The Poverty of European Civilization

The following excerpt from the book The Agony of the Church (available here) was written by St. Nikolai Velimirovich in 1917, originally given in the form of lectures at St Margaret's, Westminster.

The poverty of European civilization has been revealed by this war. The ugly nakedness of Europe has brought to shame all those who used to bow before Europe's mask. It was a silken shining mask hiding the inner ugliness and poverty of Europe. The mask was called: culture, civilization, progress, modernism. All was only vanitas vanitatum and povertas povertatum. When the soul fled away, what remained was empty, ugly and dangerous. When religion plunged into impotence, then:

Science became a mask of pride.

Art -- a mask of vanity.

Politics -- a mask of selfishness.

Laws -- a mask of greediness.

Theology -- a mask of skepticism.

Technical knowledge -- a poor surrogate for spirituality.

Journalism -- a desperate surrogate for literature.

Literature -- a sick nostalgia and a nonsense, a dwarf-acrobacy.

Civilization -- a pretext for imperialism.

Fight for right -- an atavistic formula of the primitive creeds.

Morals -- the most controversial matter.

Individualism -- the second name for egoism and egotism.

Christ -- a banished beggar looking for a shelter, while in the royal and pharisaic palaces lived: Machiavelli, the atheist; Napoleon, the atheist; Marx, the atheist; and Nietzsche, the atheist, imperially ruling Europe's rulers.

The spirit was wrong and everything became wrong. The spirit of any civilization is inspired by its religion, but the spirit of modern Europe was not inspired by Europe's religion at all. A terrific effort was made in many quarters to liberate Europe from the spirit of her religion. The effort-makers forgot one thing, i.e. that no civilization ever was liberated from religion and still lived. Whenever this liberation seemed to be fulfilled, the respective civilization decayed and died out, leaving behind barbaric materialism in towns and superstitions in villages. Europe had to live with Christianity, or to die in barbaric materialism and superstitions without it. The way to death was chosen. From Continental Europe first the infection came to the whole white race. It was there that the dangerous formula was pointed out: "Beyond good and evil." Other parts of the white world followed slowly, taking first the path between Good and Evil. Good was changed for Power. Evil was explained away as Biological Necessity. The Christian religion, which inspired the greatest things that Europe ever possessed in every point of human activity, was degraded by means of new watchwords; individualism, liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, imperialism, secularism, which in essence meant nothing but de-Christianization of the European society, or, in other words, emptiness of European civilization. Europe abandoned the greatest things she possessed and clung to the lower and lowest ones. The greatest thing was -- Christ.

As you cannot imagine Arabic civilization in Spain without Islam, or India's civilization without Hinduism, or Rome without the Roman Pantheon, so you cannot imagine Europe's civilization without Christ. Yet some people thought that Christ was not so essentially needed for Europe, and behaved accordingly without Him or against Him. Christ was Europe's God. When this God was banished (from politics, art, science, social life, business, education), everybody consequently asked for a God, and everybody thought himself to be a god, and in truth there it failed, not on theories in Europe proclaiming, openly or disguisedly, everyone a god. So the godless Europe became full of gods!

Being de-Christianized, Europe still thought to be civilized. In reality she was a poor valley full of dry bones. The only thing she had to boast of was her material power. By material power only she impressed and frightened the unchristian (but not antichristian) countries of Central and Eastern Asia, and depraved the rustic tribes in Africa and elsewhere. She went to conquer not by God or for God, but by material power and for material pleasure. Her spirituality did not astonish any of the peoples on earth. Her materialism astonished all of them. Her inner poverty was seen by India, China, Japan, and partly by Russia. What an amazing poverty! She gained the whole world, and when she looked inside herself she could not find her soul. Where has fled Europe's soul? The present war will give the answer. It is not a war to destroy the world but to show Europe's poverty and to bring back her soul. It will last -- this war -- as long as Europe remains soulless, Godless, Christless. It will stop when Europe gets the vision of her soul, her only God, her only wealth.

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Redemption or Deification? (2 of 3)

II. Cabasilas’ Answer

1. The Bottomless “Natural” Distance Between God and Man. Union “According to Energy” and Union “According to Hypostasis.”

"God did not differ from men by place, since He occupies every place, but was separated from them by dissimilarity. Our nature kept itself apart from God through being dissimilar to Him in everything that it possessed and having nothing in common with Him. God remained Himself alone; our nature was man, and nothing more" (572A).7

This passage creates some fundamental difficulties. For, if Cabasilas is referring to the postlapsarian state of man, the passage is of course comprehensible. But if he is referring to our prelapsarian nature, if from the beginning human nature “kept itself apart from God,” then what is the meaning of the revealed truth that man was created “in the image and likeness of God,” of St Maximos’ phrase “we are God’s portion,” or of so many other phrases in the Fathers which speak of man as “godlike,” etc.? According to his favorite method, without posing the question openly, Cabasilas deals with it in depth and with astounding dogmatic thoroughness.

It is clear in principle that here he is faithfully following St. John of Damascus, who, summarizing the entire Patristic Tradition be-fore him, teaches that “all things are distant from God not by place, but by nature.”8 The natural, essential distance between created and uncreated nature is bottomless and unbridgeable. The creature can in no way on its own participate in the Uncreated.

The Divine goodness, however, has been pleased to span that bottomless natural distance from the beginning through the uncreated Divine Energies. Thus, as soon as He had fashioned man as “dust from the earth,” God breathed into him a “breath of life,” and man became a “living soul”—that is, a being in communion with

God, because only God is living, and only in God and through God can a soul be living.

However, the fact that the chasm is bridged through the Divine Energies does not remove it completely. They really do span it, but only to the extent of being a “betrothal.” Here, too, Cabasilas presupposes John of Damascus, who teaches that there are three kinds of union: “according to essence,” “according to hypostasis,” and “according to energy.”9

Only the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are united according to essence; the Divine and human natures in Christ are united according to hypostasis. Union according to energy is preparatory to hypostatic union; it is the union and communion of a betrothal. This holds good both before and after the Fall; both before and since Christ. Energetic communion with God flows from the Incarnation both before and since Christ and activates the Incarnation. Communion according to energy is oriented and activated as hypostatization into Christ. This is the content of deification; this is what the uncreated Divine Energies effect and manifest.

We find ourselves, quite evidently, at the heart of the teaching of St. Irenæus and the other Fathers, especially St. Maximos and St. Symeon the New Theologian, for whom, as is well known, the Divine light, visions of God, etc., are always person-centered, Christocentric events; and equally at the heart of St. Gregory Palamas’ teaching about uncreated Energies.

If St. Gregory insisted more on the dogmatic question of whether the Divine Energies are created or uncreated, this is because it was on this point that he had to oppose Barlaam and the doctrine of created Divine grace. But a careful study of his works shows the hypostatic union of Divine and human nature in Christ to be the fundamental assumption and the core of his teaching, a core which the Divine Cabasilas expounded and developed with precision.

2. The Importance and Significance of Union “According to Hypostasis.”

This second great theologian of the fourteenth century examines the entire issue, employing the Biblical category of the image and delving into its depths. He writes:

"Indeed, it was for the sake of the new man that human nature was formed at the beginning, and for him both mind and desire were fashioned. We received reason, in order that we might know Christ, and desire, in order that we might hasten to Him; we have memory, in order that we might bear Him within us, since He Himself was the archetype for us when we were being created. For it is not the old Adam that was the paradigm for the new; rather, the New Adam was the paradigm for the old" (680A).

Consequently, the Archetype of man is Christ. Not simply the Word, but the incarnate Word. For

"Man yearns for Christ, not only on account of His Divinity, which is the goal of all things, but also for the sake of His human nature" (681AB). "The old [Adam] was an imitation of the second [i.e., the incarnate Word], and the first was fashioned according to His form and image" (680B).

It is of no importance, continues Cabasilas, that Christ did not exist historically at the time when Adam was created. The Divine Œconomy radically transforms the natural division of time into past, present and future, and introduces a different conception of history. The Incarnate Word is the “Firstborn of all creation.” And the “introduction of the Firstborn into the world” (Hebrews 1:6) constitutes the preëternal counsel of God, the “mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations” (Colossians 1:26). This mystery has been fulfilled in Christ. But this constituted Adam’s original destiny. On this point Cabasilas is categorical: In relation to Christ, man

"was originally fashioned according to a kind of yardstick and criterion... so as to be capable of receiving God" (560D). And "God did not create human nature with any other purpose in mind... rather, He created it with this end in view, that, when it was fitting for Him to be born, He might receive His Mother from it; having first established this purpose [the Incarnation] as a kind of standard, He then fashioned man in accordance with it."10

This trajectory leads to the establishment of an anthropological dimension to Christology which is not unrelated to the events of the fourteenth century. We shall not concern ourselves with this here.

It is sufficient for our subject to remember that “according to the image,” for Cabasilas, contains two elements. The first is that of likeness or, as we would say today, a structural correspondence between the image and the Archetype, leading to a phenomenological anthropology which is profound and very apropos for our own day, and about which we have spoken in detail elsewhere. The second element is that of the nisus from within the image towards the Archetype, a nisus which pertains to the ontology of man. We should say something about this second element.

Inasmuch as man was “originally fashioned” in order to be united with God, insofar as he inclined towards God and his purpose was union, as long as that union remained unfulfilled, he was still imperfect. Even before the Fall, before Christ, man was an infant; he stood in need of completion, i.e. salvation (“he started to move towards [this purpose],... but failed to attain it,” writes Cabasilas (680B). He lacked the intrinsically human, Christlike “form,” Cabasilas explains, the Christlike “likeness,” and, even more fundamentally, “existence in accordance with Christ.”

The ontology of man in the teaching of Cabasilas, and of the whole Patristic Tradition for that matter, is dynamic, iconic; it consists in nisus-towards-being. Man finds his existence and being in Christ. Before and outside Christ, his being is a being-unto-Christ. And when it is not oriented towards Christ—when, to be more precise, it is defined in freedom and consciousness independently of Christ—then it is a being-unto-death, as Heidegger called it, quite correctly according to his own perspective. United with Christ, the iconic biological being of man becomes a true being-in-Christ. In Christ, man discovers his true ontological meaning.

Of course, these are not the words that Cabasilas uses. But his own words are more radical. Insofar as Christ is “the Head of the Body, the Church,” he says, it is evident that as long as human nature had not received the Hypostasis of the Word, it was devoid of genuine hypostasis, and the body of humanity was in some sense without a Head.

This is why believers

"were born when Christ entered this life and was born into it." For "the birth of the Head was the birth of the blessed members. For it was the birth of the Head which brought the members into existence" (604A).

Such is the fundamental position and importance that the Incarnation of the Word possesses in Cabasilas’ teaching. The “mystery of Christ,” which constitutes the preëternal counsel of God—how, indeed, could Christ be the result of the Devil’s wickedness?—, and is, therefore, transhistorical and independent of the temporal falls and vicissitudes of creatures, forms the central standpoint and the core of his theology. It would not, in fact, have been possible for him to construct his entire synthesis of spiritual life on the basis of the mysteries as paths to incorporation in Christ, if Christ had not occupied this ontological position in his anthropology. Cabasilas’ answer to the question “Cur Deus homo?” and its importance are already apparent from this. But there is more.

3. A View of the Mystery of the Incarnation Independent of the Fall, and Its Significance.

The passage by this theologian quoted at the beginning of Part II continues as follows:

"When flesh was deified and human nature obtained an hypostasis, God Himself... there was no room for that dissimilarity, since the single Hypostasis, being one thing [Divine], became the other [human]" (572A).

The bottomless natural distance which energetic or iconic (the terms are synonymous) prelapsarian communion had been insufficient to remove, had to be, and could be, removed, in accordance with God’s preëternal counsel, by hypostatic union.

Hypostatic union, more perfect than energetic union, completely abolishes the distance; it unites the natures “indivisibly”—according to the Divinely-inspired formulation of the Fathers of Chalcedon—, yet without confusing them in essence, without change or alteration.

The one hypostasis, as Cabasilas explains in a clearly Chalcedonian vein, “removes the distance separating Godhead and manhood, being a point of contact between the two natures,” precisely because “there could be no point of contact when they were separated” (572AB).

One example that he gives is exceptionally eloquent. Let us imagine, he says, a phial containing myrrh. Naturally enough, the sides of the phial separate the ointment from the surrounding atmosphere. But if in some way the sides themselves turn into myrrh, then far from being a separation, they actually become the means whereby the myrrh pervades the whole atmosphere, to such an extent, indeed, that if one comes into contact with the sides of the phial, he comes into contact with the myrrh itself and is anointed with it.

It is evident that we are presented with a brilliant vision of the mystery of the Incarnation. Absorbed, as we habitually are, by the fact of the redemption of sinful man in Christ, we view the unconfused mingling of the two natures in Christ from the standpoint of the consequences of the Fall, and with this postlapsarian vision we correctly call it the entry of the Word into history.

The Fathers, and Cabasilas himself, zealously insist on this crucial aspect of the mystery. Nor should it in any way be thought that we downplay it here; besides, we shall return to it. But history, and time more generally, as we know these realities today, are for the Fathers “garments of skin”; that was not their nature prior to the Fall.

On the basis of this truth and in view of the peril of curtailing the axis of the Divine Œconomy from Creation-hypostatic Union/ Deification to Sin-Redemption, with the result that everything is relativized, Cabasilas insists, in the fourteenth century, on the other aspect of the mystery, which is likewise of the utmost importance.

Prior to the Incarnation, the Word was myrrh "remaining in Himself" (i.e., in the Holy Trinity, with the Father), he writes. But when "the blessed flesh which received all the fullness of the Godhead was created... at this time the myrrh, being poured out upon it,... both is, and is called, chrism. For being imparted [to the flesh] meant that He became chrism and was poured out. For He did not change place, nor did He breach or pass over a wall; but showing what stood between Him and us [human nature] to be what He is, He left no barrier" (569-572A).

Consequently, it is not a question merely of the entry of the Word into history.This is absolutely real, as we shall see below, but it does not exhaust the mystery. And, of course, there is certainly no question of the Word being changed ontologically into flesh.

The core of the mystery resides in the fact that the Word “assumes” flesh—Cabasilas also uses the term “takes up.” The ontological change occurred not to the Divine nature, but to the human. This fundamental truth is presupposed in all the Fathers, who, though they insist so much on the “Incarnation” of the Word, nonetheless never forget that the other, primary aspect of the mystery is the “assumption” of the flesh—just as the best of astronomers talk, in everyday life, about the rising of the sun, even though they know that it is the earth that changes position.

In his Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy, Cabasilas makes this point very clear in his analysis of the Service of the Prothesis:

The "Lord’s Body," he says, "was set apart from those of the same kind and consecrated to God." For He Who assumed it was the Word, Who was "never separated from the bosom of the Father." "He Himself," as Cabasilas summarizes the matter, "gave this, the Lord’s Body, as a gift to God... placing it in the bosom of the Father" (380C).

Consequently, in historical terms we do indeed see “the Lord’s body” conceived and growing, first in the blessed womb of the Virgin and then in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, etc.; but in God’s reality, which transcends history, this Blessed Flesh is created through the assumption of human nature by the Word into the bosom of the Father.

Cabasilas is clear:

“There He created this [body] and clothed Himself in it, so that it was given to God as soon as it was fashioned” (380C).

In this way the “myrrh” became “chrism” and anointed humanity with Divinity. The movement is twofold: The Word “takes up” the created human nature and places it “there” in the uncreated bosom of the Father. Thus “He changes and transforms it into Himself, as a small drop of water is changed by being poured into a boundless ocean of myrrh” (593C). At the same time, thanks to the created nature that He has assumed, the myrrh is changed impassibly and immutably into chrism and is poured out upon creation; and the bottomless chasm between created and uncreated is closed in a way that is no longer external, through the energies, but from within, hypostatic.

The Son according to nature, the icon and express image of the Hypostasis of the Father (Hebrews 1:3), the coëssential Word, bestows adoption into sonship upon the created human nature that He has assumed. In Christ, man is exalted from being “in the image” to being an image; the creature is changed into a child according to Grace; the most crucial and fundamental antitheses—those that are ontological, and therefore unbridgeable in philosophical terms—are removed; the circle is squared. This is what is meant by the transformation of the creature into an offspring, a child by Grace—which is the true content of adoption or deification by Grace.

Furthermore, humanity “anointed with Divinity” is exalted, through the hypostatic union, into the medium which henceforth truly unites God with man, into a conduit through which the life of the Divine nature flows and vivifies creation, into a mystery, into a Church. It becomes the “raiment” and “body” of the Word.

In order for man to be Baptized, to put on God in Christ, to be deified, it was first necessary for God to have been Baptized or have emptied Himself in man, for the Word to have put on man, for there be an hypostatic union.

Thanks to the hypostatic union, God

"imparts Himself to us by giving us what He had assumed from us. As we partake of [His] human flesh and blood, we receive God Himself into our souls, and God’s body and blood, and God’s soul, mind, and will, no less than those of His humanity" (593B).

If man can address to God the words “Thine own of Thine own,” it is because God first addressed the same to man. He took “fleshly flesh” and gave us “spiritual flesh” in return.

Thus, “it is possible for the Saints,” Cabasilas writes, “not only to be disposed and prepared for that life, but also even now to live and act in accordance with it” (496D). For the present and the future have been “joined,” “mingled,” and “blended together.”

The uncreated has permeated creation, the uncontainable is contained, space and time have been expanded, the created has transcended its limits, the life of the last times can be lived in the present:

"That future [life] is as it were infused into this present life and mingled with it, and that Sun has risen upon us also in His love for mankind; and the heavenly myrrh has been poured out into the malodorous places; and the bread of Angels has been given to men" (496CD).

This is the mystery of God’s love: the marriage of the Creator with his creation, which takes place within time, but in its inner nature transcends history. All the rest are historical events.

The preëternal counsel of God which “before the foundation of the world” “hath chosen us in Him,” (Ephesians 1:4) which willed “that all things might be gathered together in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10), was realized thanks to the hypostatic union in the Blessed Flesh of the Lord in the reign of Cæsar Augustus.

This is why the conception of the Blessed Flesh is the good news of the ANNUNCIATION to mankind, and the birth of the Blessed Flesh was greeted by the Angels as the manifestation of the Glory of the Most High God, as peace on earth and the realization of God’s good pleasure—which was before the foundation of the world—among men.

This hypostatic, complete mingling of created and uncreated natures without division or confusion—as complete as it could possibly be—had as its direct consequence the deification of the created nature in Christ; and it is the presupposition for the twelve-year-old Jesus’ manifestation of the Wisdom of God in the Temple, the revelation of His almighty power in miracles, of His uncreated Glory which shone forth at the Transfiguration and, par excellence, of the revelation of the Triune God at His Baptism in the Jordan, i.e., the THEOPHANY.

Thus, one might be so bold as to say, as an indication and pure hypothesis (not, of course, as an opinion or view),11 that if the other two factors separating man from God had not existed (i.e., sin and death [527BC]—the first being, as we saw, our very nature which “was separated by dissimilarity because it had nothing in common with Him”)—if, in other words, the Fall had not occurred first, the hypostatic union of the two natures in the Word would have shone out as an ASCENSION12 of human nature as it is taken up by the Word “there,” “into the bosom of the Father”; this would have bestowed upon man the INCORRUPTION which he had received only potentially at his creation. And it would, at the same time, have shone forth as the “anointing of humanity” by the “Myrrh,” in other words as an outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh and “Spiritification” of the universe, as PENTECOST.

4. The View of the Mystery of the Incarnation in Relation to  

the Fall, and Its Significance.

Man’s temporal Fall, however, created two other impediments, which in a tragically real way obstruct the outpouring of the Spirit and the full realization of salvation (or completion, recapitulation, deification, or whatever we may call it). And these real impediments, which exist within time, need to be dealt with in a way which is equally real and temporal.

This is why the Son of Man comes

"as a giant to run the course of our... nature and through suffering to make His way to death, and to bind the strong man and plunder his goods... and lead the erring sheep back to the heavenly land,"

as St. John of Damascus writes poetically.13

"And, as the Divine Cabasilas says, This is what happens, then. God makes His own the struggle on behalf of men, for He is man. Man, being pure from all sin, overcomes sin, for he is God" (513B).

Thus we arrive at the postlapsarian, historical view of the mystery of the Divine Incarnation, and the postlapsarian application of the passage of Cabasilas which we quoted at the beginning of the theological section of our study.

We shall not concern ourselves in detail here with this postlapsarian view of the mystery of the Divine Incarnation—not because it does not bear on our subject, but for the sole reason that space is limited.

For it is a truth just as fundamental as that previously stated that man, broken, degraded, and enslaved to sin, the Devil, and death on account of the Fall is in need of redemption. And he cannot achieve redemption on his own. Man was obliged to “retrieve his defeat,” Cabasilas says. But he was unable to win the battle.

Indeed, no human wisdom, strength, virtue, or righteousness could overcome death, a boundary which, by historical standards, is fundamental and decisive.

On the other hand, God, Who could have destroyed sin, the Devil, and death by a single thought did not do so, because that would have been unjust; it was man, and not God, who had been defeated, and man had to retrieve the situation.

It is at this point that Cabasilas sums up the second aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation, that “God makes His own the struggle on behalf of men, for He is man,” and its corollary: “Man, being pure from all sin, overcomes sin, for he is God.”

Cabasilas dwells at length on this postlapsarian aspect of the mystery, and in my book Ἡ περὶ δικαιώσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου διδασκαλία τοῦ Καβάσιλα [Cabasilas’ Teaching on the Justification of Man] I expounded it in detail.

It would truly be a grave spiritual, pastoral, and also theological error to ascribe a secondary importance to the reality of sin and the need for redemption. From this standpoint, we would not have had the right to treat the subject as we do here if we had not previously written an entire book on the Sin Redemption dimension. Yet it would be an equally grave error to limit salvation, that is, deification, to redemption alone.

In the first case, Christianity would be transformed into an unrealistic mysticism; in the second, it would be degraded to a legalistic ethical system. As a true theologian of the Catholic Church, Cabasilas took into account both of these truths; and, in contrast to Anselm, who restricted Christianity and man to the Fall Redemption polarity, he gave this polarity the attention that it merits and, at the same time, placed it in its proper context, at the same stroke giving man his true scope.

After this crucially important observation, to which we ask the reader to pay special attention, it is time to return to studying more directly the problem that we posed at the outset, that of narrowing the axis of the Divine Œconomy from Creation-Deification to Fall-Redemption.

Notes:

7. References for passages cited from Cabasilas are to the Patrologia Græca, Vol. CL; i.e., 572A = Patrologia Græca, Vol. CL, col. 572A. Furthermore, as the reader will have noticed, we avoid supplying footnotes of a scholarly nature here; such references may be found in the works listed in note 5.

8. St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, I.13, Patrologia  

Græca, Vol. XCIV, col. 853C.

9. St. John of Damascus, “Third Apologetic Discourse Against Those Who Slander the Holy Icons,” §26, Patrologia Græca, Vol. XCIV, col. 1348AB; St. Gregory Palamas, “Epistle to John Gabras,” §29, in Γρηγορίου τοῦ Παλαμᾶ Συγγράμματα [The Writings of Gregory Palamas], ed. Panagiotes K. Chrestou (Thessaloniki: 1966), Vol. II, pp. 356-357.

10. Ἡ Θεομήτωρ: Τρεῖς Θεομητορικὲς Ὁμιλίες [The Mother of God: Three  

homilies on the Mother of God], ed. and trans. Panagiotes Nellas, 2nd ed., Vol. II 

in Ἐπὶ τὰς Πηγάς (Athens: Ekdoseis Apostolikes Diakonias tes Ekklesias tes Hellados, 1974), pp. 150-152.

11. We would ask that in this article the reader distinguish between its central theses, which are worked out in detail with supporting documentation and offered for discussion in full responsibility, and ideas peripheral to the central thesis of the article, which could be formulated differently, and certainly more correctly.

12. Cf. the following phrase from the Eighth Pre-Communion Prayer, by St. Symeon Metaphrastes: “[B]y Thy glorious Ascension [Ἀναλήψει] Thou didst deify the flesh that Thou hadst assumed [τῆς σαρκὸς θεώσας τὸ πρόσλημμα] and didst honor it by seating it at the right hand of the Father” (Ωρολόγιον τὸ Μέγα, 9th ed. [Athens: Ekdoseis Apostolikes Diakonias tes Ekklesias tes Hellados, 1986], p. 516)—Trans.

13. St. John of Damascus, Ἡ Θεοτόκος, Vol. III in Ἐπὶ τὰς Πηγάς (Athens: 1970), p. 70.

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Redemption or Deification? (1 of 3)

Redemption or Deification? Anselm’s question, “Why did God become man?” and Nicholas Cabasilas

By Panagiotes Nellas (†1986)

I. The Problem

1. The History and Significance of the Problem.

The question “Cur Deus homo?” [“Why did God become man?—Trans.], as is well known, was brought to the very forefront of theological debate by Anselm of Canterbury, in the eleventh century, in his famous work of that name.

The equally well-known answer that he gave to this question is that Christ became incarnate in order to redeem man from sin. This notion was indispensable for Anselm’s entire system and was used as a basis for his juridical teaching concerning redemption.

What Eastern theologians noticed, and correctly reacted against, is Anselm’s juridical theory of satisfaction. However, proper attention has not yet been given, in our own more recent times, to the very answer that Anselm gave to the question, that is, to the thesis that God became man in order to redeem man from sin.

This thesis has passed, without discussion, into our own contemporary theology, preaching, and ecclesiastical and spiritual life, with very serious consequences, as will become evident in what follows.

In the thirteenth century, Duns Scotus, in the West, challenged Anselm’s response, and, placing the question in the context of his own reflections concerning the will of God, advocated the view that the Incarnation was independent of the Fall and, in accordance with the scheme of Divine prædestinatio [predestination], would have occurred in any event.

This gave rise, in the ensuing centuries, to a great debate, in which Malebranche spoke of the “metaphysical necessity” of the Incarnation, Westcott about the “absolute motive” of the Incarnation, et al.1

In this debate Patristic texts were deployed, the most important being the well-known texts of St. Maximos the Confessor. This led certain Orthodox theologians to address the issue and to ask themselves whether St. Maximos professed the “unconditionality or conditionality of the Incarnation of the Divine Word.”

Perceiving difficulties, however, in this typically Western formulation of the issue, the aforementioned Orthodox theologians preferred to leave the matter open, characterizing it, for the most part, as a theologoumenon.2

Four years ago [1979], in my book Ζῶον Θεούμενον [A Deified Creature],3 I maintained that this matter is not a theologoumenon and that, in fact, the response to the question “Why did God become man?” has been given by the Orthodox Tradition in a most pellucid way; that it is different from those of Anselm and Scotus; and that it lies outside the boundaries defined by the formulation of a “conditional or unconditional Incarnation.”

The Orthodox response is clearly contained in the Epistle to the Ephesians (“according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” [1:4]; “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ” [1:10]; “In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance” [1:11]), in the Epistle to the Colossians (“Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, for in Him were all things created, that are in Heaven, and that are in earth,... all things were created through Him, and for Him.... And He is the Head of the Body, the Church” [1:15-18]), and in many other passages of Scripture, and is superbly expressed in the phrase most widely used and unceasingly repeated by the Fathers in every age: “God becometh man, that He might make Adam God.”4

The true axis on which the Orthodox Tradition locates all the truths of the Faith, spiritual life, and all ecclesial realities is the axis of Creation-Deification, or the Kingdom of God, or the realization of the purpose of creation, or whatever else we call it.

The limitation of this axis solely to the Fall-Redemption polarity leads to a mutilation and distortion of the truths of the Faith, of the content of spiritual life, and of the various dimensions of the Church.

The alterations that eventuated in Western Christianity in all of these spheres after the eleventh century were inevitable. The attempt made by Duns Scotus did not succeed, first because he was working within an already-established framework, but primarily because Scotus posed a theological question—whether the Incarnation constituted the purpose of the Word—, whereas the question is exclusively anthropological and cosmological: whether it was possible for man to achieve his purpose—to be saved—without being united with God and enhypostatized in the Word; whether the created realm could attain to its fullness without becoming the body of the Word.

It is not without merit for the significance of this issue to point out that Professor Dumitru Staniloae immediately adopted my proposition in his review of Ζῶον Θεούμενον, and that Professor Panagiotes Chrestou, in his important study “Ἄνθρωπος ἄναρχος καὶ ἀτελεύτητος — ᾿Απὸ τὴν ἀνθρωπολογία τοῦ Μαξίμου Ὁμολογητοῦ” ["Unoriginate and Unending Man: From the Anthropology of Maximos the Confessor"] (Κληρονομία, Vol. XII, No. 2 [1980], pp. 251-281), interprets the crucial passages of Maximos in an anthropological, not a theological perspective, though without reference to the aforementioned proposition.

We will return to the problem of confining the Divine Œconomy to the Fall-Redemption polarity and its tragic consequences.

It needs to be stated, in concluding this introduction, that it was our study of the texts of Nicholas Cabasilas that led us to pinpoint this problem, and that it was through him that we arrived at our reinterpretation of the texts of St. Maximos the Confessor. It is our concern, here, to speak about the Divine Cabasilas.

2. The Historical and Theological Context of the Problem in  

the Fourteenth Century.

We WIll not deal with Cabasilas’ life or his personality. Enough has already been written about the theological profundity, the Christlike demeanor, and the noble modesty of this holy man. Although he played an important rôle in every facet of the public life of his day—political, social, cultural, theological, and spiritual—, this very modesty caused him, concerned as he always was with the essence and not with the superficies of problems, to remain so inconspicuous that today we cannot determine with precision either the time of his death (after 1391) or whether he was Ordained a clergyman, tonsured a monk, or remained a layman to the end of his life. An objective investigation of the data compels the honest scholar to leave the matter open, in the hope that new evidence will emerge from hitherto unknown sources.

Two facets of his public life are of interest for our subject. First, his relationship to the intelligentsia of his era, and especially the Westernizers. His intimate friendship with Kydones,5 and also his personal interests—chiefly in his youth—led him to pay close attention to the fascination that Western theological thought exerted on the circle of Western-minded intellectuals. He followed step by step the translation of the Summa contra gentiles [by Aquinas—Trans.] that Kydones was producing. Thus, Cabasilas was informed about developments in the West. This is demonstrated also by a careful study of his works, even though, for reasons that we will explain, he rarely refers directly to Western teachings. This knowledge is important with regard to the relationship of Cabasilas to St. Gregory Palamas and, more generally, to the Hesychast controversy. Enough has been written about this issue, too.

Our conclusions so far may be summarized as follows. First, that Cabasilas had a profound knowledge of the teaching of Palamas— indeed, he had been a close disciple of his for nearly a year on the Holy Mountain. However, since Palamas’ battle had in essence been won—Cabasilas was some fifteen years his junior—he did not deem it expedient to become actively involved in the controversy, although he dedicated his efforts to transmitting the deep dogmatic truths formulated by St. Gregory to the broad ecclesiastical public. Thus, he became a pioneer in the transmission to the people of the great Hesychast renaissance of the fourteenth century as a liturgical and spiritual renaissance—a work of obvious importance.

The second conclusion has to do with theological terminology and all that this entails. It is well known that St. Paul categorically and decisively defined union with Christ as the core and purpose of Christian life. No ancient heretic has dared, and no Christian confession today dares to call this purpose into question.

Nevertheless, it was disputed early on that Christ is God. The thesis that Christ is a creature, aside from placing the foundation of the Faith, the truth of the Holy Trinity, in doubt, also jeopardized the salvation of man. For, if Christ is a creature, man is not united with God through union with Him.

To the first aspect of this danger the Fathers responded with the dogma of the Nicene Synod, and to the second by interpreting Paul’s phrase “to live in Christ” as true and real deification. The doctrine of deification subsequently saw great and brilliant elaboration as a genuine expression of Orthodox Christianity, and St. Gregory Palamas very clearly upheld it and wonderfully expounded it in confronting the Arianizing heresy that man is united with created Divine Grace.

Cabasilas was in total agreement with Palamas, but at the same time, he brought the terminology of the Apostle Paul back to the theological forefront and, proceeding further along these lines, interpreted deification as true and real Christification.

By this inestimably important shift, aside from linking the struggle for deification with the Mysteriological (Sacramental) life of the Church, and showing with repeated, penetrating, and extraordinarily realistic observations that all believers can attain to the heights of deification, regardless of whether they live in the desert or in the world, he brought the discussions between Christians back to their Biblical foundation—a momentous achievement.

Moreover, in anticipating the times and offering, especially to us twentieth-century Orthodox, I would say, the practical content of deification, he safeguards us from employing deification as a nebulous and indeterminate concept, as a mere slogan.

The shift in terminology from deification to Christification further led Cabasilas to formulate an anthropology exceptionally penetrating in both its phenomenological and ontological dimensions. It also enabled him, by giving currency to the dogmatic theses of Palamism and applying them in life and culture, to exalt the Orthodox vision of a theocentric humanism before the dawning Western humanism, the first glimmers of which he discerned clearly, thanks to his contacts. All of the foregoing has already been published.6

But the subject that we are treating here requires us to indicate a third aspect of Cabasilas’ relationship to Palamas.

St. Gregory in the fourteenth century was confronted with the suppurating sore of Barlaam. He opened the wound, dissected the problem, revealed and overcame the heresy of the doctrine of created energies and created grace. He was faced with an immediate and deadly peril, and by God’s Grace he saved Eastern Christianity from heresy.

But the Westerners’ doctrine of created grace is an inevitable symptom of the truncation of the axis of Divine Œconomy from Creation-Deification to Sin-Redemption. St. Gregory saw this very grave symptom and dealt with it.

Cabasilas, protected from the rear thanks to Palamas’ victory, was able to see the problem in its entirety and its essence; and with his distinctive sobriety and profundity, he confronted it as a whole.

Thus, just as Athanasios was succeeded by Basil and Gregory the Theologian, we might say, Palamas was succeeded by Cabasilas—not to compare one with another, but to make a simple analogy. And just as we cannot comprehend the fourth century by studying Athanasios alone without the Cappadocians, or by studying Gregory of Nyssa in isolation from the other Cappadocians, in the same way our knowledge of the fourteenth century is inadequate—we would venture to say, totally inadequate—if we study Palamas alone without at the same time studying Cabasilas in depth.

Palamas revealed the depth of the Orthodox Faith with incomparable insight. Cabasilas endowed this depth with the breadth and ecumenicity that befitted it. His accomplishment consisted in relocating all of the theological, spiritual, and ecclesial realities of Christianity along the axis of Creation-Deification or perfection in Christ; and his primary instrument was the Orthodox response to the fundamental question of why God became man.

After the foregoing historical orientation, it is time to deal with the theological problem in and of itself, as Cabasilas resolved it. We shall focus our inquiry on one fundamental passage in his oeuvre.

Notes:

1. See Father Georges Florovsky, “Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation,” in Creation and Redemption, Vol. III in The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976), pp. 163-170. http://www.synodinresistance.org/Theology_en/E3c8002aGiatiEns1.pdf

2. Ibid.; Nikos Nissiotes, Προλογόμενα εἰς τὴν θεολογικὴν γνωσιολογίαν [Prolegomena to Orthodox Gnosiology] [Athens: 1965], p. 67; Andreas Theodorou, "Cur Deus Homo? Ἀπροϋπόθετος ἢ ἐμπροϋπόθετος ἐνανθρώπησις τοῦ Θείου Λόγου"; ["Cur Deus Homo? Was the Incarnation of the Divine Word Unconditional or Conditional?"], Ἐπιστημονικὴ ᾿Επετηρὶς τῆς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς τοῦ  Πανεπιστημίου ᾿Αθηνῶν, Vol. XIX (1972), pp. 297-340; Artemije Radosavljevic, Τὸ  μυστήριον τῆς σωτηρίας κατὰ τὸν ἅγιον Μάξιμον τὸν Ὁμολογητήν [The Mystery of Salvation According to St. Maximos the Confessor] (Athens: 1975), pp. 181-196.

3. Ζῶον Θεούμενον—Προοπτικὲς γιὰ μιὰ ὀρθόδοξη κατανόηση τοῦ  ἀνθρώπου [The Deified Creature: Perspectives on the Orthodox Understanding of  Man] (Athens: Ekdoseis “Epopteia,” 1979). For an English version, see Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person, trans. Norman Russell (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987).

4. Feast of the Annunciation of the Theotokos, March 25, Doxastikon at the Praises.

5. Demetrios Kydones (ca. 1324-ca. 1398), who translated several works by Thomas Aquinas into Greek and who subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism—Trans.

6. In our works: Προλεγόμενα εἰς τὴν μελέτην Νικολάου τοῦ Καβάσιλα [Prolegomena to the Study of Nicholas Cabasilas (Athens: 1968), p. 84 (also in the Θρησκευτικὴ καὶ ᾿Ηθικὴ ᾿Εγκυκλοπαιδεία, Vol. XII, cols. 830-857); Ἡ Θεομήτωρ, κείμενο, μετάφραση, εἰσαγωγή, σχόλια στὶς Θεομητορικὲς ὁμιλίες τοῦ Ν. Καβάσιλα [The Mother of God: Text, translation, introduction, and notes on the homilies on the Mother of God by N. Cabasilas] (Athens: 1968), p. 232; “Ἄνθρωπος καὶ Θεάνθρωπος” [Man and God-Man], Κληρονομία, Vol. III (1971), pp. 111-124; “Ἡ Μητέρα τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ὁ θεοκεντρικὸς ἀνθρωπισμός” [The Mother of God and theocentric humanism], Γρηγόριος Παλαμᾶς, Vol. LVI (1973), pp. 324-328; “Ὁ θάνατος τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ἡ ἀνάσταση τοῦ ἀνθρώπου” [The death of God and the resurrection of man], reprinted from Κοινωνία, Vol. V-VI (1974), p. 16; Ἡ περὶ δικαιώσεως τοῦ ἀνθρώπου διδασκαλία τοῦ Νικολάου Καβάσιλα. Συμβολὴ εἰς τὴν ὀρθόδοξον σωτηριολογίαν [Nicholas Cabasilas’ teaching on the justification of 

man: A contribution to Orthodox soteriology] (Piraeus: 1975), p. 184; “Αἱ θεολογικαὶ πηγαὶ Νικολάου τοῦ Καβάσιλα. ᾿Αναφοραὶ καὶ ἐξαρτήσεις” [The theological 

sources of Nicholas Cabasilas: References and supporting materials], Κληρονομία, Vol. VII, No. 2 (1975), pp. 327-344; “Ἡ ἕνωση μὲ τὸ Χριστὸ κατὰ τὸν Νικόλαο Καβάσιλα” [Union with Christ according to Nicholas Cabasilas], Ἐποπτεία, No. 27 (October 1978), pp. 773-781; “Ἡ ἐν Χριστῷ δικαίωσις τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κατὰ τὸν ᾿Απ. Παῦλον” [Man’s justification in Christ according to St. Paul], in Χαριστήρια εἰς 

τιμὴν τοῦ Μητροπολίτου Γέροντος Χαλκηδόνος Μελίτωνος [Festschrift in honor 

of Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon] (Thessaloniki: 1979), p. 320.

Source

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How Elder Paisios and Elder Polycarpos Met and Established Souroti Monastery

How I Met Fr. Paisios and How the Hermitage of Souroti Was Established

By Fr. Polycarpos Matzaroglou

In the year 1965 I was vicar of the Holy Church of the Wisdom of God in Thessaloniki. It was Sunday, I was the Officiator, and at the beginning of Orthros I saw standing a little away from the Icon Screen two Monks. They were unknown to me. I told the sexton to bring them to the Altar so they would not be upset when the church filled with people, and during the Praises I sat near them and asked the younger one where he was from and if they had need of help, as I was happy to stand by them.

The young one was Fr. Vasilios Gontikakis and the older one was Fr. Paisios and they were living in asceticism at the Skete of Iveron. Fr. Paisios was sick. After the Divine Liturgy I entreated Dr. Papadimitrakopoulos to look at Fr. Paisios radiographically, and the next day we went to a known microbiologist who did a blood and sputum test. I collected the tests and took them from the hotel "Halkidiki" where they stayed to a known doctor friend who was a specialist in tuberculosis and was Director of Papanikolaou Hospital. The doctor recommended "hospital and surgery". Fr. Paisios suffered extensive bronchiectasis of the lower lobe of the left lung, tuberculous aetiology.

But Fr. Paisios did not accept either the hospital or the forty streptomycins as indicated by the tuberculosis specialist.

"Take two streptomycins and 3-4 cartons of milk so I can say that I did my therapy and let us return to the Mountain," he said.

The next day I took them to the agency and they left for Mount Athos.

After some time Fr. Paisios came alone to the offices of the Metropolis, where I was working, holding a small suitcase, and he told me: "I came for you to take me to the Hospital."

Indeed I asked my friend the tuberculosis specialist and he ordered a ticket of "temporary residence" at "Papanikolaou" the same day, where a surgeon Mr. Economopoulos and Chief Mrs. Haniotakis were in charge.

There was a delay, so then I fled to the father-in-law of the surgeon, the known Mr. Papapostolou, with the Medical Supplies Store, and he gave us the date of the surgery as well as ordered us to find ten vials of blood.

During this postponement there was a new occurrence of interference, due to the sensitivity of Fr. Paisios: A young child was hospitalized at that time. He had in his bronchus a holly leaf and this made him suffer. Fr. Paisios gave his turn to the sick child and his surgery was delayed again.

Here I will make a parenthesis necessary for the connection of my acquaintance with Father Paisios and the foundation of the Hermitage Souroti and the historical truth of the whole matter:

From the year 1961 I had under my spiritual guidance about twenty girls who had a passion and holy desire to establish a Hermitage.

The Metropolitan of Thessaloniki was the blessed Panteleimon, my spiritual father, with whose blessing was bought, at the expense of the same girls, a farm of thirteen acres near the village of Filiron in Thessaloniki. But when we began the preliminary work of the facility, the Metropolitan asked seven members of the "Spiritual Fellowship" and even the most educated to register and settle at the Monastery of Panoramatos in Thessaloniki. None of the girls wanted to separate from the others and their refusal was the reason the Metropolitan revoked the founding of the Monastery in his Metropolis region.

I will continue concerning the illness of Father Paisios:

The blood which he needed for his surgery and support during the illness of Fr. Paisios, was obtained through the good will of my spiritual children who even though did not live in a Monastery, and were not even nuns, they lived the monastic struggle and obedience.

At the same time I set a daily schedule again with my spiritual children to minister to the sick one.

At the hospital Fr. Paisios had to stay more than two months and because the sections were large the doctor suggested he stay in Thessaloniki one more month. I took him to the house of Mrs. Antonia Kalogeropoulou who would confess to me, and she gladly agreed to host and look after him.

Naturally the adventure of this illness of Fr. Paisios and this great communication with him, gave me the comfort of heart to place the great problem I was facing with the young girls and the establishment of the Hermitage. Indeed I gathered the Sisters in the presence of Fr. Paisios (he was still sick in the house of Mrs. Kalogeropoulou) and I told him of the denial response of the Metropolitan of Thessaloniki Panteleimon Papageorgiou.

Fr. Paisios suggested to talk to a Hieromonk known to him, Father Agathangelos Parlantza, and he would propose to the Metropolitan of Kassandra Synesios Visvini, in whose Metropolis he served, to establish the Hermitage there. Indeed in fifteen days a positive response came from the Metropolitan of Kassandra Synesios Visvini.

It was agreed that I remain in obscurity so that the holy one of Thessaloniki (Metropolitan Panteleimon Papageorgiou) would not be saddened and at the appropriate time I would ask for a certificate to be appointed to the Province of Kassandra, so I can be near the Hermitage to direct the Sisters.

Let it be noted that all these things were made known by my letters to the Metropolitan of Kassandra.

Father Agathangelos and the Hieromonk Theoklitos Bolka identified an eight acre parcel in Souroti, they came in contact with me, I saw the property and we decided on its purchase.

At this time, since Fr. Paisios had not yet left for Mount Athos, one day we went together to the Hermitage of Saint Magdalene in Polygyros where the Hieromonks were settled and it happened that we met the Metropolitan of Kassandra who asked to learn who we were, and he first asked Fr. Paisios:

- "Who are you?"

- "Monk Paisios of Sinai. I lived in Sinai under Metropolitan Porphyrios."

- "And you?" (he asked me).

- "Fr. Polycarpos Matzaroglou..."

- "A! Yes, I know you from the fathers and your letter. I have no objection to the establishment of the Hermitage."

After a few days I went back to Polygyros, to the Metropolis, where the Metropolitan had prepared the document authorizing the cells and a church and he delivered it into my hands.

Plans for the original wing of the Hermitage were done by a German architect named Sotiris, a protege of Fr. Theoklitos, and he always worked along with me. The plans for the Katholikon I requested to be done by the brother of Eldress Mariam Polychroniadou, whom I took into the world of the "Spiritual Fellowship", because she lived at her home in Edessa (she was the former abbess of the Holy Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Edessa).

Vasilis Polychroniadis was a skilled church builder of the Holy Metropolis of Edessa and Pelli.

The construction of both the church and the original wing of the cells was done by the contractor Matthew Eleftheriadis, son-in-law of Sister Mary Panteloglou.

We opened with the Sisters a joint bank account and we all contributed according to the economic strength of each. We empowered Maria Panteloglou to make the payments.

In October of 1967 ten Sisters settled in the Monastery.

In 1970 I took the responsibility of being an Parish Priest, Preacher, Spiritual Father and Representative of the Archbishop at the parish of Saint George Vasilikon, as well as Spiritual Father of the Holy Hermitage "Saint John the Theologian", subscription No 618/3-7-1970 of the Holy Metropolis of Kassandra.

In the interval since the establishment with the first Sisters until my appointment, I would go to the Hermitage and oversaw and surveyed all the needs of the Sisterhood both material and spiritual, even to the detail, and I guided the Sisterhood.

I will make a small report addressing the basic needs of the Hermitage for its good functioning.

Water:

There was only one well with sour water beneath the Monastery about 800 meters away, where we later made a collection tank and with a water pump moved it to the Monastery. It was unfit for drinking, but we used it for irrigation and other needs. Good water was acquired by the Monastery after obtaining electricity.

Electricity:

I knew Mr. George Kitsos, Regional Director in Macedonia-Thrace for the PPC, and with the help of Mr. Kitsos columns were placed from the village of Souroti to the Hermitage and we thus gained electricity.

When power came to the Monastery, we were also able to bring good water. From the central water mains of the Souroti Community, at the cost of the Monastery, and with the help of President Mr. Tzola, we conveyed water to the Monastery through piping.

Road:

There was only a small walking path from the road to the Hermitage and the difficulties were many. I remember the Metropolitan of Kassandra called me and asked me if the Monastery had any needs which the Army could help with, because it was proposed by the Commander of the 561st Order Mr. Gotsis, whose seat was in Sedes.

I mentioned the need for a road and he gave me the card of the General, saying:

- "Go by yourself to meet him...."

Which I did. Indeed ten days after my visit in Thermi, there landed in the area of the Monastery a helicopter, and special forces descended and mapped a "winding road" from the main road to the Monastery and in one month they gave us a road, of course it was a dirt road. Later in 1972 I knew the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Zarntinidis, and he laid down the existing asphalt road.

Father Paisios from time to time descended from Mount Athos and would live in the Monastery for a while. I myself would live in the Vasilika of Thessaloniki and I would meet him at the Hermitage. Fr. Paisios never got involved with the building of the Hermitage or its material needs. His offering was purely spiritual, but always with very good communication with me, never taking an initiative without first talking about the details of the issue with me.

After 1970 I could easily go the Monastery and we decided to add the other buildings - the Church of Zoodochos Pege, an Iconography Room, the Tank, and a Kalyva on the mountain where Fr. Paisios could stay when he visited. Because the number of Nuns greatly increased, we added a floor to the existing wing of cells and later a new wing along with the Church of the Archangels.

In 1972 I transferred permanently to the Monastery where I would confess many pilgrims.

In 1974 the Metropolitan of Kassandra through the document No 7/10-1-1974 instructed me to proceed with the tonsuring of Rassophores, Small Schemas and Great Schemas among the ascetics of the Hermitage of St. John the Theologian. In witness thereof is another document of the Monastery (02/01/1974) to the Metropolitan of Kassandra which was undersigned by the Abbess Philothei Samaras seeking the blessing of the Metropolitan to register the Hermitage in the Monastic Registry under one nun. The document says exactly: "The novice Sophia Akritidou was tonsured by the hand of our Spiritual Father Polycarpos Matzaroglou under No. 7/10-1-1974...."

There is a number of written evidence which exists to the authenticity of my establishment of the Hermitage of Saint John the Theologian in Sourotis and my spiritual paternity for 22 consecutive years to the Sisterhood of the Hermitage (from 1961 while still in the world, until 1983).

I will present only the testimony of Fr. Paisios himself, who writes in his book "Saint Arsenios of Cappadocia" from the 1975 edition of the Hermitage of Sourotis:

Page 8 says: "...my friend Fr. Polycarpos the Founder and Elder of this Monastery...."

Page 11 says: "...there appeared to a sister Fr. Arsenios, as well as another - of which I will present the details - and the Spiritual Father, when he found out, since he clouded the waters for the sisters so they would not be hurt, contacted me. I responded to him again that we should leave it to God, without making a fuss."

These of course are the same testimonies of Fr. Paisios which were altered in subsequent editions of this book and the name of Fr. Polycarpos is never mentioned.

I reside at the Holy Monastery of the "Panagia of Evros" for 28 years (1983-2010), I unleashed my silence, not that I may be justified by men, since it is the justice and mercy of God that we desire, but first for historical truth:

a) How I met Fr. Paisios and how I connected him with the Sisterhood of Souroti.

b) How I gathered the living material of the Hermitage and when.

c) Who founded the Hermitage from the beginning until 1983 and built it.

And secondly, to end the scandalization of thousands of believers, by the number of deliberate historical falsehoods circulating regarding the Hermitage of Souroti resulting in spiritual damage.

Archimandrite Polycarpos Matzaroglou

In the Holy Monastery of Panagia of Evros

Feast of the Honorable Cross 2010

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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On Nationalistic Schisms

From an interview with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos:

Question: In conclusion, your Eminence, what would be your message and advice to the Orthodox Christians in our country (FYROM/Macedonia) in these moments of tribulation for them?

Answer: I think that what I have said so far in your questions can be considered as an answer to this last question. In general, at present there is a great need for unity in church life, so that spiritual gifts are united with the canonical structure of the Church, neptic life with the Holy Eucharist, man’s cure with the doctrinal teaching of the Church.

Regarding your country, in particular, I think a proper way must be found in order to obtain canonical unity with the other Orthodox Churches under the head of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. God does not bless schisms and divisions, and no correct Orthodox spiritual life can be developed within such schisms.

Above all, we have to realize that the Orthodox Church exists beyond nations and countries, and this is why the Churches cannot be considered as national and as bastions of nationalism.

Saint Paul the Apostle clearly advises: “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philip. 3:20). Our center of attention, our vision, our expectation, and our hope is the heavenly polity, where the saints are now, united with Christ. When we think this way, that other saying by Saint Paul the Apostle is applicable: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:1-2), and then all personal and social problems are resolved.

From Sobornost, September 2006.

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On Revenge

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Say not, I will repay evil! Trust in the Lord and He will help you" (Proverbs 20:22).

Do not be vengeful; do not return evil for evil. The evil from your neighbor is sufficient. If you return evil for evil to him, you will double the evil in the world. If you do not return evil for evil to him, he can still burn out his evil through repentance. Thus, you will reduce evil in the world through patience and forgiveness.

Do not be vengeful; do not return evil for evil. "But wait on the Lord," He sees and remembers and, in your time, even you and your evil doer will know that God sees and remembers. You ask yourself: What have I done in that I have not returned evil for evil? You have done the wisest deed that you could do in the given situation, i.e.; you have relinquished your struggle to the One Stronger than yourself and the Stronger will victoriously fight for you. If you enter into battle with the evil doer you might be defeated. But God cannot be defeated. Therefore, relinquish your struggle to the Victorious and Undefeated One and patiently wait.

Learn from a small child. If someone attacks a child in the presence of his parents, the child does not return the attack by attacking but rather looks at his parents and cries. The child knows that his parents will protect him. How is it that you do not know what a little child knows? Your heavenly Parent is constantly beside you. That is why, do not be vengeful; do not return evil for evil rather look at your Parent and cry. Only in this way will you guarantee victory for yourself in conflict with evil men.

O Almighty Lord Who said: "Vengeance is Mine" (Romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30), protect us from the unrighteous ones by Your almighty hand and restrain us from vengeance. Counsel us by Your Holy Spirit that the greater heroism is to endure rather than to avenge. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

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Bird "Sings" Through Feathers

Matt Kaplan

November 11, 2009

National Geographic

Solving a longstanding puzzle among bird experts, scientists have found that the sharp, violin-like sounds of a South American songbird come not from the beak but from a suite of specially evolved, vibrating feathers.

A new study offers the first hard evidence that birds use feathers for audible communication as well as for flight and warmth.

In 2005 Kimberly Bostwick theorized that the male club-winged manakin—a tiny bird of the Andean cloud forest—was vibrating a club-shaped wing feather against a neighboring, ridged feather to "sing" when trying to attract females. (See "Cloud Forests Fading in the Mist, Their Treasures Little Known.")

Proving the feather-song connection, though, would be a huge challenge.

"It was very hard to mess with the birds' feathers and still have them do their display," said Bostwick, curator of birds and mammals at the Cornell University of Vertebrates in Ithaca, New York.

"There were many times where I listened to the sound and started doubting that a feather could possibly make [the sound]," she recalled.

Bird Vibrations

To determine, once and for all, how the manakin was making its bizarre sounds, Bostwick and colleagues decided to take feather samples and analyze them in a lab.

She knew from previous work that the frequency of the sound made by the manakin was 1500 hertz—1,500 cycles per second. If the two feather types were making the sound, they should resonate when vibrated at the same frequency during the experiments.

The team used lasers to monitor vibrations as they were oscillated by a lab device called a mini-shaker. The special feathers vibrated at exactly 1500 hertz—proving they're responsible for the strange sounds.

But there's a twist: Bostwick was surprised to find that club and the ridged feathers aren't a duet, but part of a chamber orchestra.

Individually the manakin's "regular" feathers didn't resonate like the special ones. But when the nine feathers closest to the special feathers were still attached to the ligaments, they vibrated at around 1500 hertz, harmonized with the club feathers, and amplified the volume of the sound.

The results, Bostwick said, could lead to better understanding of the newly discovered form of bird communication.

Lots of birds make simple clapping sounds or whooshing noises with their wings, and we haven't even begun to understand how the sounds are made or how they've evolved, she added.

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The Role of Monasticism in our Time

From an interview with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos:

Question: Coming now to contemporary Orthodox monasticism, what would you consider to be its primary role in the present circumstances compared to that in the past? Would you say that every epoch puts a different challenge before the monastic community, and if that is so, what specific mission it has in our time?

Answer: In the Orthodox Church, genuine monasticism is the one that lives fully the hesychastic tradition we mentioned above, and the monks should be, according to an ancient saying, “the ones who live by the Gospel”.

It is significant that anchoritism developed as a reaction to the “spirit” of secularism, when the persecution of the Church ceased in the fourth century and the “spirit” of secularism entered the Church. Because of this, Orthodox monasticism, in contrast to western monasticism, is the experience of the prophetic, apostolic, martyric life and, unlike in the West, it is not the monks who save the Church but they are saved by remaining within the Church.

Consequently, monasteries function, and have to function, as spiritual medical schools of the Church. The physicians learn at medical schools what physical illness is, what a healthy organism is and how the sick are cured. Similarly, the monks learn in these spiritual medical schools the method for men’s spiritual cure. When monasticism misses this objective, it is secularized and causes greater disappointment to Christians. Because in such cases monasticism becomes a secular organization, a place where all passions, aggressiveness and fanaticism are cultivated.

From Sobornost, September 2006.

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God's Indebtedness To The Merciful

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"He who has compassion on the poor lends to God and He will repay Him for his good deed" (Proverbs 19:17).

The poor man who begs and the rich man who gives both are indebting the Lord, but only under the condition that the poor man begs in the name of the Lord with humility and that the rich man gives in the name of the Lord with compassion. Everyone who receives should know that he receives that which belongs to God and everyone who gives should know that he gives that which belongs to God. Such giving has a price and such receiving has a price. All of us enter this world naked and naked shall we leave this world. All of us are beggars before the Lord for we possess nothing that we have not received from the Lord. Therefore, give to the poor man as God has given to you. You take what is another's and you give to your own when you perform charity. The poor man is closer to you than all of your goods, even as to God, the Creator of men, every man is incomparably more precious than all of his goods.

If you have been given riches, it was given to you for temptation: that your heart be tempted! That God and all the heavenly hosts see whether you understood from whom are all your riches and why they were given to you. Blessed are you if you know that your goods are from God and belong to God! Blessed are you if you consider the poor as your companions, among your family members and share with them from that which God has entrusted to you!

O how immeasurable is God's love for mankind! Behold, all that you have belongs to God but, nevertheless, God considers Himself your debtor if you take from Him and give to the poor and He will repay you for your good. What kind of mercy can be compared to this!

O Man-loving Lord, open our minds to understand the mystery of Your mercy and soften our hearts as wax, that as wax they burn and shine with the reflection of Your inexpressible mercy! To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

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