with his followers shortly before his death. He told them not to grieve over his forthcoming death and not to be overly concerned with where and how they would bury him, because that which will be buried is not Socrates, but only his body. “Socrates,” he told them, “is a spirit which will never die. At the time of death the immortal soul will depart, just as the imprisoned bird flies away when the door to the cage opens. The Socrates over whom you would weep will, at that time, be experiencing great joy. He will have left this world of injustice and will have gone to another world where righteousness prevails. The justice which has been denied him here on earth, he will find in the heavens…”

These were the words spoken by the philosopher moments before he died. Socrates, even though he lived four hundred years before Christ, believed in the immortality of the soul. He faced death with courage and offered comfort to his followers.

And we who live after Christ, if we do not believe that the soul is immortal and that there is another life beyond the grave, we are totally self-condemned by our faithlessness. For it wasn’t a philosopher, who being human can be in error, but God Himself who become man – our Lord Jesus Christ the God-Man, the Fountain of Truth, the essence of Truth itself – who assured us concerning these things. He preached in the most explicit manner that we have an immortal soul. “For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? For what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37). And not only did Christ preach immortality of the soul, he verified this fundamental truth with miracles, by raising the dead. He resurrected the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow from Nain, and Lazarus. The resurrection of Lazarus is described in detail in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. As soon as you return home from the funeral of your dearly departed, open your Gospel and study this chapter. Read it, not only once but several times. There are no more comforting words than those in the Gospel. What happened to Lazarus will happen to everyone. The Lord who raised Lazarus will resurrect all the dead. The Lord’s command, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ – this almighty command which caused his soul to return to the dead body and Lazarus to emerge from his tomb – this same command will be heard by all who have died. In every tomb the voice will be heard, ‘O dead, come out of your tombs!’ Their souls will return and everyone will appear again, not with the bodies they have today, bodies subject to sickness, death and decay, but with bodies that are incorrupt. We are not capable of imagining what we will be like when we raise from the dead.

But the greatest proof that we will be resurrected and that we who believe and live in accordance with the will of God will not simply be resurrected, but will live a life of unimaginable beauty and gladness – the greatest proof of the resurrection of the dead and the life to come is the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes! Let the faithless materialistic ones say what they will. It is true, it is an historic event, the greatest even in the history of the world, that Christ conquered death. He rose from the dead! And as the greatest of the Apostles proclaimed, “Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Corinthians 15:20). And just as Christ arose, so shall all the dead arise. This is our faith, the very foundation of our faith.

When people believe, death is not a calamity that plunges them into an extended sadness, melancholy or despair. Believers weep, certainly, at the death of a loved one, but it is not the same as the wailing of pagans, idolaters and disbelievers. The death of a Christian who had lived and witnessed Christ used to be celebrated like a birthday. For it was recognized that we are born twice – once when we emerge from the darkness of our mother’s womb to face the sweet light of the sun, and again when we leave the darkness of the present life, which is like a mother’s womb, to face the blessed light of eternity. The person who emerges from the mother’s womb is not harmed, for a new life is gained, far better than that within the womb.

Similarly, the person who by death leaves this world is not harmed, for a new life is gained, infinitely superior to the present one. According to Christian belief, death is gain, not a loss or calamity (Philippians 1:21). That is what the Christians of the first centuries believed, when the death of a believer was celebrated as a birthday. They sang hymns of the Resurrection and said to the ‘traveler,’ “Blessed is the way on which you go today, for a place of rest has been prepared for you.” But where is the faith today? Alas, today, faithlessness reigns. Today the people – most people - do not believe in the Lord who was crucified and raised for us, who ascended into heaven, and who will come again to judge the living and the dead. They do not believe in the immortality of the soul. They live without faith, and they die without faith. And so death terrorizes them. They weep and they wail over relatives who have died as though they no longer exist. Then, when someone speaks to them about the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead and the life to come, they laugh and mock his seriousness. In order to believe, they say they want proofs, they want miracles.

They want miracles and proofs! Well, miracles and proofs concerning the resurrection exist not only in Holy Scripture, but also in another book written by our All-wise and Almighty God. This book was written so that it can be read by, and so that it can provide lessons to, even the most unschooled. And this book is nature. In this book we find beautiful images of the Resurrection.

Consider the sun. Someone seeing the sun set for the first time, seeing it disappear over the horizon, seeing the darkness of night spread across the earth, would lament and cry: ‘The sun has died!’ Assurances that the sun will rise again would not be believed. But even though the sun appears to be extinguished every evening, it isn’t so. It is rising in another part of the world and it is continuing to spread its sweet light. The rising and the setting of the sun are a single icon of life and death. As the poet says, ‘What we see as the setting of the sun has the sweetness of dawn ahead; and instead of night without sunrise, the day dawns which will have no sunset.’

Consider another image from the book of nature. When it is wintertime the trees are bare, the mountains are covered with snow, and the birds have gone far away. Nature seems to be dead. But spring comes, the snows melt, trees blossom, seeds planted in the mud come to life, they sprout, fields turn green, gardens become fragrant and the nightingales sing. Spring! God’s joy! Resurrection! God, who provides the energy that enables a dead nature to emerge in new life at springtime, God, the All-wise and powerful, will use His unlimited power to resurrect all dead bodies to a new life, as He has assured us. “The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall rise, and those on earth shall be joyous,” said the Prophet Isaiah (26:19). Yes, the dead will rise, ‘For with God nothing is impossible’ (Luke 1:37). Why then do you not believe? Do you need another example? Are you a father or a mother? When you see your beloved child fall asleep, in bed or in your arms, you don’t start crying, you don’t say your child is dead. You know that in a few hours the child will awaken, and then be more lively and happier than before falling asleep. Similarly, the person over whom you are mourning is not dead, only sleeping. Yes, sleeping. Because according to the teaching of Scripture, death is sleep, a prolonged sleep which will eventually end, and then the bodies of the dead will reawaken as they are reunited with their immortal souls. Saint Paul refers to the dead as ‘Those who have fallen asleep,’ and tells us that Christians must not grieve at the death of their beloved ones as unbelievers and idolaters. Listen to his words: “I do not want you to be ignorant brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (I Thessalonians 4:13-14). Saint Cosmas Aitolos, consoling those grieving over the deaths of their loved ones, said, “Do we not clearly see the resurrection? When we fall asleep, are we not like the dead? What is sleep, but a small death; and what is death, but a great sleep. And as the grain of wheat which falls to the ground will not grow if there is no rain to decay it and make it pulpy, so we who die and are buried would not receive the water of eternal life and resurrection if Christ had not first been buried in his tomb. Don’t you clearly see how God raises the plants from the soil each year?”

In accordance with what has been written above, in accordance with the words of the true philosophy, in accordance with the examples and images of nature and above all, in accordance with the testimony of Holy Scripture and the unchallengeable Logos of God in which we must have absolute confidence, your love one has not disappeared, is not lost, has not become zero. Don’t say that! It is blasphemy. And don’t mourn disconsolately. That is a sin. We ask you, do you mourn and cry without comfort when a relative leaves for Australia or America? Of course not. You know that there your relative will have a happier life and you hope to meet again. Similarly, your love one, whom death has today taken from your side, lives, although in another world. Never doubt that this other world exists! As surely as Australia and America exist, you can be certain, you can be ever more certain, that there is other life, eternal life.

If a voice could be raised from that other world where your beloved now is, what would you hear? “My dear ones, don’t weep for me. I live. I am here in another world which is beyond your imagination. It is as terrible place only for those who did not believe during their life on earth, who did not live according to the will of God. For those who believed in Christ and lived in accordance with His Gospel it is a world far more beautiful than you can envision. Its beauty is beyond description. And so please hear me. Do not listen to the unbelievers; close your ears to their words. There is Paradise. There is eternal life. Believe in Jesus Christ, study His Gospel, carry out His holy commandments, repent and weep only for your sins, for in Hades there is no repentance.”

Death does not break the connection between those living on earth with those who have passed on to the other world. Preserve these bonds. Commemorate those who have gone to the world of eternity. Maintain the sacred memorial services in which they are remembered. And do not celebrate them idolatrously, but as Christians, as we have advised you. Above all, remember that the greatest offering that you can make for the souls of those who have fallen asleep is your almsgiving, your charity to the poor and the suffering.

Dear friends, as your bishop, I share your sorrow on the death of your beloved one. I would have preferred to visit you in your home, to personally express my condolences, and try to comfort you with the immortal teaching of the Gospel, but since this is not manageable, I am sending you this letter through your parish priest. I ask that you neither ignore it, nor destroy it. Please read it attentively and keep it as a remembrance, bound with the memory of your beloved, who this day has departed for Heaven. ‘A blessed reunion,’ shouts the soul of your beloved from beyond, where it has gone from the present vain life. ‘Let us all have a blessed reunion, my brothers and sisters, in eternity.’

Through the intercessions of our most holy Theotokos and all the Saints who have pleased God throughout the centuries, may the end of our lives be Christian, without suffering, unashamed, and may we have a good account to present of ourselves at the awesome judgment seat of our Lord Jesus, when he comes to judge the living and the dead.

+ BISHOP AUGOUSTINOS
Metropolitan of Florina, Greece

* This letter is also reproduced as a pamphlet and available for sale through Mystagogy Bookstore (#30).

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Great Martyr Eustathios Plakidas With His Wife and Children

Saint Eustathios and his family (Feast Day - September 20)

It is significant that this feast is celebrated on the day before the Apodosis of the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, since it was the Cross of Christ, in a miraculous manner, which inspired the conversion of the great early 2nd century martyr St. Eustathios from paganism. This is reflected in the hymn of St. Nikolai Velimirovich which I posted toward the end. May we all have their prayers and blessings.

The Holy Great Martyr Eustathios was named Plakidas before his Baptism. He was a military commander under the emperors Titus (79-81) and Trajan (98-117). Even before he came to know Christ, Plakidas performed acts of charity, helping the poor and destitute. Therefore, the Lord did not leave the virtuous pagan to remain in the darkness of idolatry.

Once while hunting in a forest, he saw a stag which would stop now and then to look him right in the eye. Plakidas pursued it on horseback, but could not catch up. The stag leaped over a chasm and stood on the other side facing him. Plakidas suddenly saw a radiant Cross between its antlers. In surprise the military commander heard a voice coming from the Cross saying, "Why do you pursue Me, Plakidas?"

"Who are You, Master?" asked Plakidas. The voice replied, "I am Jesus Christ, whom you do not know, yet you honor Me by your good deeds. I have appeared here on this creature for your sake, to capture you in the net of My love for mankind. It is not fitting that one as righteous as you should worship idols and not know the truth. It was to save mankind that I came into the world."

Plakidas cried out, "Lord, I believe that You are the God of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things. Master, teach me what I should do." Again the Lord replied, "Go to the bishop of your country and receive baptism from him, and he will instruct you."

Plakidas returned home and joyfully recounted everything to his wife Tatiana. She in turn told him how the evening before, in a mysterious dream, she had been told, "Tomorrow you, your husband and your sons shall come to Me and know that I am the true God." The spouses then proceeded to do as they had been bidden.

They hastened to the Christian bishop, who baptized all their family, and communed them with the Holy Mysteries. Plakidas was renamed Eustathios, his wife was called Theopiste, and their children, Agapios and Theopistos.

On the following day, St Eustathios set out to the place of his miraculous conversion and in fervent prayer he offered up thanks to the Lord for having called him onto the path of salvation.

Again St. Eustathios received a miraculous revelation. The Lord Himself foretold his impending tribulations: "Eustathios, you shall suffer many misfortunes, as did Job, but in the end you will conquer the devil."

Soon St. Eustathios was plunged into misfortune: all his servants died of the plague and his cattle perished. Brought to ruin, but not despairing in spirit, St. Eustathios and his family secretly abandoned their home, to live unknown, humble and in poverty.

They went to Egypt to board a ship sailing for Jerusalem. During the voyage a new woe beset the saint. The ship owner, enchanted by Theopiste's beauty, cruelly set Eustathios and his children ashore, keeping the wife for himself.

In great sorrow the saint continued on his way, and new woe beset him. Coming to a tempestuous river, he went to carry his two sons across in turn. When he had brought one across, the other was seized by a lion and carried off into the wilderness. As he turned back towards the other, a wolf dragged that child into the forest.

Having lost everything, St. Eustathios wept bitterly, but he realized that Divine Providence had sent him these misfortunes to test his endurance and devotion to God. In his inconsolable grief, St. Eustathios went on farther, prepared for new tribulations.

In the village of Badessos he found work and spent five years in unremitting toil. St. Eustathios did not know then that through the mercy of God, shepherds and farmers had saved his sons, and they lived right near him. He also did not know that the impudent shipowner had been struck down with a terrible disease and died, leaving St. Theopiste untouched. She lived in peace and freedom at the place where the ship landed.

During this time it had become difficult for the emperor Trajan to raise an army for Rome to deal with a rebellion, for the soldiers would not go into battle without their commander Plakidas. They advised Trajan to send men out to all the cities to look for him.

Antiochus and Acacius, friends of Plakidas, sought him in various places. Finally, they arrived in the village where St. Eustathios lived. The soldiers found Eustathios, but they did not recognize him and they began to tell him of the one whom they sought, asking his help and promising a large reward. St. Eustathios, immediately recognized his friends, but did not reveal his identity to them.

He borrowed money from one of his friends and fed the visitors. As they looked at him, the travellers noted that he resembled their former commander. When they saw a scar on his shoulder from a deep sword-wound, they realized that it was their friend there before them. They embraced him with tears and told him why they were seeking him.

St. Eustathios returned to Rome with them and again became a general. Many new recruits were drafted into the army from all over the empire. He did not know that two young soldiers who served him, and whom he loved for their skill and daring, were actually his own sons. They did not know that they were serving under the command of their own father, nor that they were brothers by birth.

While on campaign, the army led by Eustathios halted at a certain settlement. The soldier-brothers were talking in their tent. The elder one spoke about his life, how he had lost his mother and brother, and how in a terrifying way he had been parted from his father. The younger brother then realized that before him was his very own brother, and told him how he had been rescued from the wolf.

A woman overheard the soldiers' conversation, since their tent was pitched right next to her house, and this woman realized that these were her sons. Still not identifying herself to them, but not wanting to be separated from them, she went to their commander, St. Eustathios, to ask him to take her to Rome with him. She said she had been a prisoner, and wanted to go home. Then she came to recognize the commander as her husband, and with tears she told him about herself and about the two soldiers who were actually their sons. Thus, through the great mercy of the Lord, the whole family was happily reunited.

Soon thereafter the rebellion was crushed, and St. Eustathios returned to Rome with honor and glory. The emperor Trajan had since died, and his successor Hadrian (117-138) wanted to celebrate the event of victory with a solemn offering of sacrifice to the gods. To the astonishment of everyone, St. Eustathios did not show up at the pagan temple. By order of the emperor they searched frantically for him.

"Why don't you want to worship the gods?" the emperor inquired. "You, above all others, ought to offer thanks to them. They not only preserved you in war and granted you victory, but also they helped you find your wife and children." St. Eustathios replied: "I am a Christian and I glorify and give thanks to Him, and I offer sacrifice to Him. I owe my life to Him. I do not know or believe in any other god than Him."

In a rage, the emperor ordered him to take off his military belt and brought him and his family before him. They did not succeed in persuading the steadfast confessors of Christ to offer sacrifice to idols. The whole family of St. Eustathios was sentenced to be torn apart by wild beasts, but the beasts would not touch the holy martyrs.

Then the cruel emperor gave orders to throw them all alive into a red-hot brass bull, and St. Eustathios, his wife Theopiste, and their sons Agapios and Theopistos endured a martyr's death. Before being placed in the bull, St. Eustathios prayed, "Grant, O Lord, Thy grace to our relics, and grant to those who call upon us a place in Thy Kingdom. Though they call upon us when they are in danger on a river or on the sea, we entreat Thee to come to their aid."

Three days later, they opened the brass bull, and the bodies of the holy martyrs were found unscathed. Not one hair on their heads was singed, and their faces shone with an unearthly beauty. Many seeing this miracle came to believe in Christ. Christians then buried the bodies of the Saints.


HYMN OF PRAISE: The Holy Great-Martyr Eustathios

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Eustathios, a wonder among generals,
Gave his life for the Living Lord.
Authority and glory and royal honor
He discarded as refuse and chaff,
For the sake of Christ, the Immortal King,
For the sake of true eternal life.
When the voice of Jesus greeted him,
He was infused with ardent love
For Christ the All-glorious God,
The All-glorious Lover of Mankind.
That voice remained deep in his soul,
And the world could not drown it out;
And the radiant Cross which the general saw,
Never left his soul.
The Cross gave him wondrous fearlessness.
The Cross saved him from the enemy's power,
And saved his spouse, faithful as a rock,
And his children, heroic and virtuous.
Eustathios gave his body over to the fire,
And his blessed spirit to the Lord.
O Eustathios, glorious martyr,
Invincible soldier of Christ,
Help and strengthen the Church of God
That the malicious demon not slander it.
Let the Church shine as a star,
And glorify her Sun, Christ.

(To listen to the hymns of the Service for the feast of St. Eustathios, a recording was done by Mylopotamos, which is the largest dependency on Mount Athos of the Great Lavra Monastery that is dedicated to St. Eustathios. Listen here for the hymns. For more on Mylopotamos, see here and here. The text of the Service in Greek is here.)

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
Thy Martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest for Thee received as the prize the crowns of incorruption and life from Thee, our immortal God. For since they possessed Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and wholly destroyed the demons' strengthless presumption. O Christ God, by their prayers, save our souls, since Thou art merciful.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
O blest one, since thou didst emulate Christ's sufferings and drankest His cup with eagerness, thou didst become a partaker and joint-heir of His glory, O wise Eustathios; and since He is God of all things, He gave thee divine power from Heaven's heights.

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