St. Peter the Merciful: By Giving to the Poor, He Gave to Christ

He who gives to the poor, gives to Christ. This is the meaning of the Gospel teaching, and it has been confirmed in the experience of the saints.

Upon his repentance, Peter the Merciful gave alms to the poor wherever the opportunity presented itself. On one occasion Peter encountered a shipwrecked man who had barely managed to save his naked body from the wreck. The man begged him for some clothing. Peter removed his costly cloak and clothed the naked man with it. Shortly afterward, Peter saw his cloak in the shop of a merchant, who had it displayed for sale. Peter was very saddened that the shipwrecked man had sold his cloak instead of using it for himself. Peter thought: "I am not worthy; the Lord does not accept my alms."

But later, the Lord appeared to him in a dream. He appeared as a handsome man, brighter than the sun, with a cross on His head, wearing Peter's cloak. "Peter, why art thou sad?" asked the Lord. "My Lord, why would I not be sad, when I see that which I gave to the poor being sold at the market?" Then the Lord asked him: "Dost thou recognize this garment on Me?" Peter replied: "I recognize it, Lord; that is my garment with which I clothed the naked man." Then the Lord spoke to him again: "Therefore do not be sad; thou gavest it to the poor man, and I received it, and I praise thy deed."

A Reflection by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Read also: Saint Peter the Merciful - A Prototype of Ebenezer Scrooge

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Saint Kosmas the Ascetic of Zographou Monastery

St. Kosmas of Zographou (Feast Day - September 22)

Saint Kosmas, Hermit of Zographou, was a Bulgarian. In his youth he avoided entering into marriage, and secretly left his parents' home for Mount Athos. Then as he was on his way to the Holy Mountain, the devil tried to shake the yearning of the youth, vexing him with a vision of the infinite abyss of the sea surrounding the Holy Mountain. The fervent prayer of the youth dispelled the demonic temptation.

On Athos, St Kosmas was accepted in the Zographou Monastery. There he was a novice for a long time, and then he was tonsured, and was appointed ecclesiarch. St Kosmas received a special mercy to see the heavenly abbess of Mount Athos Herself, Who on the Feast of the Annunciation at the Vatopaidi Monastery deigned to reveal to him a glimpse of Her care for Her earthly appanage. He saw a Woman of royal majesty and grandeur, Who attended to both in church for services and in the trapeza. All the monks served and obeyed Her.

Soon the saint was ordained as deacon, and then as presbyter, which inspired him to new exploits. Zealous for salvation, the saint through fervent prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos was granted a particular sign of Her special favor. He heard the voice of the Mother of God issuing from Her holy icon and asking Her Son, "How will Kosmas be saved?" The Lord answered, "Let him withdraw from the monastery into silence." After obtaining the blessing of the Superior, St Kosmas withdrew into the wilderness, and there in a cave cut into a cliff, began his new deed of silent seclusion. God did not forsake the faithful man of prayer, for the saint was granted the gift of clairvoyance.

Just as at the start of his ascetic life, the Enemy of the race of mankind again tried to dissuade the saint from his intended path, and so the final days before the righteous one's death were also a grievous trial for him.

Not long before the death of God's chosen one, he was granted a vision of Christ Himself, Who informed the saint that before his soul would depart to the heavenly Kingdom, Satan himself with his hosts would beat and gnash at him. Prepared for the suffering by this divine solace, the saint bravely underwent the terrible demonic assaults, and on the third day after furious beatings, he received the All-Pure Mysteries. With words of praise on his lips, he peacefully departed to the Lord.

God, "Who glorifies those who glorify Him," also glorified St Kosmas miraculously at his death. At the time of the saint's burial a multitude of beasts and birds flocked to his cave, as though sensing the common loss of the Holy Mountain. When they placed his body in the grave and began to cover it with ground, each of the speechless creatures let out a mournful cry, bestowing final respect to the saint of God.

Forty days later, when the brethren opened the saint's tomb after the all-night Vigil (as was customary), in order to transfer them to the monastery with honor, they were not to be found. The Lord hid them in a miraculous manner. This occurred in the year 1323.

Apolytikion in the First Tone
In the cave where you have settled, you have been imitating by deeds He Who was born in a Cave, O Kosmas, most blessed one. You have endured even to the very death the demonic struggles and have, through grace, become a model. Your body immortal lasts for ever in the secret treasure until the Second Judgement and the Resurrection. Glory to Him Who had granted you firm strength, glory to Him Who had exalted you, glory to Him Who had made you famous in the Heavenly Kingdom.

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Saint Peter the Merciful - A Prototype of Ebenezer Scrooge

St. Peter the Merciful (Feast Day - September 22)

When a man clearly senses God's mercy toward him, he is startled, as from a dull and senseless dream, and becomes ashamed of his long blindness to God's unceasing compassion.

In the time of Emperor Justinian (527-565), the chief imperial tax collector in Africa was a certain Peter, a very wealthy but very hard and merciless man. The beggars grumbled among themselves, that not one of them had ever received alms from Peter. Then, one of them bet that he would succeed in getting alms from Peter. He persistently begged alms of the miser until Peter, in a rage, hit him with a loaf of bread, since he had nothing else close at hand. Joyfully the beggar took the bread and fled.

Immediately after this Peter became seriously ill and had this vision: He was being interrogated by demons in the other world. There was a scale, and on one side of it, the demons heaped Peter's sins, making that side extremely heavy. On the other side - which was empty - angels stood, sorrowing that they had not even one good deed in Peter's life to help balance the scale. One of them said: "We have nothing to place on the scale except one loaf of bread, with which he struck a beggar the day before yesterday." The angels placed this one loaf of bread on the empty side of the scale, and that loaf of bread outweighed the other side of the scale, laden with all of Peter's sins.

When the vision was over Peter said to himself: "Indeed, this was not an apparition but the living truth, for I saw all my sins from my youth. And when I can be helped so much by one loaf of bread that I threw at a beggar, how much help would I receive from many deeds of almsgiving, performed from the heart and with humility?"

And from that time, Peter became the most compassionate man in his town. He distributed all of his possessions to the poor, and when he had finished distributing his possessions, he sold himself into slavery for thirty gold pieces and distributed even his own price as a slave to the poor as alms in the name of Christ. He was, thereafter, called Peter the Merciful.

The account above was written by St. Nikolai Velimirovich. The Life of St Peter was passed along by St John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria (November 12), who in turn knew it from a man personally acquainted with Saint Peter.

Read also: St. Peter the Merciful: By Giving to the Poor, He Gave to Christ

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Science and Prejudice in Darwin’s Shadow

Christopher Booker
September 19th, 2010
Deccan Chronicle

Three months ago I spent a fascinating few days in a villa opposite Cap Ferrat, France, taking part in a seminar with a dozen very bright scientists, some world authorities in their field. Although most had never met before, they had two things in common. Each had come to question one of the most universally accepted scientific orthodoxies of our age: the Darwinian belief that life on earth evolved simply through the changes brought about by an infinite series of minute variations.

The other was that, on arriving at these conclusions, they had come up against a wall of hostility from the scientific establishment. Even to raise such questions was just not permissible. One had been fired as editor of a major scientific journal because he dared publish a paper sceptical of Darwin’s theory. Another had not yet worked out how to admit his scepticism to his fellow academics for fear that he too might lose his post.

So embedded in our culture is the assumption that Darwin was right that few realise that it was Darwin himself who first raised some of the most basic objections to his own theory. If each form of life gradually evolved through tiny variations, as he asked in The Origin of Species, why does every fossil we find so identifiably belong to a discrete species? Where are all the “intermediate forms” between one species and another? How could his gradualist theory account for all those complex organs, such as the eye, which require so many interdependent changes to take place simultaneously? How could it account for those startling “evolutionary leaps”, when all sorts of changes emerged together in an improbably short time, such as those needed to transform land mammals into whales in barely two million years?

As Darwin himself raised each of these objections, it is almost comical to see how he could not give any coherent answer. The fossil record, he argued, was incomplete; one day we would find those “missing forms”. And however sophisticated our latter-day neo-Darwinians such as Richard Dawkins imagine themselves to be, they have no more been able to prove their theory as fact than Darwin himself. They are simply “believers” taking a leap of faith, just like those Biblical “Creationists” they love to despise. And nothing better reveals the hole at the heart of their belief system than the fanaticism with which they turn on anyone who dares question the assumption on which it rests, who must be anathematised with all the venom once turned on heretics by the churches.

Some years back, a number of expert scientists came together in America to share their conviction that, in light of the astonishing intricacies of construction revealed by molecular biology, Darwin’s gradualism could not possibly account for them. So organisationally complex, for instance, are the structures of DNA and cell reproduction that they could not conceivably have evolved just through minute, random variations. Some other unknown factor must have been responsible for the appearance of these “irreducibly complex” micro-mechanisms, to which they gave the name “intelligent design”. But the response of the Darwinians has not been to debate these very serious questions but simply to scorn them, caricaturing anyone who raises them as a “neo-Creationist”, no different to those zealots who take Genesis as literally true.

To some of us taking part in that seminar in the south of France, another instance of this pattern of intolerance was equally familiar.

Right from the start, one of the more conspicuous features of the global warming cause has been the way its adherents felt the need to elevate their belief system into a rigid orthodoxy, a “consensus” not to be challenged. They deal with challenges not through scientific debate, but by denouncing the dissenters as being beyond the pale.

The “sceptics” are demonised as Flat Earthers, equivalent to Holocaust deniers, who could only hold the views they do because they have been paid to do so by “Big Oil”. The only debate which can be allowed, as we saw confirmed by those Climategate emails, is that between the believers themselves, while anyone outside the faith, however knowledgeable, must be vilified as a dangerous heretic, excluded from scientific journals, forbidden to examine the often highly suspect data and condemned as being “anti-science”.

Such fanatical intolerance, in defence of pseudo-scientific causes which reflect the prejudices of the age, has become only too common. A notorious example was the ruthless attempt to suppress the most rigorous study ever carried out into the effects of passive smoking. When this mammoth 40-year project by two non-smokers found the health risks of environmental tobacco smoke to be negligible, its sponsors, the American Cancer Society, withdrew their funding. Their findings only saw light of day when the editor of the British Medical Journal decided, in the name of scientific principle, that such scrupulous research should no longer be suppressed.

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On Boredom In Church and In Prayer

Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus: "Can a person lay a new foundation every day?" The old man replied: "If you work hard, you can lay a new foundation every moment."

- Sayings of the Desert Fathers

The pathological love of self and of others is an obstacle to our relationship with God.

- Abba Isaiah, Sayings of the Desert Fathers

When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by boredom, and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, 'Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?'

A short while afterwards, when he got up to go out, Anthony saw a man like himself sitting at his work, getting up from his work to pray, then sitting down and plaiting a rope, then getting up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure him: 'Do this and you will be saved.' At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved.

- Sayings of the Desert Fathers

The necessary services which we are obliged to carry out, we must of course accept and carry out, but we must let go of those other purposeless activities and prefer rather to spend our time in prayer, particularly when these activities would lead us into the greed and luxury of money and wealth. For the more one can limit, with the help of God, these worldly activities and remove the material which feeds them, the more will one be able to gather his mind from such anxious wanderings. If again someone, out of weak faith or some other weakness, cannot do this, then, at least, let him understand well the truth and let him try, as much as he can, to censure himself for this weakness and for still remaining in this immature condition. For it is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride.

- Abba Mark, Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Unless a man can bring himself to say to his heart that he alone and God are present in this place, he will never find peace and rest of soul.

- Abba Alonios, Sayings of the Desert Fathers

God and the angels grieve over those who are not satisfied with heavenly nourishment.

- St. Makarios of Egypt

No matter where you are, you can set up your sanctuary. Just have pure intentions and neither the place, nor the time will be an obstacle, even without kneeling down, striking your chest or raising your arms to heaven. As long as your mind is fervently concentrated you are totally composed for prayer. God is not troubled by any place. He only requires a clear and fervent mind and a soul desiring prudence.

- St. John Chrysostom

Boredom is the breakdown of the soul, the disorientation of the mind, negligence of ascetic practice, hatred of monasticism, love of worldliness, irreverence toward God, forgetfulness of prayer.

- St. John Klimakos, Ladder of Divine Ascent

This condition brings you anxiety, dislike for the place where you are living, but also for your brothers and for every activity. There is even a dislike for Sacred Scripture, with constant yawning and sleepiness. Moreover, this condition keeps you in a state of hunger and nervousness, wondering when the next meal will come. And when you decide to pick up a book to read a little, you immediately put it down. You begin to scratch yourself and to look out of the windows. Again you begin to read a little, and then you count the number of pages and look at the titles of the chapters. Finally, you give up on the book and go to sleep, and as soon as you have slept a little you find it necessary to get up again. And all of these things you are doing just to pass the time.

- St. Antiochos of Palestine

Loneliness is abolished in God. We are all ‘members of each other’ according to St. Paul. Thus, our sins and our virtues have a bearing upon the others, since, as we have said, we are all members of one body. Accidia [boredom] provides a reason for more fervent prayer, and the difficulties are an opportunity for spiritual maturity and progress.

- Fyodor Dostoyevski, The Brothers Karamazov

They say that church is boring. It is boring because they do not understand the services! You need to study! It is boring because they do not care for it. So they do not see it as their own, but as something foreign to them. They could at least bring flowers or greenery to decorate it, they could take part in caring for the church; then it would not be boring.

- St. Anthony (Potapov) of Optina

We Christians of today do not feel the power of the redemption wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is as a result that we are so bad, unfeeling, that we look so perfunctorily at sin, and do not understand the Church Services, especially the Divine Liturgy, and find it boring.

- Hieromartyr Arseny (Zhadanovsky)

Forget for at least this space of time the bustle and concerns of everyday life. Be like an angel, filled only with thoughts of God and of serving Him. After all, He is present now, and is blessing you.

- Hieromartyr Seraphim (Zvezdinsky)

Generally speaking, I am bored by the Canons, and especially by the Akathists, and I read them only out of a sense of duty. I make an exception only for the penitential Canons of the Octoechos and the Lenten Triodion. But there are times when my heart is very heavy and sad, and then I recite certain canons — to the Mother of God and to the most Sweet Jesus — as if the words were my own. This means that our “lack of feeling” for the Canons is an accusation against us—it points to an absence in the given person of the religious mood in which these Canons were written.

- Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, Diary of a Russian Priest

In this loneliness, in this desolation of the cities, in this apparent absence of God, man is called to gather his thoughts, to come to his senses, to put aside his many worldly preoccupations and to retire to his place of prayer speechless, naked, a child so that God may speak to him, clothe him, and endow him with spiritual maturity. Then his loneliness will become the divine loneliness of liberation and he will achieve a sense of fullness. Only such radical loneliness leads to a fundamental understanding and experience of God, destroying every hesitation, doubt and torment.

In this sacred loneliness man finds himself face-to-face with his existential poverty and the fear of death which it provokes. Yet, even here, there is the danger that he may choose procrastination as a solution and, for a time, set his panic-stricken self at ease. He may resume running back and forth endlessly, expanding social activities, and seeking a variety of entertainments a program of extreme busyness. Other people, other things, work and extensive involvements may serve as a cover for his spiritual impoverishment for a time. And he may continue wandering aimlessly, driven by circumstances, tormented, flirting with one thing and another, fighting, being torn and finally annihilated.

A life of work without the liberation of communion with God is slavery. The struggle for excessive wealth is an incurable, tormenting disease. Fear of the future can stimulate greed, miserliness, hoarding. And God can be easily forgotten.

- Monk Moses the Athonite, The Community of the Desert and the Loneliness of the City

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All Things Happen To Us For Our Greater Benefit

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

If only we begin with the firm intention to live according to God's law, we need not be afraid of any assaults by unreasonable men. For he who truly begins to live according to God's law finds that all things done to him by men happen for his benefit, and to the glory of God.

One especially need not fear being compelled to move from a place that he loves to a place that he doesn't care for. Instead of empty fear and fruitless lamentation, it is better to seek out God's intention for us.

What harm did the evil actions of Joseph's brothers do to him? Did not his involuntary departure to Egypt glorify him, save his brothers from famine, and create the necessary conditions for all the wondrous things God worked through Moses in Egypt and in the wilderness?

The pagans and heretics often drove Orthodox Christians into barbarian regions. What did they accomplish by that? Did they destroy Orthodoxy? No, rather, they strengthened it even more in the souls of the persecuted, and spread it among the barbarian peoples.

The evil heretic Lucius exiled the glorious Macarius, with several Tabennisiot ascetics, from Egypt to a barbarian island, where the entire population worshiped idols. But by the teachings and example of these holy men, the entire populace of the island was soon baptized. That island was later renamed the "Island of Repentance".

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Radical Islam On Rise In Balkans

Konstantin Testorides
September 19, 2010
The Associated Press

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- An online music video praising Osama bin Laden has driven home a troubling new reality: A radical brand of Islam embraced by al-Qaida and the Taliban is gaining a foothold in the Balkans.

"Oh Osama, annihilate the American army. Oh Osama, raise the Muslims' honor," a group of Macedonian men sing in Albanian, in video posted on YouTube last year and picked up by Macedonian media this August. "In September 2001 you conquered a power. We all pray for you."

Although most of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority are Muslims, they have generally been secular. But experts are now seeing an increasing radicalization in pockets of the country's Islamic community, particularly after armed groups from the ethnic Albanian minority, which forms a quarter of the population of 2.1 million, fought a brief war against Macedonian government forces in 2001.

It's a trend seen across the Balkans and has raised concerns that the region, which includes new European Union member Bulgaria, could become a breeding ground for terrorists with easy access to Western Europe. Many fear that radicalized European Muslims with EU passports could slip across borders and blend into society.

At the center of the issue is the Wahhabi sect, an austere brand of Islam most prevalent in Saudi Arabia and practiced by bin Laden and the Taliban.

"Wahhabism in Macedonia, the Balkans and in Europe has become more aggressive in the last 10 years," said Jakub Selimovski, head of religious education in Macedonia's Islamic community. He said Wahhabis were establishing a permanent presence in Macedonia where none existed before, and that "they are in Bosnia, here, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia and lately they have appeared in Bulgaria."

It is the first time a high-ranking official in the former Yugoslav republic's Islamic community has agreed to speak openly about the presence and threat of radical Islam.

In Bulgaria, nearly one-sixth of the population of 7.6 million are Muslims who adhere to conventional Sunni beliefs. Ethnic peace has been maintained in the last 20 years. As elsewhere in the Balkans, however, Wahhabi incursions have led to a struggle for control of religion and Islamic community-owned property.

Large amounts of money, allegedly from Muslim organizations abroad, have been spent in Bulgaria since the mid-1990s for more than 150 new mosques and so called "teaching centers" to spread Wahhabism.

According to Bulgaria's former chief mufti, Nedim Gendzhev, some Muslim organizations were aiming to create a "fundamentalist triangle" formed by Bosnia, Macedonia and Bulgaria's Western Rhodope mountains. Local newspaper reports say radical Islam is being preached in different cities and villages in southern and northeastern Bulgaria.

In 2003, Bulgarian authorities shut down a number of Islamic centers on the grounds they allegedly belonged to Islamic groups financed mainly by Saudi Arabians that possibly also had links to "radical organizations" such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Official statements said that the centers were shut down "to prevent terrorists getting a foothold in Bulgaria."

However, centers where radical brands of Islam are preached continue to to crop up in the country, said political analyst Dimitar Avramov.

"Along with the three official Muslim schools, there are at least seven other which are not registered and not controlled by the state," he said, adding that in the last 20 years some 3,000 young Muslims have graduated from these schools.

In neighboring Serbia last year, 12 Muslims - allegedly Wahhabis - from the tense southern Sandzak region were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade. The presence of radical Muslims in Sandzak, the poorest region of Serbia, is linked to the advent of mujahedeen foreign fighters who joined Bosnian Muslims in their battle against the Serbs in Bosnia's 1992-95 independence war.

In Bosnia, the issue of Wahhabi influence is one of the most politically charged debates, with Bosnian Serbs maintaining there is a huge presence of Wahhabis in the country and Muslim Bosniaks downplaying the issue and at times claiming it does not exist.

Juan Carlos Antunez, a Spanish military specialist in religious extremism with years of experience in Bosnia, estimates there are about 3,000 people in Bosnia who have embraced this interpretation of Islam and only a small fraction of them are a potential security threat.

In a study prepared for the Sarajevo-based Center for Advanced Studies in May, Antunez argued that Bosnia's official Islamic Community has been successful in curbing Wahhabi influence. Although it did not aggressively ostracize the Wahhabis, it strictly controls the appointments of imams in mosques and lecturers in Islamic educational institutions in the country.

Ahmet Alibasic, a lecturer at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo, said most Wahhabis in Bosnia refrain from criticizing the Islamic Community and were even calling for unity among Muslims.

"Their influence reached its peak in 2000, but it has since started falling and it continues to fall," Alibasic said, adding that measures taken by Bosnian authorities after 9/11 had a significant effect as the movement began to lose power after the closure and banning of several Islamic, mostly Saudi-backed, charities which funded the movement.

In Albania, the issue is also charged. Ilir Kulla, former head of the government's department on religious issues, insisted the Wahhabis had not caused any problems in Albania.

Kulla said hundreds of young Albanian men had been educated in universities in the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia, and were now mosque leaders, but that there had been no attempt by Wahhabis to challenge the leadership of the country's Muslim Community, which he insisted was still moderate.

But in Macedonia, the increasing clout of radical Islam is causing a rift in the country's Muslim community, with a power struggle developing within the country's official Islamic Religious Community between the moderate mainstream and the emerging Wahhabi wing.

"A destructive, radical and extremist current has appeared with an intention of taking over the lead of the Islamic religious community," Selimovski said.

Authorities in Macedonia are reluctant to confirm any threat of radical Islam in the country. But a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, did acknowledge that "radical groups and their followers are being closely observed."

Last year, three ethnic Albanian brothers originally from Macedonia were implicated - along with a Jordanian, a Turk and a Kosovo Albanian living in the U.S. - in an alleged plot to attack the U.S. Army's Fort Dix military base in New Jersey. No attack was ever staged on the base, which is used largely to train U.S. reservists bound for Iraq.

"Macedonia is part of the international coalition in the fight against terrorism and it cannot be excluded from the responsibility to observe and respond to any possible activity or emerging of terrorists," Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski told the AP.

Moderate Muslims say the Wahhabi sect now controls five mosques in Skopje even though the Islamic Religious Community has suspended the man they claim is the sect's leader, Ramadan Ramadani, as imam of the Isa Beg mosque in Skopje, and prohibited him from organizing prayers.

But Ramadani, who has launched a petition seeking supporters to overturn the current Community leadership, rejects any accusation of radicalism, saying his opponents are scaremongering.

"They need my name to have somebody to frighten people," Ramadani said. "I do not know any individuals or structures here that could be defined as Wahhabi. It is the attempt of political labeling and stigmatizing people who want reforms."

Ramadani insisted that Macedonia's Islamic community had nothing to do with the online song supporting bin Laden, and denied Macedonian media reports that it had been played in mosques there.

"Bin Laden is nothing for the Muslims in Macedonia," Ramadani said. "He is not our hero."

---

Associated Press writers Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Sabina Niksic in Sarajevo, Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Llazar Semini in Tirana, Nebi Qena in Pristina and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed to this report.

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On the Benefits of Forty Liturgies For the Departed

Elder Daniel of Katounakia (+1929) was originally from Smyrna, and at one point while he was a monk on Mount Athos he lived at Vatopaidi Monastery. One of his obediences was to travel on business for Vatopaidi to Smyrna where he stayed for nine months.

When Elder Daniel was a young boy in Smyrna, there was a simple Christian named Demetrios, who was known for his great virtue and piety, that would counsel and admonish him with heavenly wisdom. Upon his return to Smyrna the elder had heard that Demetrios was dead and he wished to meet with Demetrios' son George to ask him about it. He writes: "As soon as I arrived, I considered it my inviolable duty to first of all visit George, the son of the ever-memorable Demetrios. I questioned him minutely about the death of his father, of whose repose I had heard from many people."

George described the details of his virtuous father's death to Elder Daniel with tears in his eyes, yet one event was so remarkable that Elder Daniel decided to record it for our spiritual benefit.

Archimandrite Cherubim, in his book Contemporary Ascetics of Mount Athos (vol. 1, pp. 241-245), describes the event as follows:

Reaching the sunset of his earthly life, the divinely-enlightened Demetrios knew beforehand, by the grace of God, the day of his death. On that day he asked a certain devout, guileless, and saintly priest, Fr. Demetrios, to come to him.

"I will die today, my father," he said to him. "I beg you, tell me what I must do at this critical time."

The priest knew of his virtuous life; he knew that he had confessed, received Holy Unction, and had Holy Communion several times. Seeing his desire, however, it came to him to suggest the following:

"If you wish, give a command that after your death forty Liturgies should be served for you in a country chapel."

The dying man accepted the priest's suggestion with joy. A little while later he called his son.

"My son, I ask one favor. I ask that after my death you arrange to have forty Liturgies served for me in some church far away from the city."

"Give me your blessing, Father, and I will promise you to fulfill your wish," was the reply.

After two hours the man of God gave up his spirit. Without delay, his good son addressed Fr. Demetrios, not knowing it was he who had suggested the forty Liturgies.

"Fr. Demetrios, my father left me a command to have forty Liturgies served for him somewhere outside the city. As you sometimes stay at the Chapel of the Holy Apostles, i beg you to take on the labor of serving them. I will take care of your work and the expenses of the church."

With tears the priest replied: "My dear George, I myself gave this advice to your father, and I will always commemorate him as long as I live. I cannot serve a regular forty Liturgies, however, because right now my presvytera is a little sick. You will have to entrust them to another priest."

George, however, knowing Fr. Demetrios' great piety and his father's devotion to him, persisted until he persuaded him. The priest returned to his home and said to his presvytera and his daughters:

"I must serve forty Liturgies for the soul of the good Christian Demetrios. Therefore don't expect me home for forty days. I will be at the Holy Apostles the whole time."

He began willingly to serve the Liturgies. Thirty-nine went by without hindrance, and the last was to fall on a Sunday. On Saturday evening, however, he was seized by a terrible toothache which forced him to return home. He was moaning from the pain. His presvytera suggested that they call someone to extract the painful tooth.

"No," he answered, "I have to serve the last Liturgy tomorrow."

In the middle of the night, however, the pain grew so great that they were forced to summon a specialist to pull the decayed tooth. As he was bleeding, he decided to serve the last Liturgy on Monday.

On Saturday afternoon, George got some money ready to repay the labor of the priest, which he would give him the next day. In the middle of the night, as Sunday was approaching, he arose to pray. The absolute silence of the night was conducive to compunction. Later, growing tired, he sat on his bed and began to recall to his mind the virtues, gifts and wise words of his blessed father. The thought also passed through his mind: "Do the forty Liturgies really benefit the soul of the reposed, or does the Church mainly recommend them for the consolation of the living?" Just at that moment he fell into a light sleep.

He saw himself in a beautiful plain, of an indescribable loveliness one does not see the earth. He felt himself unworthy to be in such a holy paradisiacal place, however, and was overcome by fear, afraid that because of his unworthiness he would be cast out from there and thrust into the depth of hades. But the thought strengthened him: "Since the All-Good God deigned to bring me here, He will have mercy on me and lead me to repentance, for since I am still in my body I must still be living."

After this consoling thought he saw from afar a most pure and clear light, shining much brighter than the sun. He ran towards it and saw with unspeakable surprise a sight of indescribable beauty. Before him stretched a vast forest-garden, all wooded, fragrant with a wonderful and unutterable aroma. He said within himself: "This must be Paradise! Oh, what blessedness awaits those who live virtuously on the earth!"

Examining this other-worldly beauty with astonishment and delight, he saw a most beautiful palace of exceeding brightness and excelling architectural grace, whose walls shone more than gold and diamonds. It was impossible to describe it beauty in human terms, and he was speechless and amazed. Drawing closer - oh joy! He saw his father, light-bearing and shining, before the door of the palace.

"How did you come here, my child?" his father asked him with gentleness and love.

"I don't know either, Father. I realize that I am not worthy of this place. But tell me, how are you here? How did you come here? Whose palace is this?"

"The goodness of our Savior Christ, by the intercession of the Mother of God, whom I especially revere, vouchsafed me this place. I was to have entered into the palace today, but since the builder who is constructing it is suffering from bad health - he had his tooth extracted today - the forty days of its building have not been completed. Therefore I will enter it tomorrow."

After those words George awoke, full of tears and wonder, but also with some perplexities. For the remainder of the night he did not sleep, but sent up continuous praise and glorification to the All-Good God. In the morning he went to attend Liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Photini. Afterwards he took with him prosphora, blessed wine, and an unburnt candle and set out for the region of Mirtakia, where the Chapel of the Holy Apostles was located. He found Fr. Demetrios sitting in a chair inside his cell.

The priest welcomed him with joy, saying: "I also have just come from Divine Liturgy. Now the forty Liturgies are finished."

This he said so as not to grieve George.

George then began to describe in detail the vision he had in the night. When he came to the account of his father's entering was delayed because of the builder's toothache, the priest was overcome with fear, but also by wonder and joy. Standing upright, he said:

"My dear George, I am the builder who worked at constructing the palace. Today I did not serve Liturgy because I had my tooth extracted. See, the handkerchief in my hand is stained with blood. I told you a falsehood because I didn't want to sadden you."

Elder Daniel was deeply moved by this blessed narrative. At the end, George urged him to visit Fr. Demetrios, who at that time was working as a priest in the district of St. John the Theologian. The priest told him exactly the same story, and begged him to record such a profitable tale. This is what happened, as we found it among his manuscripts. At the end of it, Elder Daniel noted with his pen: "The above account I heard in the year 1875, in the month of October. This ever-memorable Demetrios reposed in 1869."

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1967 Documentary on the Fall of Constantinople

John Julius Norwich tells the dramatic story of the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, followed by the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. Using monuments in Istanbul to show the formidable artistic and intellectual achievements of the Byzantines, Norwich vividly describes the last scenes of Greek Orthodox Christianity from within the Hagia Sophia.

CHANNEL: BBC 2
FIRST BROADCAST: 25 October 1967
DURATION: 32 minutes 42 seconds

See the documentary here.

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What is Divine Revelation?

By Fr. Anthony Alevizopoulos

According to the Orthodox faith, the Church is not founded on written texts but on the confession that Christ is God-Man (Theanthropos), namely that in the person of Christ, God was joined with man, “indivisibly, immovably, unmistakably, inseparably,” and man has come into actual communion with God, and in the person of Christ, God and man were hypostatically united, in one unique hypostasis.

The Son and Word of God continues to be hypostatically united with His body and as the Head of the Church, He is always united with us (Matt. 18:20; 28:20). The presence of Christ is activated by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church (1 Cor. 12: 3). This is why the Church is also “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 2:7-11).

Our holy faith was delivered to the body of Christ, “to the saints once and for all” – and whoever does not belong to this body cannot properly interpret Holy Scripture (2 Thess. 3:6; 2 Peter 3:16; Jude 3-4). In this sense Holy Tradition is the experience of the Church, the holy memory of the Church, which is guarded as a precious treasure (2 Tim. 1:13-14).

Holy Scripture does not contain the fullness of the divine revelation. Already in the Old Testament the importance of oral tradition and the care of its passing down from generation to generation is highlighted (Ps 43:2, 44:1; Joel 1:3). The New Testament mentions that it does not have the completeness of the words and works of Christ (John 21:15).

The same Holy Scriptures make use of Tradition (Num. 21:14-15; Matt 2:23; Acts 20:35; 2 Tim 3:8, Jude 14). Christ did not exhort His disciples to write books but to preach, promising that He would always be with them (Matt. 28:20) and that He would send them the Holy Spirit to be with them (John 14:16), to teach and to remind them of His teaching (John 14: 25-26), to guide them “to the whole truth” by revealing to them the deeper meaning of the words of Christ, all those things that they were not able to “bear” by their own power to (John 16: 12-15).

The apostles were also not limited to written texts – they passed on to the first Christians much more than what was written “with paper and ink” (2 John 12; 3 John 13-14; 1 Cor. 11:34). Some of those things written proved to be relevant to the time, because they were not maintained by the Church, such as the number of deacons (Acts 6:3), the order of widows (1 Tim 5:9), the washing of feet (John 13:14).

At the center of Holy Scripture is the person of Christ (John 5:38-39; Gal. 3:24). Without Christ, we cannot understand Holy Scripture (2 Cor. 3:14). Therefore, union to the body of Christ, namely to the Church, assures the purity of the Gospel truth (1 Tim. 3:15).

Holy Scripture is not intended for just anyone, but for the faithful, who are gathered in one body. Holy Tradition is the atmosphere in which the body lives and understands the truth properly; it is the constant experience of the Church, her conscience – not personal opinions, teachings and writings of men (Isaiah 29:13; Matt. 15:3,4,9; Mark 7:8; Col. 2:8).

Based on the treasure of the holy memory of the Church, the study of Holy Scripture leads to unity, and not the breakdown of the Church. This way the will of Christ for the unity of the faithful is fulfilled (John 17:20-21). That is why the apostles advised Christians to hold onto the traditions – that is, the treasure with which they entrusted them (1 Cor. 11:2; Phil. 4:9) “either by word or by epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:13).

The shepherds of the Church were placed in this position to remain alert, namely to be guards [episcopos (bishop) = overseer] of the purity of the life and of the teaching of the Church (Acts 20:28-31): “Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands… Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me… that good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us” (2 Tim. 1:6,13,14), “and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others” (2 Tim. 2:2).

In other words, apostolic succession goes together with apostolic teaching. In this way, we understand the words of Saint Ignatius (110): “Because Jesus Christ, our true life, is the mind of the Father, just like the bishops who have been appointed all over the world are with the mind of Jesus Christ ('mind in Jesus Christ'). Therefore, you too follow the mind of the bishop, something you already do, for the worthiness of your ministry’s name which is also worthy of God, and joined together with the bishop, like the strings with the guitar” (Ignatius, Eph. 3, 2-4, 1).

This teaching is not a recent one – it is a conviction from the beginning of Christianity: “From the dogmas and the truths that the Church guards, some we have received from written teaching while others that have mystically reached us we have received from the tradition of the apostles. Both elements, written and oral traditions, have the same importance for the faith. And no one who has even a little knowledge of ecclesiastical practices raises any objections concerning them. For if we set out to abandon whatever customs are unwritten, that somehow they do not have great importance, without realizing it we would harm the essence of the Gospel or rather we would turn the message into a name void of meaning” (Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 27:66).

During the time of St. Basil the Great, whoever had even “a little knowledge of the ecclesiastical practices” agreed that divine revelation was mystically guarded by the Church in its fullness. As an example, St. Basil mentions the custom of “those hoping in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” showing their faith “by making the sign of the Cross.”

Here, therefore, we have a basic difference with the Protestant world. Their claim “Sola Scriptura" (Scripture Alone) leaves Scripture itself bare, exposed to the “authentic interpretation” and the “infallibility” of each pastor.

Holy Scripture cannot be made absolute, because it would replace the living Christ with the letter of the Bible, becoming divine and isolated from the life of the body of Christ, from the life of the saints (Jude 3). Holy Scripture is the “word about God which passed through the hearts of the saints, it is the word of God concerning God” (G. Metallinos), the truth delivered “once and for all” to the saints (Jude 3), and in fact not the fulness of truth but a part of it. It cannot be understood separately from the Church (1 Tim. 3:15).

Source: Manual on Heresies and Para-Christian Groups

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The Kursk Root Icon Visits St. Nektarios Greek Monastery in Roscoe

September 20, 2010
Eastern American Diocese ROCOR

With the blessing of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, His Eminence Hilarion, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, the Protectress of the Russian Diaspora, the wonder-working Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign," visited St. Nektarios Greek Monastery in Roscoe, New York on Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th of September. The icon was accompanied by Hieromonk Nicholas (Perekrestov; cleric of the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign) and members of the diocesan media office.

St. Nektarios Monastery was founded in 1999 with the blessing of Archimandrite Ephraim ("Elder Ephraim of Philotheou;" abbot of St. Anthony’s Monastery in Arizona). The monastery is home to approximately 20 monks and 5 novices. The monastery rector is Abbot Joseph – formerly a monk of Mount Athos.

Abbot Joseph and the monastery brethren greeted the icon at the monastery church under the peal of bells. A paraklesis (a supplicatory canon to the Most Holy Mother of God), vespers, and small compline were then served. In accordance with monastery tradition, the Divine Liturgy began at 3:00 AM. At 11:00 AM, the monks once again served a paraklesis followed by a Panagia service. All of the divine services were served in Greek.

Before the icon’s departure, on behalf of Metropolitan Hilarion, Hieromonk Nicholas presented the abbot with an exact-size copy of the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God, and gave all of the monks a history of the icon with an akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, along with a copy of the icon. The icon then departed for the New Kursk Root Hermitage in Mahopac, NY. Photos and video of the Kursk Root Icon’s visit to St. Nektarios Monastery are available below.

See photos here.

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Polamalu Went On 'Quest To Find The Truth'

By Jerry DiPaola
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
September 19, 2010

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu said his quest for religious guidance was an attempt to find true meaning in his life.

"I wasn't satisfied with what my idea of faith was," said Polamalu, 29, who said he felt blessed to be exposed to Catholic, Mormon and Protestant churches as a child in Oregon. "I went to church. Some days I would feel the music, I'd feel the sermon; some days I wouldn't. Sometimes, I would be crying. Sometimes, I would be dead and bored.

"That emotional experience was a very shallow experience. I wanted something that would touch my heart, not my emotions."

Polamalu started reading about religions and their history. He met with monks, even finding a Buddhist who lived in the desert in California.

"I was on a quest to find the truth," he said.

He chose Greek Orthodox and was baptized four years ago.

"The only church that I can say really never swayed was the Orthodox church," he said.

Polamalu found the truth on Mount Athos, a peninsula in Greece where he spent four days living with monks in a monastery.

Enormous, old castles dot the seashores and mountain slopes of Greece, and male monks — no women are permitted on the peninsula — live a life of confinement, prayer, asceticism and contemplation. Many monks live in caves, as they have for thousands of years.

"You're talking 1,500 years of tradition that has been passed down and unblemished," said Polamalu, who acquired a small, wooden cross on Mt. Athos that he wears around his neck at all times.

Polamalu is almost insulted when someone expresses amazement at how seriously he embraces his faith.

"We're talking about faith. We're talking about God," he said. "How can you not take that seriously? We're talking about the meaning of life, really."

Polamalu is careful not to push his beliefs onto others.

"It can lead to resentment, and that is not what you want," he said. "There is also a sense of arrogance sometimes when people are really hearty, evangelizers, and that is opposite of what faith is. Like, 'I know this better than you.' There are a lot of pitfalls to that."

Asked if it's proper to pray for victory or a game free of injury, Polamalu said: "That's for God to judge."

But he adds: "It's not about winning games. It's about winning your soul."

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The Gifts of God to the Saints

In addition to other charisms possessed by the godly Euthymius, he also received this one from God—the grace of living with carnivorous and poisonous animals without being harmed by them. This should be doubted by no one initiated into Holy Scripture, who has precise knowledge that when God dwells in a man and rests upon him all beings are subject to him, as they were to Adam before he transgressed God’s commandment. Not only the wild animals but the very elements are subject to such a man: to my statement bear witness those who divided the sea, curbed the Jordan, made the sun stand still, turned fire into dew and performed innumerable other prodigies. According the very God who worked these miracles subjected to the inspired Euthymius also not only the visible but also the spiritual monsters, I mean the spiritual powers of wickedness; for such are the charisms bestowed by God.

From the "Life of St. Euthymius" by St. Cyril of Scythopolis (The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, trans. R.M. Price [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1991], pp. 18-9).

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How Saints Endured the Pain of Martyrdom and Suffering

By Elder Paisios the Athonite (+1994)

In the past, people were so brave! In the Monastery of the Flavians in Asia Minor, the Turks had captured a man and slaughtered him. Then they told his wife, 'Either you deny Christ, or we will kill your children too.' And she replied, 'My husband is now with Christ, and I entrust my children to Christ and I will not renounce Christ.' What bravery! If Christ is not in us, how can there be such bravery? Today, people without Christ are building their home on rubble...

What love the holy Martyrs had for Christ, what bravery! ... [For example,] St. Gideon the Karakallenos (+1818) -- what amazing forbearance he had! To his executioners he said, 'Take my hand, take my leg, take my nose.' In short, take everything! Incredible! But for a man to reach that point, he must not love himself, he must love God. A mother runs into a fire to save her child. She doesn't feel any pain, because her love is stronger than the burning of the fire. Her love for her child masks the pain. So you can imagine how much more the love for Christ can mask the pain of martyrdom!...

For the Saint approaching martyrdom, the love for Christ is stronger than the pain; it neutralizes it. The Martyrs felt the executioner's sword to be sweeter than the bow of a violin. When the love of Christ really blossoms, then martyrdom becomes a festival; fire refreshes better than a bath, because the burning feeling is dispelled by the burning of divine love. A flaying becomes a caress...

Divine eros takes hold of the heart, takes hold of the mind, and man goes 'mad'. He does not feel the pain of anything else, because his mind is on Christ; and his heart is overflowing with joy. So many Saints went to their martyrdom and felt such joy, one would think they were going to a festival!...

If one does not start sacrificing something now, like giving up some desire or selfishness, how will he ever be able to sacrifice his life at a given time? If, even now, he thinks of the labor, and tries to avoid working a little harder than the next person, how will he ever attain the state of risking his own life to save another's? ... When there is no spirit of sacrifice, everyone looks only to save himself...

These years are like a pressure-cooker that is boiling and whistling. It takes endurance, bravery and manliness. If something should happen, be sure not to leave yourselves completely unprepared. Be prepared from now to face any potential difficulty. What did Christ say? Didn't He say, 'Be ye ready?' (Luke 12:40)...

Living in such difficult times as today, gives us one more reason to be all the more prepared. It is not only sudden death that we may encounter; there are other dangers as well. Therefore, dispel the spirit of ease and comfort for ourselves. Let the spirit of philotimo prevail. May you always have the spirit of sacrifice...

A woman, who had everything, once told me that having children is a dizzy bother. She couldn't be bothered to be a mother! When a mother thinks like that, she becomes useless; for mothers, after all, are suppose to love naturally... When a person has a sense of sacrifice, he does not complain, he is not lazy; he rejoices. That is the key: to have a spirit of sacrifice...

Oh, what joy it brings! Nowadays people don't savor this joy of sacrifice, and this is why they are tormented. They have no ideals in them; they are too bored to live. A generous heart and self-denial are what drives us. Without this force, we are tormented...

The miracle happens when someone can be compassionate and feel the other's pain. It is this very pain that moves God and brings about the miracle. For there is nothing else that moves God as much as a noble and sacrificial spirit. But now, in our time, this kind of nobility is rare, because self-love and self-restraint have entered the picture. Seldom does someone say, 'Let me give my turn, my place, to someone else, and it's alright if I am delayed.'...

The good is good, only when the one who does it sacrifices something from himself -- some sleep, some rest and so on. That is why Christ said [of the widow], 'But she, out of her need, hath cast in all the living that she had.' When I am at ease and do some good, it does not have the same value. But when I am tired and some one asks me, let's say, for directions and I do it, then it has value...

Can you imagine what joy is experienced by the one who sacrifices himself? One cannot even express the joy he feels. Sublime joy emanates from sacrifice. Only when we sacrifice ourselves can we be related to Christ, for Christ is sacrifice. Man can live in Paradise from here and now, or he can live in Hell. Whoever does good is overjoyed, for he is rewarded with divine consolation. Whoever does evil, suffers.

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The Kalinovka Miracle of the Bloody Crucifix in 1923

In the Soviet Union it was ideologically important for the government to suppress and disprove accounts of miracles that contradicted Marxist atheism. To this effect the government issued a decree on March 1, 1919 regarding ‘the complete liquidation of the cult of corpses and mummies’, which ordered the public exposure of saints’ relics in order to show them to be frauds (to counter the belief that the saints’ bodies were miraculously preserved). In 1918 there were even calls to outlaw the sacrament of the Eucharist on account of its miraculous transformation as believed by Orthodox and Catholic Christians.

One of the most famous of these miracles occurred in the village of Kalinovka near Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. On 7 July 1923 a detachment of mounted police had come to the village in order to close the local church, but they were met by hostile crowds. The idea was for the police to get the people to sign a "unanimous petition" to close the church, but all they met were women screaming: "Close the synagogues first, if you don't need them. We want to keep our churches..." Workers from the factories came to protest as well as many peasants, eventually leading the commissar to disperse his soldiers.

The crowds being too big for the police to force their way through, they eventually retreated. Not far from the church, however, there was a traditional wooden Crucifix standing at a crossroads, and the policemen in frustration fired at the crucifix on which hung an image of Christ crucified made of thick sheet metal and painted in oil. One of the bullets hit the crucifix in Christ’s side and suddenly blood gushed out of the hole reportedly. One of the policemen lost control of himself and fell off his horse, while the others took off. The crowd went on its knees and prayed in front of the bleeding crucifix.

The news spread and thousands of people came to see it. By evening 30,000 people came to pray. The special commandos called "Tson troops" came along with them. What then happened can hardly be described in words. The horses belonging to the commandos bolted and galloped away despite the horsemen's attempt to stop them. A Jewish factory worker, his wife and their two children asked to be baptized into the Orthodox Church, and this was done before the assembled masses.

The blood reportedly kept gushing out for several days. Soon after more police came with orders to hack down the crucifix but each time they returned in failure under the claim that some force was preventing them from approaching it. The local communist press tried to explain the phenomena by claiming that there had been an accumulation of water in the wooden cross behind the metallic figure, and that once the bullet hit the metal, the water which had turned red from the metal’s rust, must have seeped through. The crowds brought crosses with them that they set up beside it, prayed before it and dipped cloths in the miraculous blood. Four days and nights they sung hymns as well as burned candles. Priests were absent in fear. Many atheists reportedly converted after seeing this. A Jewish doctor took samples for a blood analysis, and in his own words he said: "I'm going to tell you the truth. It is human blood!"

At the very first opportunity the Soviets destroyed the bleeding Crucifix and all adjacent crosses. It was later claimed that a commission of experts had reported that the fluid coming out of the bullet hole was not blood. The newspaper Evestia wrote that "soldiers were shooting in fun, and without any particular target, when a stray bullet happened to hit a rusty 'sheet-metal Christ'. Moisture ran out of the 'wound' together with rust." The people who had gathered there that day were later depicted as drunkards, fools and scum, and it was claimed that the kissing of the Crucifix had resulted in an outbreak of syphilis as well as mass robberies.*

The workers and peasants became courageous after this miracle and took out all their hidden icons. They hung them in their homes and defied the threats of the communists. Every year since then the people gather in the thousands (in 2008 11,000 people attended) on July 7th for a procession with the Holy Cross.

* Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 2: Soviet Anti-Religious Campaigns and Persecutions, St Martin's Press, New York (1988) pg 22-23.

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The Interpretation of Dreams and Demonic Deception

The spirits of evil watch closely to see whether or not we pay attention to our dreams. They know what kind of influence dreams have on an individual, and what they can do to trigger that influence. If they see that we believe in our dreams, and are living in apprehension as to what we see in our dreams, then they arrange for things from our dreams to happen; so that - eventually - we lose touch with reality, and become incapable of living.

- Elder Thaddeus of Serbia (+2002)

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Chapel of the Finding of the Holy Cross in the Holy Sepulchre

The Chapel of the Finding of the Cross is found within the Holy Sepulchre and is the traditional spot in which St. Helen discovered the True Cross of Christ in the 4th century. The left side is owned by the Catholics, whose altar features a life-sized statue of St. Helena holding a cross. The Greeks have the right side of the chapel.

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The Myth of the Octopus: Smiling Enemies

By Photios Kontoglou

In our days many new religions have appeared, religions which represent the unbelievers and the atheists. One of them is tourism, which was born out of the time wasting curiosity of man who wants to scratch his head and learn without giving any importance to what he hears or sees. Most of the tourists are bored with their lives and want to spend their time without bothering neither for monuments, nor for the history lessons told by the guides, who seem as if they are preparing a banquet at a table for people who are suffering from anorexia. What the guides say enters from one ear and leaves from the other.

However, who has the courage to talk with disrespect for this new goddess, the tourist industry, which brings along with her a big dowry? Because in our times the sacred and the holy are those things which bring in money. How can you dare to say anything against them? You have insulted Muhammad, you have insulted Mammon.

And as if it was not enough that tourism has filled the museums with a crowd of people of every race, who stare into space with a brochure in hand and with a camera hanging from their shoulders, and as if it was not enough that every isolated mountain that has two broken columns or a carved marble on it, has been trashed, and as if it was not enough that there has not been left any mystery of the ancient world hidden, nor tomb which has not been opened so that the sleepy sightseers could look in, they also enter into the churches and remote chapels, where our people pray in, and stand there without making the sign of the Cross, with their hands behind their backs, unconcerned and insensitive as these unfortunate people are about where they are standing and where they are.

Tourism has taken over everything. In its royal presence all doors have been opened in order to be welcomed, doors of castles which have never been conquered by warriors, doors of monasteries which have been locked a thousand times, cells, caves and hermitages where some blessed men once lived hidden away. Holy Altars, baskets for the holy bread, communion cups, reliquaries with holy relics have unashamedly been taken out into the open in order that tourists can see them.

Finally, the great fortress of Orthodoxy, Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain, has surrendered to tourism. In this Garden of the Virgin Mary, where upon her will, it has not been stepped by female foot, either human or animal, now come and go thousands of men from all races, others with pipes in their mouths, others with short breeches, others half naked, talking, laughing, since they are going there to have fun, feeling tired from their jobs, their businesses, from machinery, trains, from planes, from ships, from cars, theaters, steam baths, hotels, and everything else that they are involved in back in their countries. But even when they come here, they carry the stench of all these things, and so they are unable to feel anything, and they are non-contrite, totally alien to the ancient mysteries which are concealed within the Holy Mountain.

Because, how is there a way to convey that spiritual fragrance to people who do not have spiritual scent? How can they feel what they see and hear since these are super-substantial fruits and the revelations of piousness, of prayer, of high theory? Not that it's the fault of these people, some of them are innocent and humble, but they are totally removed from the condition which must be, whoever knows that this place is not a place for recreation, or for walking, or for fun, even for learning, but it's a place which has this inscription written over it: "This is a place of respect! I am not anything else but the house of God and the gate of heaven."

These unfortunate people don't know that what they see and listen to, cannot be comprehended by the mind. How could they suppose that neither their guides themselves are able to feel their true significance, and that despite the knowledge they have about those holy items, it is a superficial knowledge, mechanical, one which is over the surface because "one's relationship with God can only be accomplished through spiritual memory, the blessings of prayer and sacrifice".

This is not a place to find the answers for sinful human curiosity, but is a place where people have forsaken the world, where they are struggling with spiritual struggles, with the suffering of the body, leaving themselves completely to God's will, with fasting, with their hands up in the sky, with their mouths closed for years, with their hearts shut to any outside contact. It is by mistake that you tourists found your way here. You are looking to please your senses and your body, but here where your representative guides have brought you, is a place of joyful mourning and all those who lived and still live here will not make you happy, because they live with the pain of the heart, and they are made warm by the zeal for the salvation of their souls. How come then did you come here, as if it is a table at a wedding banquet, while it is a place of the daily reminder about death and sighing, and a sad calling out to God?

The current enemies of our religion and our nation are more dangerous than the old ones, because they deceive us with their peaceful manner and therefore they seem to us as being innocent, unable to do us any harm. This is how the so-called "goods of modern civilization" are, the facilities which make life easy are poisoned traps, the spectacles, the forms of entertainment, tourism, etc. These enemies seem innocent and unable to harm us, because they are not savages and do not reveal their intentions but are surreptitious and do their harm without being noticed. From the first enemies you can protect yourself, but from the latter you can not, as it can be indicated by a sea legend which I will tell you:

There was a mother octopus resting with her little child octopus at the bottom of the sea. There, the little octopus is being caught with a fishing spear and is being taken up. Τhe little octopus calls out to his mother: "They have caught me mother!" She replies to him: "Do not be afraid my child!". The little octopus calls out again: "They are taking me out from water mother!" "Do not be afraid my child!" -- "They are frizzling me mother!" -- "Do not be afraid my child!" -- "They are cutting me with a knife!" -- "Don't be afraid!" -- "They are boiling me in a pot!" -- "Don't be afraid!" -- "They are eating me, they are chewing me!" -- "Do not be afraid my child!" -- "They are swallowing me!" -- "Do not be afraid!" -- "They are drinking wine, mother!" -- "Oh! I lost you my child!"

The myth wants to say that all the hard ordeals which were inflicted on the octopus, did not cause death: neither the catching, neither the frizzling, neither the cooking, neither the chewing. But when his mother heard that the people who caught and ate him were drinking wine in order to digest him, she called out: "I lost you, my child!" The wine, which seems to be the most tame thing in front of the knife and the chewing, in reality is the biggest enemy for the octopus.

This is also how things are for us Greeks. Many devastating whirlwinds have passed from our land, all sorts of savages, hard killers with swords, spears and every kind of weapon. Persians, Germans, Franks, Arabs, Turks and others. They slaughtered us, they cut us in pieces, they hanged us, they have put us on the stake, but we did not die because our struggle made us solid as steel, we gave fire to fire, we had to deal with savage enemies which could be seen. But now, in today's world, the enemies have changed appearance, they have become surreptitious, with a smile on their lips, deceiving friends, they seem harmless, and even benefactors and with good indentions. These are the goods that come with machinery and other facilities, electric washers, airplanes, cinema, radio, nakedness and bain-mix, and others which will paralyze us and leave us without religion, without tradition, without family, without anything of ours.

One of these surreptitious goods is tourism, which is the innocent wine that kills the octopus, while neither the knife, neither the teeth have managed to kill him.

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Elder Gabriel Dionysiates (+1983): On Death

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Metropolitan Hilarion Addresses Anglican Communion

Address by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations to the Annual Nicean Club Dinner (Lambeth Palace, 9 September 2010)

Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests,

At the outset, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to His Grace Archbishop Rowan Williams for inviting me to address the members of the Nicean Club. Your Grace, we highly value your personal contribution to inter-Christian dialogue and your commitment to keep the Anglican Communion unified. We know your love of the Russian Orthodox Church, of its saints and great theologians, of its spiritual tradition. We assure you of our continual support and prayers.

We also highly appreciate the work of the Nicean Club which aims to strengthen relations and to stimulate beneficial co-operation between the churches of the Anglican Communion and other Christian confessions.

The name of the Club – Nicean – takes us back to that blessed era when Christians throughout the world, both in the East and in the West, were united. At the same time, however, that was a period of bitter struggle with heresies and many church schisms. Thanks to the unanimity both of the Western and Eastern Fathers in understanding Church teaching and in standing together with steadfast faith, the Universal Church at its Council in 325 renounced and condemned a heresy that undermined the very foundations of Christian doctrine. At the same time the Church was able to formulate that faith in the Holy Trinity which has survived throughout subsequent centuries. Archbishop Rowan Williams, in his Arius: Heresy and Tradition, has provided us with a profound analysis of Arianism from historical, theological and philosophical perspectives. He describes Arianism as an ‘archetypal Christian deviation’, which tends to rise again and again under various names.

In 325, the Christian Church, which had latterly emerged from a three-century-long period of persecution, proved itself to be strong and mature enough to discern in Arianism a dangerous digression from Orthodox doctrine. By adopting the Nicean Creed the Church did not introduce anything new to her teaching but rather formulated with clarity what she had believed in from the very beginning of her existence. Subsequent Ecumenical Councils continued to clarify church truth without introducing anything fundamentally new to that confession of faith which sprouted from Christ himself and from his apostles.

Why do the Churches, both East and West, still remember the Fathers of the Nicean and later Ecumenical Councils with such gratitude? Why are the great theologians of the past, the opponents of heresy, revered in the East as ‘great universal teachers and saints’ and in the West as ‘Doctors of the Church’? Because throughout the ages the Church believed it to be her principal task to safeguard the truth. Her foremost heroes were those confessors of the faith who asserted Orthodox doctrine and countered heresies in the face of new trends and theological and political innovations.

Almost 1700 years have elapsed since the Council of Nicaea, but the criteria that were used by the Church to distinguish truth from heresy have not changed. And the notion of church truth remains as relevant today as it did seventeen centuries ago. Today the notion of heresy, while present in church vocabulary, is manifestly absent from the vocabulary of contemporary politically-correct theology – a theology that prefers to refer to “pluralism” and to speak of admissible and legitimate differences.

Indeed, St Paul himself wrote that ‘there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval’ (1 Cor. 11:19). But what kind of differences was he referring to? Certainly not those which concerned the essence of faith, church order or Christian morals. For, in these matters, there is only one truth and any deviation from it is none other than heresy.

At the time of the Council of Nicaea, the Church was united in East and West. But at the present time, there is a multitude of communities each of which claims to be a church even though approaches to doctrinal, ecclesiological and ethical issues among them often differ radically.

Nowadays it is increasingly difficult to speak of ‘Christianity’ as a unified scale of spiritual and moral values, universally adopted by all Christians. It is more appropriate, rather, to speak of ‘Christianities’, that is, different versions of Christianity espoused by diverse communities.

All current versions of Christianity can be very conditionally divided into two major groups – traditional and liberal. The abyss that exists today divides not so much the Orthodox from the Catholics or the Catholics from the Protestants as it does the ‘traditionalists’ from the ‘liberals’. Some Christian leaders, for example, tell us that marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only way of building a Christian family: there are other models and the Church should become appropriately ‘inclusive’ to recognize alternative behavioural standards and give them official blessing. Some try to persuade us that human life is no longer an absolute value; that it can be terminated in a mother’s womb or that one can terminate one’s life at will. Christian ‘traditionalists’ are being asked to reconsider their views under the slogan of keeping abreast with modernity.

Regrettably, it has to be admitted that the Orthodox Church and many in the Anglican Church have today found themselves on the opposite sides of the abyss that divides traditional Christians from Christians of liberal trend. Certainly, inside the Anglican Community there remain many “traditionalists”, especially in the South and the East, but the liberal trend is also quite noticeable, especially in the West and in the North. Protests against liberalism continue to be heard among Anglicans, as at the 2nd All African Bishops’ Conference held in late August. The Conference’s final document stated in particular, ‘We affirm the Biblical standard of the family as having marriage between a man and a woman as its foundation. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation of children some of whom grow to become the leaders of tomorrow’.

Among the vivid indications of disagreement within the Anglican Community (I am reluctant to say ‘schism’) is the fact that almost 200 Anglican bishops refused to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference. I was there as an observer from the Russian Orthodox Church and could see various manifestations of deep and painful differences among the Anglicans.

Today the Orthodox-Anglican Dialogue itself has come under threat. It is especially lamentable because this dialogue has had a long and rich history, beginning with the numerous talks at various levels held between Orthodox and Anglicans from the 17th century. In the 19th century, after the Anglicans founded the bishoprics of Jerusalem in 1841 and Gibraltar in 1842, meetings took place and relations were established between representatives of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in America and the Orthodox Church. The first official message came in a letter of Archbishop Howley of Canterbury (1828-1848) to the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1840, assuring Orthodox hierarchs that the Anglicans would never engage themselves in proselytism and calling for co-operation in a spirit of Christian love.

In 1868, the first Lambeth Conference was held. Acting on behalf of Archbishop Tait of Canterbury, this Conference sent a message, written in a spirit of Christian love and friendship, to the patriarchs and bishops of the Orthodox Church. That same year, at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Patriarch Gregory VI of Constantinople permitted the Orthodox clergy to administer the rite of burial to Anglicans if a priest of the Church of England were not available.

The second such agreement was made in 1874 when Patriarch Joachim II of Constantinople gave permission to the Orthodox clergy to baptize and marry Anglicans. These agreements were exceptional developments in the history of relations between the Churches of East and West.

Between 1874 and 1875, representatives of the Orthodox Church, Anglicans and Old Catholics met for the first time at the Bonn Conferences to discuss issues such as the Filioque, the authority of the Ecumenical Councils and the validity of Anglican priesthood. In 1898, Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury, in pursuance of a resolution of the 4th Lambeth Conference in 1887 on the need to intensify relations with the Orthodox Church and to set up a special committee for it, visited Patriarch Constantine V of Constantinople and other hierarchs. Patriarch Constantine appointed a special commission for studying the Anglican confession. In the years that followed, Frederick Temple and Constantine V initiated regular correspondence.

At the 1930 Lambeth Conference, after the Anglicans essentially agreed to the Orthodox affirmation that communion in the Sacraments should be preceded by unity in doctrine, it was decided to set up an Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, which included representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church of England. The commission began working in 1931. The 1948 Lambeth Conference gave unanimous support to the further development of relations with the Orthodox.

After World War II, dialogue between our Churches was resumed in 1965. The modern stage in the Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue was opened by a visit of Archbishop Michael Ramsey to Patriarch Athenagoras (Spirou) of Constantinople in 1962. The heads of the two Churches came to an agreement on the need to restore the Joint Theological Commission for studying the doctrinal differences which blocked progress towards unity that had begun in the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

In November 1964, the 3rd Pan-Orthodox Conference on Rhodes discussed, among other things, relations with Western Churches. The question of establishing relations with Canterbury did not raise any difficulties. It was unanimously agreed that ‘an inter-Orthodox theological commission be established immediately, consisting of theological experts from each Orthodox Church’. After preliminary meetings and talks, a dialogue began in 1976. A regular session of the dialogue completed its work only a few days ago.

We are concerned about the fate of this dialogue. We appreciate the proposal Archbishop Rowan Williams made this year to exclude from the dialogue those Anglican churches which failed to observe the moratorium on the ordination of open homosexuals. But we regard this proposal as not quite sufficient to save the dialogue from an approaching collapse. The dialogue is doomed to closure if the unrestrained liberalization of Christian values continues in many communities of the Anglican world.

We are equally concerned about the fate of bilateral relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of England. Contacts between the Russian Church and the Anglican Church began as far back as the 19th century. In 1912, the Sacred Governing Synod adopted the statute of a Society of Zealots of Unity between the Eastern Orthodox and the Anglican Churches. In 1914, a Synodal Commission was established for considering interrelations with the Anglican Church. In May 1922, when Patriarch Tikhon was imprisoned, Archbishop Randall Davidson of Canterbury protested to the Soviet government against the persecution of the Church. The archbishop raised this matter twice in the parliament and urged the British government to apply pressure on the Soviet authorities (Kerson’s Note).

The relations between the Russian Church and the Church of England were strengthened by the visit of the Archbishop Cyril Garbett of York to Moscow in 1943. After the end of World War II relations between our Churches intensified and contacts became regular.

The first difficulties in relation to the Church of England emerged in 1992 when its General Synod agreed to ordain women to the priesthood. The Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church came out with an official statement expressing regret and concern over this decision as contradicting the tradition of the Early Church.

One might ask why our Church should have concerned itself at all with this matter? By the early 90s the Protestant world had already ordained many women pastors and even women bishops. But the unique point here was that the Anglican Community had long sought rapprochement with the Orthodox Church. Many Orthodox Christians recognized the existence of apostolic continuity in Anglicanism. From the 19th century, Anglican members of the Association of Eastern Churches sought ‘mutual recognition’ with the Orthodox Church and its members believed that ‘both Churches preserved the apostolic continuity and true faith in the Saviour and should accept each other in the full communion of prayers and sacraments’.

Much has changed since. The introduction of the female priesthood in the Church of England was followed by discussions on the female episcopate. In response to the positive decision made by the Church of England’s General Synod on this issue, the Department for External Church Relations published a new statement saying that this decision ‘has considerably complicated dialogue with the Anglicans for Orthodox Christians’ and ‘has taken Anglicanism farther away from the Orthodox Church and contributed to further division in Christendom as a whole’.

We have studied the preparatory documents for the decision on female episcopate and were struck by the conviction expressed in them that even if the female episcopate were introduced, ecumenical contacts with the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches would not come to an end. What made the authors of these documents so certain? There was a second controversial statement. The same document argued that despite a possible cooling down in relations with Catholics and Orthodox, the Church of England would strengthen and broaden its relations with the Methodist Church and the Lutheran Churches in Norway and Sweden. In other words, the introduction of the female episcopate ‘will bring both gains and losses’. The question arises: Is not the cost of these losses too high? I can say with certainty that the introduction of the female episcopate excludes even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the apostolic continuity of the Anglican hierarchy.

We are also extremely concerned and disappointed by other processes that are manifesting themselves in churches of the Anglican Communion. Some Protestant and Anglican churches have repudiated basic Christian moral values by giving a public blessing to same-sex unions and ordaining homosexuals as priests and bishops. Many Protestant and Anglican communities refuse to preach Christian moral values in secular society and prefer to adjust to worldly standards.

Our Church must sever its relations with those churches and communities that trample on the principles of Christian ethics and traditional morals. Here we uphold a firm stand based on Holy Scripture.

In 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church had to suspend contact with the Episcopal Church in the USA due to the fact that this Church consecrated a self-acclaimed homosexual, Jim Robertson, as bishop. The Department for External Church Relations made a special statement deploring this fact as anti-Christian and blasphemous. Moreover, the Holy Synod of our Church decided to suspend the work of the Joint Coordinating Committee for Cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Episcopal Church in the USA, which had worked very successfully for many years. The situation was aggravated when a woman bishop was installed as head of the Episcopal Church in the USA in 2006 and a lesbian was placed on the bishop’s chair of Los Angeles in 2010.

Similar reasons were behind the rupture of our relations with the Church of Sweden in 2005 when this Church made a decision to bless same-sex “marriages”. And recently the lesbian Eva Brunne has become the “bishop” of Stockholm.

What can these churches say to their faithful and to secular society? What kind of light do they shine upon the world (cf. Mt. 5:14)? What is their ‘salt’? I am afraid the words of Christ can be applied to them: If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men (Mt. 5:13).

We are aware of the arguments used by proponents of the above-mentioned liberal innovations. Tradition is no authority for them. They believe that to make the words of Holy Scripture applicable to modernity they have to be ‘actualized’, that is, reviewed and interpreted in an appropriate, ‘modern’ spirit. Holy Tradition is understood as an opportunity for the Church to be continually reformed and renewed and to think critically.

The Orthodox, however, have a different understanding of Holy Tradition. It is aptly expressed in the words of Vladimir Lossky: ‘Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church – the life giving to every member of the Body of Christ the ability to hear, accept and know the Truth in its inherent shining, not in the natural light of human reason’.

It is impossible to pass silently by the liberalism and relativism which have become so characteristic of today’s Anglican theology. From the time of Archbishop Michael Ramsay of Canterbury, the Church of England saw the emergence of so-called modernism which rejected the very foundations of Christianity as a God-revealed religion. Among its most eloquent representatives was the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, Dr. I. A. T. Robinson, the author of the sensational book Honest to God. The Bishop of Woolwich’s worldview can be described as ‘Christian atheism’. Indeed, he rejected the existence of a personal God, of the Creator of the world and of Providence. He also denied the existence of the spiritual world in general and of the future life in particular. It should be admitted that these views provoked protests on the part of some Anglican bishops, led by Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury.

It is appropriate to recall here the words of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia at the Bishops’ Conference in February 2010. Concerning the liberal novelties introduced by some Protestant communities, he stated: ‘What has happened reveals only too clearly a fundamental difference between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. The principal problem lying at the basis of this difference is that Orthodoxy safeguards the norm of apostolic faith and order as fixed in the Holy Tradition of the Church and sees as its task to actualize this norm continually for the fulfilment of pastoral and missionary tasks. On the other hand, in Protestantism the same task allows for a theological development that can remodel this same norm. Clearly, the search for doctrinal consensus, as was the case with regard to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry in the multilateral dialogue initiated by the World Council of Churches, has lost its meaning precisely because any consensus may come under threat or may be destroyed by innovation or interpretation that will challenge the very meaning of these agreements’.

Regrettably, what His Holiness the Patriarch says about Protestantism can be applied equally to many Anglican communities. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Orthodox communities discussed seriously the recognition of Anglican priesthood based on its recognized apostolic continuity. Now we are very far from this. And the gap between the liberal Anglicans and the Orthodox keeps growing.

One of the priorities in the work of the Russian Church today is to bear witness to the eternal significance of Christian spiritual and moral values in the life of modern society. In 2000 our Church already made a considerable contribution to the systematization of Orthodox tradition in this area by adopting a Basic Social Concept and, in 2008, a Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights. Today the Church is engaged in major work to compile a Catechesis which will give a clear exposition of Christian doctrine, on the one hand, and will respond to the burning problems of today on the other.

We are not alone in our concern for the preservation of Christian values. Liberal tendencies in Protestant and Anglican communities present a challenge to those Christians and churches that have remained faithful to Gospel principles in doctrine, church order and morality. Certainly, we seek and find allies in opposing the destruction of the very essence of Christianity. One of the major tasks in our inter-Christian work today is to unite the efforts of Christians for building a system of solidarity on the basis of Gospel morality in Europe and throughout the world. Our positions are shared by the Roman Catholic Church, with which we have held numerous meetings and conferences. Together we are considering the possibility of establishing an Orthodox-Catholic alliance in Europe for defending the traditional values of Christianity. The primary aim of this alliance would be to restore a Christian soul to Europe. We should be engaged in common defence of Christian values against secularism and relativism.

Today, European countries as never before need to reinforce moral education, since its absence leads to dire consequences such as accelerating extremism, a decline in the birth rate, environmental pollution and violence. The principles of moral responsibility and of freedom should be consistently implemented in all spheres of human life – politics, economics, education, science, culture and the mass media.

We should not remain silent and look with indifference at a world that is gradually deteriorating. Rather, we should proclaim Christian morality and teach it openly not only in our churches, but also in public spaces including secular schools, universities and in the arena of the mass media. We do not presume to impose our views on anybody but we wish that our voice be heard by those who want to hear it. Unfortunately, we cannot convert the whole world to God, but we should at least make people think about the meaning of life and the existence of absolute spiritual and moral values. We are obliged to bear witness to the true faith always and everywhere so that at least some may be saved (1 Cor. 9:22).

Summing up, I wish to assert that today we have new divisions in Christendom, not only theological but also ethical. Regrettably, many Christian communities, which once maintained fraternal relations with the Orthodox Church for many years and were in dialogue with it, have shown themselves to be incapable or unwilling to assume obligations stemming from our dialogue. We accompany our reactions to these developments with assurances of respect for the right of all churches and communities to make decisions which they deem to be necessary. Yet, at the same time, we state with sadness that neither the official dialogue nor the most valuable relations and contacts in the past have kept some of our Anglican brothers and sisters from steps which have taken them even farther away from our common Christian Church Tradition.

On behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church I would like to stress that we continue to be fully committed to the dialogue with the Anglican Church and will do our utmost to keep this dialogue going. We do not betray our commitment to the dialogue. However, we feel that many of our Anglican brothers and sisters betray our common witness by departing from traditional Christian values and replacing them by contemporary secular standards. I very much hope that the official position of the Anglican Church on theological, ecclesiological and moral issues will be in tune with the tradition of the Ancient Undivided Church and that the Anglican leadership will not surrender to the pressure coming from liberals.

Our faithful cherish the memory of the visit made by the Church of England’s delegation led by Archbishop Cyril Garbett to Moscow in 1943. Then Patriarch Sergiy, who had been enthroned a few days earlier, remarked, ‘The English have come defying the dangers of travelling at a time of war and the entire insidiousness of the enemy’. Addressing himself to Archbishop Garbett, he said, ‘The old archbishop teaches us by his example to forget one’s own interests and conveniences and one’s own life when the truth of Christ and the welfare of our neighbours… call us to serve higher values’.

Today, too, we do not abandon Christian love for our Anglican brothers and sisters. We do not abandon the hope that they, who once defied every danger during the hard years of war, will share with us that trust in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which rests on the solid foundation of the faith of holy apostles, the Fathers of the Nicean Council and the tradition of the Undivided Church.

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