The Restoration of 8th Century Roman Frescoes

By John Sanidopoulos

On Monday October 1st, Italy's Culture Ministry allowed a rare peak at a (EURO)3 million ($3.8 million) restoration of medieval frescoes in the ancient church of St. Mary in the Roman Forum (Santa Maria Antiqua).

During the visit on Monday, a restorer in blue rubber gloves stood on a metal scaffold and took a small paint brush to the dark clothing of a Byzantine fresco of the Virgin Mary on the walk of the church experts refer to as the Sistine Chapel of the eighth century.

This church is the oldest Christian monument in the Roman Forum and was built in the 5th century. It includes the earliest Roman depiction of Santa Maria Regina depicting the Virgin Mary as a Queen in the 6th century. Pope John VII used this church in the early 8th century as see of the bishop of Rome.

The church was partially destroyed in 847, when an earthquake caused parts of the imperial palaces to collapse and cover the church. For this reason, a new church called Santa Maria Nova (New St. Mary, now Santa Francesca Romana) was erected nearby by Pope Leo IV, on a portion of the ruined temple of Temple of Venus and Roma, where once stood a chapel commemorating the fall of Simon Magus. Santa Maria Antiqua suffered further damages during the Norman Sack of Rome (1084).

The church of Santa Maria Liberator was built in 1617 on its ruins, but then demolished in 1900 to bring the remains of the old church to light.

The inside of the church is decorated with ancient frescoes in Byzantine style, dating back to Pope Martin I (649-655), Pope John VII (705-707), and Pope Zachary (741-752).

The restoration project aimed at bringing the medieval frescoes back to their early glory has been under way since 2001.

The work is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

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Russian Navy Bring Icon of St. Feodor Ushakov to Greece

By John Sanidopoulos

Having completed preparations for a long-range cruise, Black Sea Fleet (BSF) landing ship Novocherkassk left Sevastopol. Within the next 1.5 months the ship will be stationed in the Mediterranean Sea and pay 7 calls at Greek and Montenegrin ports.

During the farewell ceremony, the rector of St. Nicholas Church, Father George, handed over the icon of St. Feodor Ushakov to the crew and blessed the mariners.

The Holy Admiral Feodor Ushakov was recognized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2001. He contributed greatly to the liberation of the Ionian Islands from the Franks in 1800 which led to the creation of the "Ionian State".

The crew and will participate in various cultural activities scheduled during the visits to foreign ports. They will represent the Russian Navy at the traditional "Russian Week" festival to take place on Corfu and other Ionian islands. Greeks recognize his contribution, and have expressed their gratitude by erecting many monuments to him throughout the country.

Fr. Michael Mamaev is accompanying the icon on the ship and will celebrate the Divine Liturgy with Greek priests at the various Greek ports.

When visiting Pilos, Russian servicemen will attend the festivities of the 185th anniversary of the Navarino Battle. It is also planned to visit the Greek port of Thessaloniki and the Montenegrin port Bar.

There is the BSF marine unit onboard Novocherkassk; it is attached to the crew in order to maintain the ship's security.

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Russian Orthodox Lack Churches in Russia

Alexey Eremenko

October 3, 2012

RIA Novosti

Orthodox Christians constitute 43 percent of the Russian populace, but they have less churches and parishes per believer than any other major confession in the country, according to a new study presented on Wednesday.

“There’s a huge demand for faith, which is not being met” due to a shortage of religious facilities, religion sociologist Roman Lunkin of Sreda pollster said at a presentation in Moscow.

Sreda’s arguably counter-intuitive findings are based on a sweeping poll of 56,900 respondents by Public Opinion Foundation and nationwide statistics on almost 25,000 “religious associations” – i.e. churches and their analogues – by the Justice Ministry.

Though a common belief, often cited by media and politicians, claims that 80 to 90 percent of Russians belong to the Russian Orthodox Christian Church, only 41.1 of the population, or 61 million people, identified themselves with it, the study showed. Another 2 percent belong to various other branches of Orthodox Christianity such as the Old Believers.

The poll contradicts a recent study by Public Opinion Foundation, which put the number of Orthodox Christians in Russia at 64 percent in August. The study covered 1,500 people and had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

The smaller figure shows the number of serious believers, eschewing those who only identify as Christians because of its traditional role in Russian culture, Lunkin said.

Islam followed with 7 percent in Sreda's study, whereas Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam and Buddhism all scored within the margin of error, which stood at 1 percent.

About 25 percent were believers without confessional allegiance, 13 percent said they were atheists and 5.5 percent failed to specify their relationship with the Divine.

But there is only one registered religious community per some 4,200 Orthodox Christians in Russia, compared to 2,250 for Islam and 2,920 for Buddhism.

Catholic church sported one community per 794 believers nationwide, while Judaism served 394 people per community. Protestants were the runaway leaders, averaging a flock of 87 per church or congregation hall.

The poll, conducted between May and June and modeled on Western surveys such as the European Values Study, did not cover religious movements more exotic for Russia, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons or the neo-pagans.

Some 600 religious associations of this kind are registered in Russia, but up to 5,000 more may be operating without formal registration to avoid trouble from authorities, Lunkin said.

Unorthodox religious groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses often complain of pressure from local officials who tend to view unfamiliar confessions as dangerous sects. Last month, court marshals demolished a Pentecostal church in Nizhny Novgorod Region over faulty paperwork, while Orthodox Christian activists pelted the gathered Pentecostals with stones.

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16,000 Bulgarians To Get Their Own Church in Bari, Italy

September 28, 2012

Novinite

The Bulgarian community in the southern Italian city of Bari, which consists of 16,000 people, will have a Bulgarian Orthodox temple of its own, the Bulgarian Culture Ministry announced.

The news emerged Friday after Bulgarian Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov met with Bari Mayor Michele Emiliano.

It will be served by Rome-based Bulgarian priest archimandrite Kliment Bobchev, the Culture Ministry said.

Bari Mayor Emiliano has promised Rashidov that the Bulgarian community in the city will receive a municipal plot to erect a temple of its own.

"The Bulgarian community in Bari believes in its identity and enriches us with its culture. That's why we will be glad to provid them with both a temple, and a plot for a new church," the mayor stated.

Thus, in his words, until they manage to build their own church, the Bulgarians in Bari will be allowed to use one of the existing Christian temples in the city to hold religious services.

Rashidov and Emiliano also agreed to hold reciprocal "Culture Days" of the respective city in Sofia and Bari.

The local authorities in Bari has expressed support for Rashidov's initiative for the signing of two Bulgarian-Italian memorandums – for the prevention of illegal antique trafficking, and for cooperation in film making.

Bari Mayor Emiliano has presented to Rashidov a silver replica of the oldest image of St. Nicholas.

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Are the Writings of Dionysius the Areopagite Genuine?

By Rev. John Parker (1895)

Introductory

From a Christian and theological point of view momentous issues depend upon the answer to this question. The author of these writings quotes Holy Scripture about five hundred times - always as the supreme authority - most frequently as the oracles of God. (Logia). Except the two small letters of John Presbyter, the author quotes from every book of the New Testament, as known and existing before ad 98. If then these writings are the genuine works of Dionysius the Areopagite - the convert of St. Paul - we have historic proof that the books of the New Testament were quoted and known in the first century. If these writings are genuine, we have historic proof that in the first century there was 1st, episcopal consecration of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon; 2nd, that Baptism was administered by trine immersion, - and to children - and that it was accompanied with unction of Holy Oil; 3rd, that Holy Communion was administered with Liturgical prayers and formula, as well as with personal prayers and exhortations; and 4th, that "Incense was offered to God's Holy Name, and a pure offering" (Malachi 1:2).

These writings abound in surprises. Greeks will be content - Latins will exult - Anglicans will rejoice - Agnostics will smile - Baptists will triumph - Plymouth Brethren will know the reason why - Theosophists will be delighted. We may all be put right because we shall all be proved wrong in some particular. After five years' continuous research I have a strong conviction of their genuineness. I stake my judgment upon the fact, and am rather glad to stand alone - for a time. My appeal is to historical criticism, and to common sense. But I wish to state the case, not to decide the question, and with such restrained impartiality that the case shall not be weakened by an apparent bias in favor of what I deem the truth.

Personal Affirmations of the Author

The author of these writings expressly affirms that he was brought from paganism to the Christian Faith by the divine Paul. He speaks of Timothy as his friend, and declares that they were both disciples of Paul. He incidentally reminds Timothy that they both were once present with James the Lord's brother, and Peter, the foremost and most honored pinnacle of the Theologians. He writes to "John Theologus, Apostle, Evangelist, imprisoned in the isle of Patmos," and expresses a confident hope that they will soon meet to speak face to face. In a letter to Polycarp, he describes a sudden unexpected darkness, which Apollophanes and he had witnessed in Egypt. He declares that Paul had taught him that that darkness was contemporaneous with the Crucifixion. He writes to Titus as mutual friends of Timothy. He describes Himself as friend, and relative of Apollophanes, who was tutor of Polemon, whose pupil Aristides presented the "Apology" to the Emperor Hadrian.

Are these allusions natural and true, or feigned and cunningly devised?

The Treatise on the "Divine Names" explains the various epithets applied in Holy Scripture to the whole Godhead alike, - Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the ever Being - the good - the beautiful - the powerful - the wise - the great - the small. The author discusses the nature and origin of evil, - the difficulties attendant upon its existence under the Omnipotent Providence of God. In the "Celestial Hierarchy" the author claims to give instruction on the holy Angels, derived from Paul. In the "Ecclesiastical Hierarchy" he describes the administration of Holy Communion, Baptism, Chrism, and the spiritual instruction taught and implied in the various ceremonial acts performed. He also discusses the reason for prayers in the funeral rites of the departed, and the conditions under which such prayers may be used. He argues the question of the Baptism of Infants, and describes the conditions under which it may be done. In the "Mystic Theology" he describes how we may best attain the knowledge of God, and gives a list of the works written by himself. In the "Letters" he answers inquiries addressed to him by Gaius, Dorotheus and Titus respecting certain deep questions discussed in his writings. The purpose of the whole is the elevation of man to God. Union with God is the vestibule of truth, and the unique way to attain the highest truth.

Have we here a genuine truthful book written by Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of Paul, the personal friend of Timothy and John the Evangelist?

The question is to be answered from the testimony of history, and upon the principles of true historic criticism. Having translated the whole collected works of Dionysius the Areopagite, and read and studied a literature upon the subject, I affirm that we have here writings penned by Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of St. Paul, in which there is not a personal or local allusion which was intended to mislead or deceive, and that the author lived and moved amongst Apostles and Apostolic men, even as the writings imply and affirm. To prove this I call four witnesses - Lucius Flavius Dexter, the Statesman; Dionysius, the Great Bishop of Alexandria; Maximus, the Confessor; and Photius, the Patriarch. I shall first show their qualifications as witnesses, then produce their testimony, then appeal to the reader.

Lucius Flavius Dexter, late 4th century

Lucius Flavius Dexter was a friend of Jerome. Jerome even addresses him as filius amicus and describes him as clarus apud seculum et Christi fidei deditus.

Dexter became Prefect of the Oriental Praetorians, and was one of the most distinguished statesmen of his time. He visited the East, and there met Jerome. Like Lord Dufferin, he was chosen to arrange the most difficult negotiations. He undertook to appease the jealousy between the provinces of Barcelona and Toledo. Political affairs compelled him to reside two years in Toledo. Like Mr. Speaker Denison, he combined a love of truth with ability in affairs of state. Whilst residing at Toledo, he examined the "Tabularia", or ancient records of that Apostolic See, in which he says, "I confess to have found many things worthy to be known". In the cathedral of Toledo there is a tablet giving the succession of Bishops from St. Paul, A.D. 62 to the present day. From the records of Toledo and other churches in Spain, Dexter compiled a chronicle from A.D. 1 to 430, containing a brief summary of events, chiefly in reference to the Church of Spain. That chronicle he dedicated to Jerome, who enrolled both author and chronicle in his book of "Illustrious Men". It was at the request of Dexter that Jerome wrote his book of "Illustrious Men", which he dedicated to Dexter, and which was deemed so valuable by antiquity that Sophronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, translated it into Greek.

Amongst the earliest Bishops of Toledo, Dexter describes a remarkable man, named Marcellus, surnamed Eugenius, on account of his noble birth. Bivarius says "he was of the family and house of Caesar, being uncle to the Emperor Hadrian". This Marcellus was consecrated Bishop by Dionysius the Areopagite, at Aries, and sent to Toledo. Respecting him, Dexter records that Dionysius the Areopagite dedicates to him, u.c. 851 (A.D. 98), the "books of the Divine Names", as wishing to have still a Timothy on earth - "in vivis". Dexter further records that Dionysius surnamed Marcellus, Timothy, on account of his excellent disposition.

Now Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, an author in the 2nd century, relates that Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, was martyred during the reign of Nerva (96-97). Upon the return of Dionysius to Gaul, after his visit to St. John liberated from Patmos, we find him surnaming his friend Marcellus, Timothy, and presenting to him a copy of the "Divine Names" (A.D. 98)1, in order that he might still have a Timothy on earth, although his first Timothy, to whom his works were originally written, migravit ad Christum A.D. 97.

This touch of nature recorded to have taken place nearly 1,800 years ago, and whose record is preserved in a chronicle2 written more than 1,400 years ago, by an illustrious statesman who was also son of a Bishop, celebrated for learning and sanctity, may perhaps be deemed by some minds reasonable proof that the Treatise of the "Divine Names" was written by Dionysius the Areopagite previous to A.D. 98.

Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 250

Dionysius gained the title of "Great," even amongst the teachers of the Didaskaleion, which was a rival of the Serapeum of Alexandria. He was successor of Clement and Origen.

About ten years ago, L'Abbd Martin discovered in the British Museum (Nos. 12151-2) a letter written by Dionysius of Alexandria to Pope Sixtus the 2nd, in which he affirms positively that no one can doubt that Dionysius the Areopagite is the author of the writings which are circulated in his name. In the first Codex we find portions of that Epistle in the conclusion of the work written by John Scholasticus (605), entitled "A New Apology", written by George, Priest of the great Church of Constantinople, and native of the City of Bozra, with reference to the "Divine Writings," which are rejected by some ignorant persons, as though they were not the production of that great doctor, but only writings of some heretic, such as Appollinaris or some recent and unknown heretic. Now, that Priest George of Constantinople, after recounting that these Books of the Areopagite had several times been rejected by foolish people, affirms that he is going to produce an argument that will close the mouth of all gainsayers; and that argument is the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria, from which the following is an extract:

"The God Unknown, Jesus, the Word, whom the Greeks worthily honor, although they do not know Him, was crucified by the Jews, when they ought to have adored Him. But they did not know Him (I say that it was the Word that they ought to have adored, the Word of the Father — because I do not wish anyone to believe that I am the advocate of idolators; and I speak only of those Greeks who recognize the God Unknown as the Author of the Universe). Now, having known Him according to the Scriptures, the great Dionysius wished to be baptized by the Apostle, with all his house. He was an eloquent and illustrious man, who became afterwards Bishop of Athens, and made himself celebrated by the Works which he composed on the Divine Theology. He was disciple of St. Paul, by whom the Messiah made known the Gospel to the Gentiles, by speaking Himself through his mouth. Now the Book of that distinguished man shows clearly the brilliancy of his talent, for he is the author of the theological work of which we are now speaking. Further, no one disputes his paternity of it, for, when some people of the contrary opinion have read, with attention and intelligence, that work, at once philosophic and divine, and have been enlightened by the very testimony of the holy Doctor that we have under our eyes, they will easily comprehend that these Divine Writings could only be the work of the great Dionysius, who, with the Divine help and inspiration, piously governed the Church of Athens.

"Now, after Hierotheus, who was his master, what other doctor was there more powerful in word than he who has written, in a manner so sublime, upon Theology and Sciences?

"No one penetrated more profoundly than Dionysius into the mysterious depths of the Holy Scriptures. This is easily proved by reading attentively, and with love of the truth, the works that we have from him. For he is worthy of credit even when he testifies of himself, as he does in his letter to the holy Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp — that valiant defender of the Faith, — that disciple of John the Evangelist, the Beloved Apostle of our Lord."

That reference is to Section 1 of the Letter to Polycarp,3 which concludes with these beautiful words, "Having then, as I think, well understood this, I have not been over zealous to speak in reply to Greeks, or to others; but it is sufficient for me (and may God grant this) first, to know about truth, then having known, to speak as it is fitting to speak." Bear in mind that since the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria was disentombed by L'Abbe Martin, Professor Frothingham, an American scholar, has found the "Book of Hierotheus" in the British Museum. The Archbishop of Athens gave me, some time ago, this catalogue of the first five Bishops of Athens: 1st, Hierotheus, A.D. 52; 2nd, Dionysius; 3rd, Narcissus; 4th, Publius, 118—124; 5th, Quadratus, who presented the "Apology" to the Emperor Hadrian. Yet, twenty-five years ago, Hierotheus was thought to be a mythical personage, — just as King Lucius of Britain is now, by some, deemed to be a myth — by those who presumably have never read Archbishop Parker's magnificent book, "De antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae", nor Alford's two volumes of the "Fides Regia Anglicana". Would some learned foreigner disentomb those two works in the British Museum, for the instruction of our "Historical Society," which knows more of the See of Rome than of its own ancient Metropolitan See of London.

Glastonbury is the Cradle of the Christian Church in Great Britain — not the modern graft of Canterbury. It is a curious method of historical criticism to prove the continuity of the Church in Britain from A.D. 33 to 1897, by dating its episcopal succession from St. Augustine, A.D. 597, when that succession died out A.D. 669. Some members of our "Historical Society" wish to impose upon us the "being English" as a third Sacrament, which they seem to regard "as generally necessary to salvation." Joseph of Arimathea, invited to Britain by a Druid Priest, for greater security from the Jews, says of himself, "After I had buried Christ, I came to the Britons, I taught, I fell asleep."

Some of our "English" Divines disdain to believe that testimony, apparently because they were not there to see him buried. Even Latin Councils4 are disregarded, when their testimony is in favor of our own Church and Nation.

We affirm, then, that the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria is proof that the Writings of Dionysius were known and regarded as genuine previous to A.D. 250.

Maximus The Confessor, A.D. 630

Maximus the Confessor was a learned and luminous writer. His writings have come down to us in two volumes. They discuss the most difficult passages of Holy Writ, and contain treatises upon the soul, the blessed Trinity, and the Hypostatic Union. He was a towering figure in the Monophysite Controversy. His famous discussion with Pyrrhus, Patriarch of Constantinople, is contained in his works. He suffered banishment, persecution and ignominy rather than betray his convictions; and his death was probably hastened by his sufferings. Neither fear nor favor could make him swerve from his convictions. Amongst other writings, with which his learning and piety have enriched the Church, are Scholia upon the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. When commenting upon the fifth chapter of the "Celestial Hierarchy", he alludes to the expression, "ousias", applied by Dionysius the Areopagite to the holy angels, and writes thus, "the great Dionysius," the Bishop of Alexandria; — he, who had been an orator, — in the Scholia which he made upon the blessed Dionysius his namesake, speaks thus: "The external philosophy (pagan Greek) was accustomed to call all invisible nature ungenerated, and likewise personalities 'beings' (ousias), and from this he says, such phrases are used by the holy Dionysius, after the manner of the external philosophers." Maximus is commenting upon a word which is used by Dionysius the Areopagite. To explain its use and presence in the text, he quotes verbatim from the Scholia written by the Bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 250. How then can we escape the conclusion that the works of the Areopagite were known in A.D. 250, when Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, wrote his Scholia explaining the unusual use of that word by the Areopagite. Be it remembered that Maximus was a determined opponent of the so-called Monophysites, who claimed the writings of Dionysius as their chief authority. They produced them at Constantinople, A.D. 532, and they were regarded as their great champions. Are we then to believe that Maximus did not scan, with a critical eye, the writings which were the alleged stronghold of his opponents, as well as the Scholia of the great Bishop of Alexandria, which treated those writings as genuine, in A.D. 250.

We affirm then that the Scholia of Maximus, written upon the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, are a reasonable historic proof that those writings are genuine, and that Dionysius of Alexandria wrote his Scholia upon the same writings previous to A.D. 250.

Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, ninth century

Photius was a Prince of Patriarchs and a landmark in history. His letter to Michael, Prince of Bulgaria, marks the cleavage between Greeks and Latins, which subsequent events widened into a great gulf, which will not be closed until Christian learning and good sense are in the ascendant. Mr. Gladstone would have found Photius a glad competitor in working, in reading, in writing, whether in "felling" I don't know!

"He was accounted," says Nicetas David — the panegyrist of his great rival Ignatius— "to be of all men the most eminent for his secular acquirements, and his understanding of political affairs. For so superior were his attainments in grammar5 and poetry, in rhetoric and philosophy, yea even in medicine, and almost all branches of knowledge beyond the limits of theology, that he not only excelled all the men of his own day, but seemed even to bear comparison with the Ancients. For all things combined in his favor — natural aptitude, diligence, wealth — which enabled him to form an all comprehensive library, and more than all these, the lust of glory, which induced him to pass whole nights without sleep, that he might have time for reading."

Photius was sent on an embassy to the Assyrians. During that embassy he read the works described in his "Bibliotheca", and wrote the critical notes on the books read contained in that book. He thus continued the work of Jerome and Eusebius as historian of Church literature.

Now, it is a proof of the importance of our theme, that the very first book described by Photius, in his "Bibliotheca", is one which treats of the genuineness of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. We gladly concede that the genuineness of those writings had to be maintained, A.D. 420. The primitive Church was not so uncritical as some affirm. The first book which Photius describes was written by Theodore, a presbyter of the Church of Antioch. What was the date of Theodore? Gennadius, in his book of "Illustrious Men", describes Theodore as "presbyter of the Church of Antioch, a man distinguished by the caution of science, and brilliancy of expression, who wrote against the Apollinarians, and whose books Photius says he had read." Sixtus Fenensis affirms that Theodore lived under Honorius Augustus (420). Photius not only read Theodore's book, but records his opinion that Theodore establishes the genuineness of the Areopagite's writings.

Happily Photius gives the four objections alleged against the writings of Dionysius. Bishop Westcott, as happily, describes the objections recorded, as a summary of all that has since been written on the controversy. The general argument against the genuineness is composed of three principal ingredients — "If," "therefore," and "spurious." "If" Dionysius was martyred under Domitian, how could he have quoted a letter written by Ignatius under Trajan? But Dionysius was not martyred under Domitian, but under Hadrian. Dionysius does not quote the letter of Ignatius immediately before his martyrdom. Again, the works of Dionysius were undoubtedly produced at Constantinople, A.D. 532 — "therefore" they were never known before. Bar Sudaili, a Syrian Monk, says he had found the "Erotic hymns" of Hierotheus — extracts from which are given by Dionysius — "therefore" Bar Sudaili, a Syrian monk in the 5th century, wrote the works attributed to Dionysius, which are written in Greek. Professor Stiglmayr has filled ninety-six pages with passages occurring between the 2nd and 7th century referring to Dionysius and his own notes thereon. By the omnipotent "spurious" it is proved that the writings were unknown till 532.

The first objection given by Photius from Theodore's book is this: "If the Book is genuine, why have none of the Fathers who succeeded him copied his sentences and proofs?" But they have so copied — Clement and Origen of Alexandria teem with parallel sentences and illustrations.

Another objection — "Why when Eusebius is enumerating the writings of the holy Fathers does he not enumerate the writings of Dionysius?" Read Photius, "Bibliotheca" Codex 127, to learn how Eusebius concealed everything prejudicial to Arius. Eusebius would have convicted himself by making known Dionysius. Jerome followed Dionysius on the Holy Angels.

Objection three. "How does this book weave a minute narrative of those traditions which grew up in the Church by growth and long intervals of time? For the great Dionysius, as is evident from the Acts of the Apostles, was a contemporary of the Apostles. This book, then, contains chiefly a description of those traditions which afterwards by degrees established themselves in the Church." The objector then says, "that it does not seem like the truth, yea that it is falsely feigned, that Dionysius should have had those ceremonies to describe which sprung up in the Church and prevailed, long after the death of the great Dionysius." Certainly Dionysius never wrote a statement more involved than that, yet the objector would have alleged that the writings could not belong to the Apostolic age, because they are not written with the simplicity of St. Paul, who, although St. Peter says, "there are some things in his Epistles hard to be understood," yet we all know that "St. Paul at any rate wrote plain English!" The objection is not true. There is no mere ritual in the "Ecclesiastical Hierarchy". Dionysius explains that in the administration of the Holy Communion, the Bishop comes forth from the Sanctuary, and makes a circuit of the whole enclosure, in order to signify that Almighty God, in His Word and in the Incarnation of the Word, came forth from the Hidden, and that He distributes His gifts to all His faithful people. He further explains that the trine immersion for Baptism, in which we are buried with Christ, symbolizes the trihemeria, three days and nights, during which Christ remained in the tomb. The placing of the Christian dead amongst those of the same rank signifies that according to our rank and holiness so will be the place prepared for us in the "many mansions."

Fourth objection. Why does this book quote from the Epistle of Ignatius? For as we have said, Dionysius flourished in the time of the Apostles, but Ignatius suffered martyrdon under Trajan, and a little before his death wrote that Epistle which this book "quotes". The objection has no logical meaning. Ignatius also lived in the time of the Apostles, and in fact was martyred eleven years before the martyrdom of Dionysius. The word "Love," in that letter of Ignatius, signifies human passion or fire. In the passage quoted from Ignatius by Dionysius, "Love" is used as signifying our blessed Lord, and is quoted to show the exalted use of the word "Love" by Christian theologians.

Well might Photius remark, that "Theodore zealously answers the objection in these four arguments," and that "he establishes, to the best of his ability," that the book is the legitimate offspring of the great Dionysius.

In Codex 194, writing on Maximus the Confessor, who wrote Scholia on Dionysius, Photius says that Maximus explains that phrase of the divine6 Dionysius, "In what way you say is Jesus, who is beyond all, ranked essentially with all men." The sentence is found in the 4th letter to Gaius7. The question was evidently asked by Gaius in reference to the "Divine Names," Caput II., Section vi., page 20.

I will add, that in Codex 231, "Bibliotheca", Photius in speaking of the synodical letter of Sophronius describes it as "containing the testimony of those who lived before and after the Fourth Synod (Council), the chief of whom were Leo Pontiff of old Rome; Peter, the most holy Bishop of Myra — Gennadius of Constantinople — Diadochus of Photica — and Euphramius of Antioch, and Dionysius, abounding in words, no doubt, but more abounding in speculation — disciple of St. Paul, Martyr of Christ, Bishop of Athens; and Justin, who consecrated his philosophy by the blood of martyrdom."

We affirm then that the testimony of Theodore and Photius is reasonable evidence that the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite are genuine.

Further, Germany has spoken. Within the last decade Dr. Schneider has written a Treatise, in which he refutes objections and produces positive evidence in favor of their genuineness. He tells me that scarcely a month passes without his receiving the name of some scholar who wishes to be considered an adherent to their genuineness. The celebrated Professor Schwarz of Liege writes in the "Revue Hollandaise", "that after a profound study of the reasons which Dr. Schneider has produced in his 'Areopagatica', the genuineness of the works of St. Denis cannot be doubted." The Professor Schmid affirms in the "Linger quartal Schreift", "that the historic proof is complete." Dexter, Dionysius, Maximus, Photius, amongst the Ancients, Schneider, Schwarz and Schmid amongst the Moderns, maintain the genuineness of these writings.

We have produced the evidence and leave the reader to adopt that conclusion which appears to him most agreeable to historical criticism and common sense.

We claim to have verified that famous dictum of the profound Pearson, who, speaking of the writings of Dionysius, wrote: "No one is so ignorant as not to know that these writings were regarded as genuine by the best judges in the 6th, the 5th, the 4th, and the 3rd centuries."

Notes:

1. Migne. Ser. Lat. torn. 31, p. 275.

2. The first copy of Dexter's Chronicle sent to Jerome miscarried. An augmented copy was sent, but arrived after Jerome's death. Dexter then dedicated his Chronicle to his friend Paul Orosius, then living. Marcus Maximus, who died 616, continued Dexter's Chronicle. Heleca (860) continued Dexter and Maximus. Euthrandus (960) found Chronicle at Fulda. In 1594 copy sent to Spain.

3. P. 146.

4. History of Council of Constance, Book v, section 15. See The Footsteps of St Paul by Russell Forbes (Nelson and Sons); St Paul in Britain, by the Rev. RW Morgan (Parker and Co.).

5. Grammar included the question of the genuineness of Books.

6. "Divus ille Dionysius qui fecit tres Hierarchias". - Erasmus

7. P. 143.

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Magicians Who Converted to Christianity

By John Sanidopoulos

Throughout the history of Christianity, many magicians are recorded to have abandoned their ancient art and accepted the Christian faith, not because magic was found to be "fake" or "debunked", but because they came to believe that in the eternal light of truth of the Triune God what they thought had spiritual power was in fact darkness, evil and a demonic lie.

Among the first magicians to abandon their craft after having witnessed the greater power of Christ were certain Ephesians in the middle of the first century after being visited by the Apostle Paul. Acts 19:11-20 records this astonishing event:

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.

And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”

Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

Many other magicians converted during the early centuries of Christianity, when paganism prevailed and Christians were persecuted by the pagans. Among them were St. Gargalos (Sept. 29) who was a pagan priest under King Sapor of Persia and was martyred with Sts. Dada and Gobdelaas in the fourth century, St. Athanasius (Apr. 23) who was a magician under Emperor Diocletian and was martyred in 303 A.D. after witnessing the sufferings of St. George, and St. Marus (May 31) who was a magician and martyr under the Procunsel of Comana Sebastian in the second century and converted after failing to be able to poison St. Hermias the Great Martyr.

The most famous magician of the early Church to have converted to Christianity is the Holy Martyr Cyprian (Oct. 2). Cyprian was a pagan magician of Antioch who was dealing with demons. By their aid he sought to bring St. Justina, a Christian virgin, to ruin; but she foiled the threefold attacks of the devils by the sign of the cross. Brought to despair, Cyprian made the sign of the cross himself and in this way was freed from the grip of Satan. The story of St. Cyprian became especially popular among Christians during the reign of Julian the Apostate, who in the middle of the fourth century tried to revive paganism in the Roman Empire, and his tale strengthened Christians to not sacrifice to the pagan gods, whose power was nothing before the Cross of Christ. Sts. Cyprian and Justina are even today invoked as patrons of those who have become influenced by demons and magic.

Even in our modern times there are examples of those who practiced the dark arts and converted to Christianity. Vladimir Bykov was a well-known Spiritualist in Russia who abandoned his craft after meeting with the holy spiritual fathers of Optina Monastery. He wrote a book titled Calm Havens for the Respite of a Suffering Soul. He would come to say: "Spiritism is demonic! Orthodox Christianity is your answer." Vladimir eventually became an Orthodox Christian priest and in 1924 or 1925 was martyred for his Orthodox faith by the atheist communists.

More recently in Greece a former magician, Evangelos Koutroubelis, became an Orthodox Christian, and wrote a book against magic and the dark arts, titled The Deceiver of People (published by "Astir" in 1994).

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Japanese Fighter Baptized Orthodox Christian

Aimilios Polygenis

September 29, 2012

Romfea

From his childhood years he focused on the martial arts, which led him to study traditional Eastern religions, especially Buddhism.

After a period of many years, Tokashi Kishi came to know Christianity, the result of having read very many books. Christianity for Tokashi was another ethical teaching and appeared to him something like Buddhism.

After a visit to Russia he felt an inner desire to learn more about Orthodoxy. His desire to become a Christian became even stronger when he returned to Japan, where following his Catechism in the Japanese language, he accepted the Orthodox Church.

A short while ago he visited Russia again, and announced his desire to be baptized an Orthodox Christian. With the blessing of Metropolitan John of Belgorod, the Japanese martial arts fighter was baptized and received the name of Saint John the Baptist.

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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The Unrepentant Resentful Woman

By Monk Agapios Landos

There once was a woman who lived in fasting and prayer. Outwardly she appeared pious, but she had much pride and believed she was a saint.

She also had such resentment, that, if she argued with another woman, not only did she not forgive her, but she didn't even want to see her again before her eyes.

At one point she became sick and invited her spiritual father, but she didn't confess completely - this is something often done by superficial Christians who hide their great sins and reveal the small ones.

In the end, when the priest brought forward the Holy Gifts that she may commune, she turned her head to the wall and could not even confront the Sacred Pearl.

At the same time, with Divine concession, she confessed with a loud voice:

"Just as I, out of pride, did not forgive whoever I blamed, but I turned away from them, so now the Lord turns away His face from me and does not want to enter my unworthy soul. I will not see Him in the heavenly kingdom, but I will burn in eternal hell!"

And with those words, she died.

From the book Αμαρτωλών σωτηρία (The Salvation of Sinners). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

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Was St. Isaac the Syrian a Nestorian?

The great luminary of the life of stillness, St. Isaac, was born in the early seventh century in eastern Arabia, the present day Qatar on the Persian Gulf. He became a monk at a young age, and at some time left Arabia to dwell with monks in Persia. He was consecrated Bishop of Nineveh (and is therefore sometimes called St. Isaac of Nineveh), but after five months received permission to return to solitude; he spent many years far south of Nineveh in the mountainous region of Beit Huzaye, and lastly at the Monastery of Rabban Shabur. He wrote his renowned and God-inspired Ascetical Homilies toward the end of his long life of monastic struggle, about the end of the seventh century.

The fame of his Homilies grew quickly, and about 100 years after their composition they were translated from Syriac into Greek by two monks of the Monastery of Mar Sabbas in Palestine, from which they spread throughout the monasteries of the Roman Empire and became a guide to all generations thereafter.

Though the writings of St. Isaac have been deemed fully in line with Orthodox tradition, some have proposed that his association with the Assyrian Church of the East automatically made him a Nestorian in the tradition of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Below are a few studies to help clarify this confusion:

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Afterwards he [Isaac] went to the monastery of Rabban Shabur and became exceedingly well acquainted with the divine writings; at last he lost his eyesight through his reading and asceticism. He penetrated deeply into the divine mysteries and wrote books on the divine behaviour of solitaries. He said three things which were not accepted by the community. Daniel, the bishop of Bet Garmaia, was scandalized at him on account of these things which he said.

Source: From an ancient biographical text titled Ketaba de Nakfuta

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Isaac belonged to the Church of the East, commonly known as ‘Nestorian’, which, however, had little to do with Nestorius, a fifth-century heretical patriarch of Constantinople. The Church of the East used the Syriac language and considered Theodore of Mopsuestia (fourth century) as its main theological and spiritual authority. The translation of Theodore’s works into Syriac was made in the fifth century and was of crucial importance for Syriac Christianity: together with his biblical exegesis, his theological views were incorporated into East Syrian tradition, including his Christological opinions. The latter became a subject of heated discussions in the Greek-speaking East after the Third Ecumenical Council (431), which condemned Nestorius. The Christology of Theodore, who made a sharp distinction between Jesus the man and the Word of God, speaking of the ‘inhabitation’ of the Word of God in Jesus as in the ‘temple’, came more and more often to be labelled as ‘Nestorian’. Finally Theodore was posthumously condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (533). But for the Christians of the Church of the East he remained forever as an unquestioned authority in the field of theology. This explains the fact that the Church of the East came to be called ‘Nestorian’, the name which was never used by this Church itself as there was no historical link between it and Nestorius.

The Christology of St Isaac of Nineveh bears clear traces of Theodore’s influence. However, there is nothing heretical or unorthodox in it. Unlike many writers that belonged to the Alexandrian school of Christology and that laid emphasis on the unity of the two natures in Jesus Christ, Isaac was close to the Antiochene school, which stressed the distinction between the two natures. The most extreme exponents of the Antiochene dyophysitism (from the Greek dyo physeis, ‘two natures’) were Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, condemned as heretics in Byzantium. However, there were many moderate dyophysite writers in the fourth to seventh century, whose doctrine was considered purely orthodox. St Isaac belonged to this more moderate wing of Christological discourse, even though he used the Christological terminology deriving from Theodore for the simple reason that it was commonly used in the Church of the East to which he belonged. The following analysis of his teaching on the Incarnation of the Word and of the deification of man will demonstrate that his Christological perspective is perfectly in tune with the mainstream Christian tradition.

Source: Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, "The Incarnation of the Word and the Deification of Man According to St Isaac of Nineveh"

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A Nestorian bishop of that city in the latter half of the seventh century, being consecrated by the Nestorian Patriarch George (660-80). Originally a monk of the monastery of Bethabe in Kurdistan, he abdicated for unknown reasons after an episcopate of but five months, and retired to the monastery of Rabban Shapur, where he died at an advanced age, blind through study and austerity. Towards the end of his life he passed under a cloud as his Nestorian orthodoxy became suspected. He was author of three theses, which found but little acceptance amongst Nestorians. Daniel Bar Tubanita, Bishop of Beth Garmai (some 100 miles south-east of Mossul), took umbrage at his teaching and became his ardent opponent. The precise contents of these theses are not known, but they were of too Catholic a character to be compatible with Nestorian heresy. From an extant prayer of his, addressed to Christ it is certainly difficult to realize that its author was a Nestorian. Eager to claim so great a writer, the monophysites falsified his biography, placing his life at the beginning of the seventh century, making him a monk of the Jacobite monastery of Mar Mattai, and stating that he retired to the desert of Scete in Egypt. Since the discovery of Ishodenah's "Book of Chastity" by Chabot in 1895 the above details of Isaac's life are beyond doubt, and all earlier accounts must be corrected accordingly.

Source: Catholic Encyclopedia: Isaac the Syrian (1908)

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Much has been made in some circles that St. Isaac was a member of the Church of Persia (known today as the Assyrian Church of the East), which has been associated with the Nestorian heresy. The first edition (1984) of the Orthodox English translation of St. Isaac's Ascetical Homilies contained an extensive Epilogue entitled "A Brief Historical and Theological Introduction to the Church of Persia to the End of the Seventh Century," written by Syriac scholar Dr. Dana R. Miller of Fordham University, which has been summarized thusly in the new (2011) more compact second edition: 

"Saint Isaac was and still is commonly called 'Nestorian Bishop of Nineveh' and the Church of Persia of his day, 'Nestorian'. The [first edition] Epilogue endeavored to demonstrate that the teachings of Nestorius did not inform the theology of the Church of Persia; that the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia known to her were partial and imperfect translations, and that the controversy his writings caused in the Greek-speaking world were mostly unknown to the Church of Persia, cut off by linguistic differences and political boundaries; that in some cases it was extremism on the part of the Monophysites that led the Church of Persia to take a stance that might seem to lend itself to a Nestorian interpretation, such as the cautious avoidance of the term Theotokos to avoid Monophysite Theopaschism, though she professed the Virgin's Son to be perfect God and perfect man; that the fraternal relations with Byzantium remained open: no general and hardened opposition to the Fourth [Ecumenical] Council created a final division between the Church of Persia of Saint Isaac's day and the 'Chalcedonian' Church, as it did with the Monophysites, for whom the rejection of the Council of Chalcedon became a defining element of their identity. Its aim, in a word, was to show that the Church of Persia to which Saint Isaac belonged was neither heretical in theology nor schismatic in confession." (pages 74-75, Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Revised Second Edition, translated and published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA, 2011)

Source: OrthodoxWiki: Isaac of Syria

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Read also: The Feast Day of St. Isaac the Syrian on September 28th

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Prayer of St. Isaac the Syrian to Christ (in which he appeals to Christ as to one person, who is simultaneously God and man)

O Christ who are covered with light as though with garment, who for my sake stood naked in front of Pilate, clothe me with that might which You caused to overshadow the saints, whereby they conquered this world of struggle. May Your divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me, and lead me above the world to be with You. O Christ, upon whom the many-eyed cherubim are unable to look because of the glory of Your countenance, yet out of Your love You received spit upon Your face: remove the shame from my face and grant an open face before You at the time of prayer.

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A Guide To Christian Life

Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others.

Be crucified, but do not crucify others.

Be slandered, but do not slander others.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep:
such is the sign of purity.

Suffer with the sick.

Be afflicted with sinners.

Exult with those who repent.

Be the friend of all, but in your spirit remain alone.

Be a partaker of the sufferings of all,
but keep your body distant from all.

Rebuke no one, revile no one,
not even those who live very wickedly.

Spread your cloak over those who fall into sin,
each and every one, and shield them.

And if you cannot take the fault on yourself
and accept punishment in their place,
do not destroy their character.

- St. Isaac the Syrian

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Lost Wonderworking Icon of Christ Returns to Sumy

Alla Akimenko

September 27, 2012

The Day

On Tuesday Sumy celebrated the return of the miracle-working image of Christ the Savior "Bread of Life", honored not only by Orthodox believers, but by Catholics and Lutherans as well.

The icon was believed to have been lost for almost 100 years, since the 1920s. However, even after all these years the believers have not forgotten about it: in many Orthodox churches of the Sumy region in Ukraine and in Christians’ homes there are copies of the icon, which in its time became famous owing to numerous miraculous healings.

The Bread of Life icon, known from the 19th century, was preserved in the village of Mala Chernetchyna, Sumy povit, Kharkiv gubernia. People far beyond the Sumy region knew about it. Each year crowds of pilgrims came to join the religious procession dedicated to the shrine. The lost icon has been recently found in one of the private collections of church paintings in Donetsk oblast.

After numerous examinations both church commissions and scholars confirmed the authenticity of the Mala Chernetchyna icon. The owner of the collection, Oleh Zdanovych, granted the miracle-working icon to the Orthodox Church, for which the Ukrainian Orthodox Church conferred on him the Saint Prince Volodymyr Order of Second Degree. The restored icon was brought to Sviatohirsk Cave Monastery where it has been preserved until recently. Now the icon of Christ the Savior "Bread of Life" has returned to Sumy oblast and will stay in Sumy Savior’s Transfiguration Cathedral.

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St. Elias of Makeevka - A New Saint of the Orthodox Church

By John Sanidopoulos

The canonization of the Great-Schema Monk Elias (born Ilya Yakovlevich Ganja) took place in Makeevka, Ukraine on September 22, 2012.

As a young monk St. Elias had spent a short time at the Skete of the Prophet Elias on Mount Athos then at Kiev Caves Monastery in Ukraine, from which he was was forced to leave by the communists.

Having no monastery, the holy Elder also had no shelter. He was often seen following the Divine Liturgy sitting on a bench with nowhere to go. He lived in the homes of various faithful and pious Christians, who considered it a great blessing to give hospitality to one who had a reputation for bearing the gifts of wonderworking and foresight. The communists were never able to capture him, because he would know beforehand when they would come to the home of those he stayed at (as it also happened with St. Matrona of Moscow). He was accompanied at this time till the end of his life by four women, one of whom was ill and another a widow with her daughter.

From 1937 to 1946 he lived in Makeevka, during the time of World War 2, because he foresaw correctly that the city of Makeevka would not see a slaughter with the Germans and that he would not suffer much there, even though the Germans were in the vicinity. Indeed, the war did not come there. There were no bombs, no hunger, no damage.

Even though the Elder leaned on a stick, he was a fast walker, so that even the young and healthy were unable to keep up with him.

He was very kind and gentle, and people would constantly come to speak with him even from far distances. Even if they were ill they would leave comforted. When churches closed by the atheists he would even host priests from Kiev and Moscow. From morning till night he was comforting the people and providing them with assistance from the little he had.

St. Elias was a man of constant prayer, and he read the Gospels, Akathists and Psalms every day. He was often seen sitting on a bench outside the home he stayed at singing hymns. He would teach the faithful to pray, and encouraged them to go to church, saying: "On Sundays and holy days, do not sit at home. Go to church, and all will be well with you." Even till his last days, despite his weakness, he always attended church services.

Sometimes his advice seemed cruel and came with rebuke, such as when he would see women not wearing a cross. One time two women came to see him, and on the way over one of them said to the other that she was so sinful that she was a dirty pig. The other women said nothing. When they arrived the Elder told the silent woman to stay outside at the door while he received the other who had called herself a dirty pig. She came to his bed where the old man lay, and the woman asked why he did not receive them both. He responded: "People come to me, a lot of people, but pigs have never been here." The woman screamed at the Elder for insulting her by calling her a pig, but he pointed out that it was out of false humility that she earlier had called herself a dirty pig. Thus the Elder revealed by this apparent insult her own secret pride. He said: "Oh, if pride lives in you, then it is better to keep quiet."

During the war, in the beginning of each year, he would tell families what vegetable to plant. He thus blessed one family to plant potatoes, another beans, another garlic, and so on. Those who obeyed him received a bountiful harvest with surplus and did not go hungry, while those who did not obey him were miserable.

He would console those who grieved over the loss of their loved ones. One woman received a death notice that her husband had been killed in battle. Deep sorrow came to her, so she visited the Elder. After listening to her, he said: "Go to church, pray diligently, take Communion every Sunday - your husband will return." The woman listened and did all that he told her. After a while she got a letter from her husband, who was alive. He had been wounded, was unconscious for a long time, and then he was rescued by local residents.

St. Elias would always keep one eye closed. In one photograph however he opened both eyes. When he was asked why, he responded: "I can see the world even with one eye."

After the war, the Elder finally got his own place to stay. It was in a small house, the funds for the purchase of which he collected from his spiritual children. He lived there until his death. All this time the Elder did not stop to help people and teach them the Orthodox faith.

At this time the Elder predicted future prosperity of Orthodoxy in Makeevka that seemed almost incredible after almost the total destruction of the churches in the city. Yet half a century later the Cathedral of Saint George was built together with 24 other churches. "The Lord will keep until the end Makeevka! He will give it many temples!"

In the beginning of 1946 he told his spiritual children that he would not celebrate Pascha with them. Indeed, the holy Elder Elias reposed on Great Wednesday 17 April 1946. His burial took place on Great and Holy Friday. 66 years later his relics were uncovered at the grave where a monument was built in his honor.

The canonization took place in the Cathedral of Saint George, where his relics are kept.

Information From Source

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St. Gregory Palamas: On St. John the Evangelist and Theologian

By St. Gregory Palamas

Today we celebrate the feast of one of Christ's chosen apostles, and extol him as the father of all those called by Christ's name, and in particular as patriarch of those "which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13).

...

But even this John has in common with Peter and James, Christ's foremost disciples, just as he shares his role of evangelist with his fellow writers of the Holy Gospel, the words of eternal life, though he far surpassed them in his eloquence and sublime theology.

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Christ was the beloved Son, John was the beloved disciple. Christ was in the bosom of the Father, John leant on Jesus' breast. Christ was a virgin, and by His grace, so was John. Christ was the Son of the Virgin, and so was John. "The Lord thundered from the heavens" (Ps. 18:13), and John was thunder, for he, more than the others, was called thunder and the son of thunder (c.f. Mark 3:17), a most theological thunder which resounds to the ends of the earth declaring the divine truth that in the beginning was the Word from the Father, and the Word was with God, and was God, and in Him was life and the true light, which lights every man coming into the world, by Whom in the beginning all things were made.

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The beloved disciple was sent by our Savior Jesus Christ, who loved him, to teach us the whole truth, raise us up from these dead works, and urge us towards works of light. He made perfectly clear that love for God and our neighbor was the culmination of these works, and capable of bringing salvation. How can we fail to love and honor him as the one who disclosed to us the truth in its entirety? So let us not, brethren, do the opposite of what he has told us. And let us not show love and faith in our speech and gestures, while disobeying him in our actions, as John himself forbade, saying, "Brethren, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18).

From "Homily On St. John the Evangelist and Theologian" in On The Saints: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas (Mount Thabor Publishing).

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Why So Few Writings By Holy Women?

By Elder Sophrony of Essex

Writings of holy women do not exist. This is not because there are fewer holy women than men. There are more holy women, but holy women have hidden lives and can safeguard the mystical life. The Panagia received great Grace from God. We do not have revelations that came from the Panagia, but we know that she has great Grace and the Church feels this together with all those who pray to her.

Further, women were not required to guide flocks who would reveal their experiences. Those who left us a few words, were Abbesses. But even the [male] saints would have been silent and we would not have their writings if there was no need as responsible persons, as Pastors of the Church, to guide their flocks.

Source: I Knew A Man In Christ: The Life and Times of Elder Sophrony, the Hesychast and Theologian (Οίδα άνθρωπον εν Χριστώ: Βίος και πολιτεία του Γέροντος Σωφρονίου του ησυχαστού και θεολόγου) by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.

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Elder Paisios: On Forced and False Repentance

- Elder, Abba Isaac writes, "No kind of repentance that takes place after the removal of our free will will be a well-spring of joy, nor will it be reckoned for the reward of those who possess it." How can anyone repent without exercising his own free will?

- One may be forced to repent, having fallen in the eyes of others around him, but such repentance has no humility. This is how I understand it.

- Do you mean that there is repentance that is not voluntary?

- Yes, it is compulsory repentance. I ask you to forgive me for some harm I have caused to you so that I may be spared the consequences, but I have not changed inside. A fiendish person will pretend to have repented, and will proceed cunningly, offering prostrations with feigned kindness, to deceive others.

When someone goes to tell his sins to a Spiritual Father merely because he is afraid of going to hell, even this is not true repentance. He's not repenting for his sins, he's afraid of going to hell!

True repentance means that one is first aware of his sins, is pained by them, asks God for forgiveness, and then goes and confesses them. This is why I always recommend Repentance and Confession together. I never recommend Confession alone.

Notice, for example, what happens when we have an earthquake. You see those who have a good disposition will be moved deeply, they will repent and change their way of life. But the majority of people keep this fear of God only for a short period of time; and when the danger is past, they resume their former sinful life. This is why, when someone told me that there had recently been a very strong earthquake in his hometown, I told him, "It shook you up, but did it really wake you up?" "It woke us up," he said. Then I said, "Sure, but you'll go back to sleep again".

From Elder Paisios of Mount Athos Spiritual Counsels: "Spiritual Struggle" (vol. 3).

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The Salvation of the World According to St. Silouan

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia analyzes the soteriology of St Silouan the Athonite. Identifying the similar sense of cosmic unity found both in Dostoevsky and St Silouan, the Metropolitan discusses the influence of St. Isaac the Syrian on both men, moving on to examine St. Silouan's burning desire and constant prayer for the salvation of the whole world and its theological implications.

We Must Pray for All: The Salvation of the World According to St. Silouan

By Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia

‘Love all creation’, says Starets Zosima in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov:

Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.

This ‘divine mystery’ of which Starets Zosima speaks is precisely the interdependence, the reciprocal coinherence, of all created things in God.

Everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else: touch one place, and you set up a movement at the other end of the world.[1]

Such is Dostoevsky’s vision of cosmic unity. The created world constitutes an individual whole, and so the salvation of each individual person is inextricably bound up with the salvation of all humankind and, yet more widely, with the salvation of the entire universe. ‘We are members of one another’ (Ephesians 4:25) needs to be given the broadest possible application. It is not only we humans who depend on each other as the limbs of a single body; but we have bonds of kinship with the animals as well, and also with trees and plants, rocks and earth, air and water. We live in them, and they in us.

Precisely the same sense of cosmic unity is expressed by St Silouan the Athonite:

He who has the Holy Spirit in him, to however slight a degree, sorrows day and night for all mankind. His heart is filled with pity for all God’s creatures, more especially for those who do not know God, or who resist Him and therefore are bound for torment. For them, more than for himself, he prays day and night, that all may repent and know the Lord (352).[2]

The Lord bestows such rich grace on His chosen that they embrace the whole earth, the whole world, with that love (367).

Archimandrite Sophrony, in his book on Starets Silouan, sums up the teaching of the Starets on cosmic coinherence in these words:

The life of the spiritual world, the Staretz recognized as one life and because of this unity every spiritual phenomenon inevitably reacts on the state of the whole spiritual world (101).

We shall not be distorting the meaning of the Starets – or that of Fr Sophrony – if we give to these words an all-inclusive scope: instead of saying ‘the spiritual world’ and ‘every spiritual phenomenon’, we can correctly say ‘the created world’ and ‘every phenomenon’. As Fr Sophrony states elsewhere, St Silouan believed that each person who truly prays to God ‘integrates everyone into his own eternal life whatever the geographical distance or the historical time between them’ (233). Indeed, he integrates not only every person but every thing. Nothing is alien to him. In Dostoevsky’s words, ‘Everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else.’

Despite the striking parallels between the Russian novelist and the Athonite monk, it is highly unlikely that St Silouan had ever read Dostoevsky. More probably, the similarities arise because both are shaped by the same living tradition, and both are drawing on the same sources. St Silouan (almost certainly) and Dostoevsky (possibly) have been influenced by a Mesopotamian hermit of the seventh century, St Isaac the Syrian, who writes in a famous passage of his Ascetical Homilies:

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for every created thing. At the recollection and at the sight of them such a person’s eyes overflow with tears owing to the vehemence of the compassion which grips his heart; as a result of his deep mercy his heart shrinks and cannot bear to hear or look on any injury or the slightest suffering of anything in creation. This is why he constantly offers up prayer full of tears, even for the irrational animals and for enemies of truth, even for those who harm him, so that they may be protected and find mercy.[3]

What exactly does Starets Silouan mean when, faithful to the teaching of St Isaac, he affirms that the saints ‘embrace the whole earth, the whole world, with their love’? Let us note the all-embracing love and prayer that constitute our true vocation as human persons. There is first his firm conviction that God calls every human being to salvation. Secondly, there is his conception of the ‘total Adam’ and, linked with this, his insistence that my neighbour is myself. Thirdly, there is his firm assurance that in God’s total plan it is not only human beings but the entire cosmos that is to be redeemed and transfigured.

‘Divine love desires salvation for all’

‘It was particularly characteristic of Staretz Silouan to pray for the dead suffering in the hell of separation from God’, writes Fr Sophrony, and he goes on to recall an exchange that he overheard between the Starets and a somewhat dour hermit:

I remember a conversation between him and a certain hermit, who declared with evident satisfaction, ‘God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.’

Obviously upset, The Staretz said:

‘Tell me, supposing you went to paradise and there looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire - would you feel happy?’

‘It can’t be helped. It would be their own fault,’ said the hermit.

The Staretz answered him with a sorrowful countenance:

‘Love could not bear that,’ he said. ‘We must pray for all’ (48).

This universal intercession commended by St Silouan, so far from being sentimental or Utopian, has on the contrary a clear Scriptural foundation: ‘God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2:4). This is the key text that the seventeenth-century Arminians invoked when opposing the strict Calvinist doctrine of double predestination; this is the text that inspired the dynamic missionary preaching of John Wesley in the eighteenth century; and this is equally a saying that the twentieth-century Athonite keeps steadfastly in view:

My soul longs for the whole world to be saved (291).... Divine love desires the salvation of all (328).... The Lord’s is such that He would have all men to be saved (368).... Our one thought must be that all should be saved (379).... The merciful Lord sometimes gives the soul peace in God but sometimes makes the heart ache for the whole universe, that all men might repent and enter paradise (426).

According to St Silouan, this burning desire for the salvation of all humankind is to be found to a supreme degree in the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary:

She, like her beloved Son, desired with her whole heart the salvation of all (406).... She loved mankind and prayed ardently... for the whole world that all might be saved (365).

The fact that God desires the salvation of all does not of course mean that our salvation is automatic and inevitable. As the Letter to Diognetus states, ‘God persuades, He does not compel, for violence is foreign to Him.’[4] God’s call to salvation comes in the form of an invitation, which we on the human side are free to accept or to reject. But, although the response varies, the call is universal.

St Silouan’s belief that God does indeed desire the universal salvation of the human race can be summed up in four short injunctions: love all; pray for all; weep for all; repent for all.

(1) Love all. When as a young monk, attending a service in the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, St Silouan received a vision of Christ (26), the effect of this vision was to flood his soul with ‘a rare feeling of love for God and for man, for every man’ (34). This all-embracing love remained with him throughout his life: ‘Love cannot suffer a single soul to perish’, he wrote many years later (272). Comprehensive love of this kind he saw as par excellence the characteristic of the saints (not that he would have made any claim to be himself numbered among them):

The holy saints have attained the Kingdom of Heaven, and there they look upon the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; but by the Holy Spirit they see, too, the sufferings of men on earth. The Lord gave them such great grace that they embrace the whole world with their love (396).

This ardent love, as the Starets envisages it, extends beyond the living to the dead and to those not yet born. In Fr Sophrony’s words:

In seeking salvation for all men love feels impelled to embrace not only the world of the living but also the world of the dead, the underworld and the world of the as yet unborn – that is, the whole race of Adam (108).

For St Silouan, as we have seen from his conversation with the dour hermit, this love for our fellow-humans includes even hell within its scope. Expounding the teaching of the Starets, Fr Sophrony writes:

Dwelling in heaven, the Saints behold hell and embrace it too in their love (116).

This is possible for them, because the love that is at work in their hearts is nothing else than the love of God Himself; and God’s love is present everywhere - even in hell:

God is present in hell, too, as love (115).... Even in hell Divine love will embrace all men, but, while this love is joy and life for them that love God, it is torment for those who hate Him (148).

In the words of Vladimir Lossky, ‘The love of God will be an intolerable torment for those who have not acquired it within themselves.’[5]

In thus teaching that the power of love extends even to hell, the Starets is once more following St Isaac the Syrian:

Even those who are punished in Gehenna are tormented with the scourging of love. The scourges that result from love – that is, the scourges of those who realize that they have sinned against love – are harder and more bitter than the torments which result from fear.... The power of love works in two ways: it torments those who have sinned, just as happens here on earth; but those who have observed its duties, love gives delight. So it is in Gehenna: the contrition that comes from love is the harsh torment; but in the case of the sons of heaven, delight in this love inebriates their souls.[6]

‘The power of love works in two ways’: what the saints in heaven feel as joy, those under condemnation in hell experience as intense pain. But it is the same divine love that is present in them both.

If those in hell are not deprived of God’s love, if they are embraced also by the love of the saints, may it not still be possible for them to respond to this love that surrounds them on every side? Is there not still a hope that they may ultimately be saved? St Isaac certainly seems to have believed in universal salvation:[7] as a member of the Church of the East, dwelling safely beyond the confines of the Byzantine Empire, he had no reason to fear the anti-Origenist anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553).

What of St Silouan? Fr Sophrony maintains that the Starets was no Origenist (109),[8] and I agree with him. St Silouan insists that our loving intercession should extend even to those in hell, we are to sorrow ‘over those who are not saved’ (377) and to weep for those ‘who do not know God’ (386). Further than this, however, he does not go. With characteristic reticence, he avoids all speculation about a final apocatastasis. He does not attempt to specify who can be saved and who cannot; that is a mystery known at present only to God. For his part he answers only with the words, ‘I do not know’:

Father Cassian used to say that all heretics would perish. I do not know about this – my trust is only in the Orthodox Church (483).

When reflecting on the possibility that in the Age to Come there may be some who remain for ever unreconciled, burning in hell-fire, the Starets says simply, ‘Love could not bear that.’ Further than this he does not go.

What of the demons? Might they also be saved, and in that case should we not pray also for them? St Isaac the Syrian, as already noted, affirms that the merciful heart is ‘on fire’ with compassion for the demons, but he does not actually say that we should pray for them. St Silouan speaks in similar terms. We are to ‘pity’ the demons, but nothing is stated about intercession on their behalf:

The Spirit of God teaches love towards all, and the soul feels compassion for every being, loves her enemies and pities even devils because they have fallen away from God (469).

The Starets was emphatically a man of the Church; and so, if asked whether we may legitimately pray for the demons – Fr Sophrony does not in fact record any occasion when he was so asked – surely his answer would have been that the Church has no such practice; and in all such matters we must follow the Church’s rule of prayer. But at the same time it is not for us to set limits to the divine mercy.

(2) Pray for all. Love and prayer go together; if, then, we are to love all human persons, this signifies that we are also to pray for them. So the Starets writes:

I pray Thee, O Merciful Lord, let all mankind, from Adam to the end of time, come to know Thee (319).... I will pray for the whole human race, that all people may turn to the Lord and find rest in Him (328).... I beseech Thee, O Lord, let all peoples come to know Thee (332).

The Starets quotes with approval the words of an ascetic monk with whom he once talked:

Were it possible I would pray everyone out of hell, and only then would my soul be easy and rejoice (468).

‘Were it possible’: the Starets does not say that it actually is possible. The Starets sees this all-inclusive intercession as the proper and characteristic vocation of the monk.

The constant prayer for others constitutes the monk’s way of serving society as a whole:

Thanks to monks, prayer continues unceasing on earth, for through prayer the world continues to exist.... When there are no men of prayer on the earth, the world will come to an end.... The world is supported by the prayers of the saints (407-8).

In this connection Fr Sophrony refers appropriately to the sixth-century elder St Barsanuphius of Gaza, who asserts that in his day there were three men who through their prayers were preserving the whole human race from catastrophe (223).[9] Barsanuphius mentions the names of the first two, who significantly are otherwise unknown to the annals of history. He does not say who the third was, presumably because God had revealed to him that it was Barsanuphius himself.[10]

By thus praying for the world, the monk not only helps the Church and human society at large, but he also helps himself. Here the Starets describes his own experience as a monastery steward. Most monks consider that this particular ‘obedience’ renders it impossible to preserve continual prayer and inner peace, for it involves contact with large numbers of people throughout the day. Starets Silouan disagrees. If the steward will only intercede constantly for those under his charge, saying ‘The Lord loves His creation’, all will be well: he will find that he is freed from distractions and can maintain an uninterrupted remembrance of God (418).

In the monk’s relationship with the world, St Silouan distinguishes a double movement. First, through prayer the monk withdraws into himself, shutting out the world, gradually liberating himself from visual imagery and discursive thinking, and so entering into the image-free stillness of the heart. But then, within the depths of his own heart, he rediscovers his solidarity with all humankind and with the whole creation. So the monk’s flight from the world turns out to be not world-denying but world-affirming. In the words of Fr Sophrony:

In his longing for God he ‘hates’ the world and retires totally into the depths of his own heart. And when he does so totally, in order there to do battle against Satan, in order to cleanse his heart from every single passion, in the depths of this heart of his he meets with God, and in God begins to see himself indissolubly linked with the whole of cosmic existence; and then there is nothing alien, nothing that is extraneous to them.

As St Silouan observes, ‘True, Arsenius the Great was bidden to “shun” people but in the desert, too, the Spirit of God teaches us to pray for people and for all the world (296).

(3) Weep for all. True prayer cannot but be costly; loving intercession involves an inner martyrdom, a willingness on our part to accept suffering. As St Silouan says, ‘Praying for people means shedding blood (236); ‘The greater the love, the greater the suffering’ (338). It is not enough simply to read lists of names; we are required to intercede with tears of sorrow. ‘Pray for all’ means ‘Weep for all’:

My heart aches for the whole world, and I pray and shed tears fro the whole world, that all may repent (341).... My soul weeps for the whole world (371).... O Lord, grant me tears to shed for myself, and for the whole universe’ (385).

(4) Repent for all. St Silouan would have us go yet further on the path of mutual coinherence. Not only are we required to weep for all, but we should also repent for all. In his view this is part of what St Paul meant when he said, ‘Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfil the law of Christ’ (Galatians 6:2). As Fr Sophrony points out, if viewed in purely juridical terms the notion of vicarious repentance – of laying one person’s guilt upon another – makes no sense; it is simply ‘not fair’. But the love of Christ is not limited to juridical norms:

The spirit of Christian love speaks otherwise, seeing nothing strange but something rather natural in sharing the guilt of those we love – even in assuming full responsibility for their wrong-doing. Indeed, it is only in this bearing of another’s guilt that the authenticity of love is made manifest and develops into full awareness of self (120).

Adam’s fall consisted precisely in his refusal to accept that he too was involved in the guilt of Eve’s sin. ‘Adam denied responsibility, laying all the blame on Eve and on God who had given him this wife’, and so he shattered the unity of the human race. If only, instead of justifying himself, he ‘had taken upon his shoulders the responsibility for their joint sin, the destinies of the world might have been different’ (121). We in our turn, when we refuse to repent for others, are repeating Adam’s sin, thus making his fall our own.

Strange though this concept of vicarious repentance may seem to most modern readers, it has in fact an excellent Patristic pedigree. One author who expresses this idea in strong terms is St Mark the Monk (?early fifth century):

The saints are required to offer repentance not only on their own behalf but also on behalf of their neighbour, for without active love they cannot be made perfect.... In this way the whole universe is held together in unity, and through God’s providence we are each of us assisted by one another.[11]

‘Adam, our father’

St Silouan’s consuming desire for the salvation of all stands out in yet sharper relief when we take into account his teaching about what may be termed the ‘total Adam’. This is not, I think, a phrase that he himself employs, but it accurately sums up his point of view.

For St Silouan, Adam is ‘our father’ (451), the ‘father of all mankind’ (448). Following St Paul (1 Corinthians 15:22, 45), the Starets sees Adam the first-formed man as the collective head of the human race, containing and recapitulating within himself the whole of humankind. There are obvious parallels here between St Silouan and St Irenaeus of Lyon, even though the Starets was probably unfamiliar with the Irenaean writings. This solidarity and recapitulation in Adam renders all human persons ‘consubstantial’ and ‘ontologically one’, as Fr Sophrony puts it (123, 51, 217). This ontological unity is not merely abstract and theoretical but specific and actual, ‘for the whole Adam is not an abstraction but the most concrete fullness of the human being’, to quote Fr Sophrony once more (222). It was the denial of this ‘consubstantiality’ that constituted, as we saw earlier, the essence of Adam’s fall.

This unity in the ‘total Adam’ is movingly expressed in the best-known of all St Silouan’s writings, ‘Adam’s Lament’ (448-56). Here the Starets takes up and develops in his own way the liturgical texts for the Sunday before Lent, the ‘Sunday of Forgiveness’, on which the Orthodox Church commemorates the expulsion of Adam from paradise. In particular he has used the ikos appointed for that day:

Banished from the joys of paradise, Adam sat outside and wept, and beating his hands upon his face, he said: ‘I am fallen, in Thy compassion have mercy on me.’...

O paradise, share in the sorrow of thy master who is brought to poverty, and with the sound of thy leaves pray to the Creator that he may not keep thy gate closed for ever. I am fallen, in Thy compassion have mercy on me.[12]

As we read St Silouan’s prose-poem ‘Adam’s Lament’, it becomes clear that this is the lament not just of Adam but of Silouan himself, and not of him alone but of the whole human race. Adam’s sorrowful repentance is our repentance also:

The soul that has lost grace yearns after the Lord, and weeps as Adam wept when he was driven from paradise (326).... O Lord, grant unto us the repentance of Adam (271).

Nor is this all. It is the lament not of humankind alone but of the entire creation, for all created things are involved in Adam’s fall:

Thus did Adam lament,

And the tears streamed down his face onto his beard,

onto the ground beneath his feet,

And the whole desert heard the sound of his mourning.

The beasts and the birds were hushed in grief (449).

Lo, the whole earth is in travail (452).

The sin of Adam is cosmic in its effects, destroying as it does the primal harmony that prevailed between humans and the rest of creation. So Adam exclaims in his ‘Lament’:

In paradise was I joyful and glad:

the Spirit of God rejoiced me,

and suffering was a stranger to me.

But when I was driven forth from paradise

cold and hunger began to torment me.

The beasts and the birds that were gentle

and had loved me turned into wild things,

and were afraid and ran from me (455).

Because of our solidarity in the ‘total Adam’, writes Fr Sophrony, all of us share in Adam’s guilt (120). This does not mean that either he or St Silouan would endorse an Augustinian doctrine of original sin, in a fully developed form. But it does mean that, united as we are as members of a single human family, we are each of us ‘responsible for everyone and everything’, to use the phrase of Starets Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov. Yet, if we are subject to a solidarity in guilt, we enjoy egually a solidarity in salvation: in the words of Khomiakov, ‘No one is saved alone.’[13] My personal salvation is bound up with the salvation of the entire human race, and indeed of the whole creation. Fr Sophrony neatly illustrates this interdependence in both sinfulness and salvation by recounting a conversation that he once heard between two Athonite monks:

The first said,

‘I cannot understand why the Lord does not grant peace to the world even if only a single person implored him to do so.’

To which the other replied,

‘And how could there be complete peace in the world if but a single malicious man remained?’ (200)

This understanding of the ‘total Adam’ means that, on each occasion when we say the Lord’s Prayer, we offer it not only on our own behalf but on behalf of everyone. As Fr Sophrony says, ‘When we pray “Our Father” we think of all mankind, and solicit the fullness of grace for all as for ourselves’.[14] St Gregory of Nyssa emphasizes this same point when he states that, since we ‘share in Adam’s nature and therefore share also in his fall’, in consequence the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses’, is something that we offer for Adam’s sake as well as for our own.[15] This fits exactly with St Silouan’s line of thought.

On the basis of this theology of the ‘total Adam’, the Starets is able to give a particularly powerful interpretation to Christ’s command, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matthew 19:19). I am able to love my neighbour as myself, because by virtue of the unity of all humankind in ‘Adam our father’, my neighbour is myself. I am likewise to pray for others as I pray for myself: ‘All my desire’, says St Silouan, ‘is to learn humility and the love of Christ, that I may offend no man but pray for all as I pray for myself (350: italics in the original). In the same way the suffering of the other is my suffering, and my neighbour’s healing is healing for me as well; ‘my brother’s glory will be my glory also.’[16] ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it’ (l Corinthians 12:26).

This leads St Silouan to affirm in a strong and literal sense that my neighbour’s life is my own: ‘Blessed is the souls that loves her brother, for our brother is our life’ (371: italics in the original). For the one who prays, says Fr Sophrony,

The existence of mankind is not alien and extraneous to him but is inextricably bound up with his own being.... Through Christ’s love all men become an inseparable part of our own individual, eternal existence (47).

Christ has taken up the ‘total Adam’ into Himself and has suffered for him; we therefore should take up into ourselves ‘the life of all mankind’, looking upon every other person as our ‘eternal brother’:

Each of us must, therefore, take heed not only for himself but for this single whole (47-48).

So it is that, according to the Starets, ‘in his deep heart the Christian after a certain fashion lives the whole history of the world as his own history’; for ‘no man is alien to him’ (234).

Exactly because my neighbour is myself, because my brother’s life is my own, I am required to love my enemies.

Only in the light of St Silouan’s teaching on the ‘total Adam’ can we truly appreciate the crucial importance that he attached to love for enemies. I am to love my enemy, because my enemy is myself; I am the other whom I regard as my enemy. His life is mine, and mine is his. Love for enemies is a direct corollary of our mutual coinherence in ‘Adam, our father’.

‘Weep with me, forest and desert’

Sin and salvation, however, are not merely human in scope, but they also involve the entire created order. When Adam fell, the whole creation fell with him; and by the same token our human salvation will inaugurate the salvation of the total cosmos. As Fr Sophrony puts it, ‘Every saint is a phenomenon of cosmic character’ (223). We are not saved from but with the world.

This cosmic understanding of sin and salvation has a firm basis in Scripture. St John the Baptist, for example, greets Jesus with the words, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). The Forerunner does not say ‘the sins’, but he says ‘the sin’ (in the singular) ‘of the world’. Beyond the personal sins of individual humans, there is a deeper sinfulness that involves the world as a whole. St Paul in his turn states that the entire created universe is at present ‘in bondage to decay’ and ‘groans as if in pangs of childbirth’, waiting ‘with eager expectation for the revealing of the children of God’. When we humans enter into our ‘glorious liberty’ in Christ, then the whole creation will also be set free (Romans 8:19-22). Our fall, that is to say, entails the fall of all creation, and our redemption will likewise bring liberation to creation as a whole. The New Testament concludes with a comprehensive vision not only of a ‘new heaven’ but of a ‘new earth’ as well (Revelation 23:1).

The same understanding of the cosmic dimensions of Christ’s saving work finds expression in the service books of the Church. Let us take as an example a text with which St Silouan was certainly familiar: the ‘Praises’ or ‘Encomia’ recited at Matins on Great Saturday in front of the Epitaphion depicting the dead Christ laid out for burial.[17] In the first place the ‘Praises’ emphasize that Christ’s death and resurrection bring forgiveness and new life to all the human race:

Uplifted on the Cross, Thou hast uplifted with Thyself all living people; and then, descending beneath the earth, Thou raisest all that lie buried there.

Stretched out upon the Wood, Thou hast drawn us mortals to unity; pierced in Thy life-giving side, O Jesus, Thou art become a fountain of forgiveness unto all.

We notice how the atonement is not selective but universal in its scope. But the ‘Praises’ go further than this, proclaiming that Christ’s death upon the Cross has transformed the entire created order:

The whole creation was altered by thy Passion: for all things suffered with Thee, knowing, O Word, that Thou holdest all in unity.

This is a remarkable statement, but it does not stand alone. The ‘Praises’ return frequently to the theme of this all-inclusive co-suffering:

Though Thou wast shut within the narrowest of sepulchres, O Jesus, all creation knew Thee as true King of heaven and earth.

The whole earth quaked with fear, O Word, and the daystar hid its rays, when thy great Light was hidden in the earth.

Of old the lamb was sacrificed in secret; but Thou, longsuffering Saviour, wast sacrificed beneath the open sky and hast cleansed the whole creation.

O hills and valleys, the multitude of humankind, and all creation, weep and lament with me.

The sun and moon grew dark together, O Saviour, like faithful servants, clothed in black robes of mourning.

Come, and with the whole creation let us offer a funeral hymn to the Creator.

The whole earth mourns with us humans for the dead Christ laid in the tomb; and to an equal degree the whole earth is raised to new life, along with us humans, through the Saviour’s resurrection from the dead. Paschal salvation extends beyond the human realm to the world of nature, involving animals, trees, hills and valleys, sun and moon, and the totality of the material creation.

Faithful to this all-inclusive understanding of Christ’s redemptive work, the Starets believes that our personal salvation is integrally connected with the salvation of the whole world. The precept ‘Love all’ means that we are to love the entire creation: humans first, but also animals, plants, and each and every part of nature. Ours is to be a ‘love without limits’, to borrow the title of one of Fr Lev Gillet’s books.[18] We are to feel ‘compassion for the whole universe and every living creature... a love for every one of God’s creatures’, says St Silouan. ‘Weep for all’ means that ‘you will shed abundant tears for your fellow-man and for every thing that hath breath, and all creation’ (427). ‘When the soul learns love of the Lord, she is filled with compassion for the whole universe (443); and when she mourns for the withdrawal of God’s grace she calls on all creation to lament with her:

Weep with me, forest and desert. Weep with me, every creature created by God, and comfort me in my grief and sorrow (365).

In St Silouan’s teaching concerning the bonds that unite us humans to the rest of creation, there are three points that I find particularly interesting:

(1) The Starets underlines the spiritual value of the human body. While he adopts a negative attitude towards the passions, he is fundamentally positive in his estimate of our human physicality. We are to hate, not our bodies as such, but the sinfulness that corrupts them. In its present fallen state the body may appear to us as our adversary, but in its true and natural condition, as originally created by God, it is our helper and our friend. God calls us to a total sanctification:

The Light of the Lord will be in the souls and minds and bodies of the Saints (290).... The Holy Spirit pervades the entire man - soul, mind and body (353) (italics in the original).

Advancing on the spiritual way, a person becomes ‘sensible’, consciously aware, of the grace of the Holy Spirit in body as well as soul (283); the ninth of the ten ‘rewards’ that the monk receives from God ‘even here on earth’ is that ‘he feels the grace of God in his body, too’ (501)/ ‘The man with grace in soul and body knows perfect love’ (368).

‘Perfect love’, then, leads to the transfiguration of the body:

The fourth and perfect kind of love for God exists when a man possesses the grace of the Holy Spirit in both soul and body. His body is then hallowed, and after death his earthly remains become relics (343).

The Starets mentions from his own experience an instance of bodily glorification:

At Vespers during one Lent at the Monastery of Old Russikon-on-the-Hill the Lord allowed a certain monk to see Father Abraham, a priest-monk of the strict rule, in the image of Christ. The old confessor, wearing his priestly stole, was standing hearing confessions. When the monk entered the confessional he saw that the grey­haired confessor’s face looked young like the face of a boy, and his entire being shone radiant and was in the likeness of Christ (403-4).

In this way St Silouan’s theology of the human person is firmly holistic. Divine grace embraces the total person, soul and body together; the body is deified along with the soul. This has an immediate relevance for his attitude to the material creation. It is through our bodies that we relate to our physical environment, which passes within us and becomes part of us through the exercise of the five senses. If, then, sanctification involves not only our soul but our physical nature, it follows that through our body we can experience the material world as holy, and through our body we can in turn transmit holiness to the material world around us. Our body is the essential intermediary between our inward being and the world of nature; and, because our body can be filled with grace, it is clear that our own sanctification forms a single mystery with the redemption of the material creation.

As a monk of the strict Athonite tradition, St Silouan had been formed by an austere physical discipline. But never did he interpret this ascetic self-denial in a dualistic sense. The monk’s aim, in the words of St John Climacus, is precisely ‘a body made holy’.[19] He seeks the sanctification of the body, not its destruction.

(2) St Silouan gave careful thought to our relationship as humans with the animals. This is only to be expected. He had grown up in an agricultural community. The Holy Mountain which then became his monastic home abounds in living creatures, in birds, butterflies, snakes and jackals, and also (at any rate in the days of the Starets) in wolves and wild boar, not to mention the domestic animals, the horses and mules, that the monasteries used to keep in great numbers before the advent of the tractor and the jeep. Animals were his constant companions.

His attitude towards them is marked by two characteristics: by loving compassion and by realism. He displays both gentleness and detachment. Loving compassion inspires him to write:

Once I needlessly killed a fly. the poor thing crawled on the ground, hurt and mangled, and for three whole days I wept over my cruelty to a living creature, and to this day the incident remains in my memory....

One day, going from the Monastery to Old Russikon-on-the- Hill, I saw a dead snake on my path which had been chopped in pieces, and each piece writhed convulsively, and I was filled with pity for every living creature, every suffering thing in creation, and I wept bitterly before God (469).

At the same time the Starets urges us not to grow unduly attached to animals, and not to bestow on them the love that we ought rather to give to God and to our fellow-humans:

Feed animals and cattle, and do not beat them - in this consists man’s duty of kindness towards them; but to become attached, to love, caress and talk to them - that is folly for the soul (470).

‘I left that passage out from the first English edition,’ Fr Sophrony once said to me. ‘I knew the English would never be able to understand that.’

Incidentally, St Silouan nowhere suggests that there is anything intrinsically sinful in eating animal flesh. As an Athonite monk he would not have eaten meat, but there are many days in the year when the monastic rule permits fish. There was even a time, so he tells us, when he had to struggle against an almost obsessive desire to consume fish (470-1). If the monk abstains from meat, this is for ascetic and disciplinary reasons, not because meat-eating is in itself wrong. Indeed, the Orthodox Church had never advocated vegetarianism as a general principle.

St Silouan’s compassion for the suffering of animals did not make him lose sight of the truth that God has given this world to us humans for our use. Man, as he puts it, is the ‘supreme creation’ (376). In Fr Sophrony’s words, ‘The world itself was created for man.’[20] Of course this does not in any way justify a cruel and selfish exploitation of our natural environment. On the contrary, in our enjoyment of the world, we are to show the utmost humbleness and sensitivity. God has indeed given us ‘dominion’ over the animals (Genesis 1:28), but dominion does not signify tyranny.

(3) The compassionate love of St Silouan extends beyond animals to plants: ‘Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees’ (Revelation 7:3). On one occasion when the two of them were walking together, Fr Sophrony struck out with his stick at a clump of tall wild grass. The Starets said nothing, but he shook his head doubtfully; and at once Fr Sophrony was ashamed (94). In his own writings St Silouan says:

That green leaf on the tree which you needlessly plucked – it was not wrong, only rather a pity for the little leaf. The heart that has learned to love feels sorry for every created thing (376).

The Spirit of God teaches the soul to love every living thing so that she would have no harm come to even a green leaf on a tree, or trample underfoot a flower of the field. Thus the Spirit of God teaches love towards all, and the soul feels compassion for every being (469).

Thus cosmic compassion, this sense of our human responsibility towards the whole of creation, makes the Starets very much a saint of our own time, living as we do in an era of global pollution. His words, written over half a century ago, are marked by prophetic insight. With good reason the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, in the timely statement on Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis published in 1990,[21] includes St Silouan the Athonite among the witnesses that it cites, along with the Prophet Isaiah, St Isaac the Syrian and Dostoevsky.

Yet there is a tension, even a paradox, in St Silouan’s attitude towards the created order. He urges us to ‘love every created thing; and emphasizes the beauty of nature:

From my childhood days I loved the world and its beauty. I loved the woods and green gardens, I loved the fields and all the beauty of God’s creation. I liked to watch the shining clouds scurrying across the blue sky (286).

If we lose our sense of wonder before the beauty of nature, so he believed, this suggests that we have at the same time lost our sense of God’s grace (96).

On the other hand, the Starets maintains that the true monk ‘forgets the world’ (501). So he writes:

After I came to know my Lord, and He made my soul His prisoner, everything changed, and now I no longer want to contemplate the world (286).... My soul... has no wish to look upon this world, though I do love it (381).... My soul is filled with love of Thee and knows no desire to look upon this world, beautiful though it be (284).

Such is St Silouan’s order of priorities. However much we value the beauty of the creation, we should feel an incomparably greater love for God the Creator.

* * * *

For St Silouan, then, there is a single and undivided mystery of salvation, at once personal, pan-human and cosmic: everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else. There can be no disagreement between our personal salvation and the salvation of the world. The two form a unity. Our own salvation is necessarily linked to the salvation of every other human being, for ‘our brother is our life’. At the same time, the transfiguration of us humans inaugurates the transfiguration of the cosmos. Not without reason, on the last page of Fr Sophrony’s book on the Starets, do we find a prayer that is all-embracing in its scope:

O Lord, give unto us this love throughout Thine whole universe (504).

--------------------

[1] F. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, book 6, chapter 3.

[2] All quotations from St Silouan or from Fr Sophrony, unless otherwise indicated, are from Archimandite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite (Monastery of St John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, By Maldon, Essex 1991). References to the relevant page are included in the text.

[3] The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, tr. Dana Miller (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, Mass. 1984), pp. 344-5; A.M. Allchin (ed.) and Sebastian Brock (tr.), The Heart of Compassion: Daily Readings with St Isaac the Syrian (‘Enfolded in Love’ series: London 1989), p.9. My own rendering is eclectic, drawing on both translations, but mainly following Dr Brock.

[4] Epistle to Diognetus vii, 4.

[5] The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London 1957), p. 234.

[6] Ascetical Homilies, tr. Miller, p. 141; tr. Brock, p. 53.

[7] Ascetical Homilies, tr. Miller, p. 141; tr. Brock, p. 52.

[8] Indeed, was Origen himself an ‘Origenist’, in the sense envisaged by the Council of 553?

[9] See Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, Correspondence, §569.

[10] This is the opinion of the first editor of Barsanuphius, St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, Vivlos Varsanouphiou kai Ioannou (2nd edn, Sotirios Schoinas: Volas 1960), p. 267, n. 1.

[11] On Repentance 11 (PG 65:981AB).

[12] The Lenten Triodion, tr. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London/Boston 1978), p. 175.

[13] The Church is One, §9.

[14] Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine (London/Oxford 1977), p. 68.

[15] On the Lord’s Prayer 5. We should not read into this statement an Augustinian doctrine of original guilt.

[16] Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine, p. 61.

[17] This service is usually held on the evening of Good Friday. For the full text of the ‘Praises’, see The Lenten Triodion, tr. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, pp. 623-44.

[18] Un Moine de l’Eglise d’Orient, Amour sans limites (Chevetogne 1971).

[19] The Ladder of Divine Ascent 1 (PG 88:633C).

[20] His Life is Mine, p. 70.

[21] Issued in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature International (WWF), and obtainable from WWF, World Conservation Centre, Avenue du Mont-Blanc, CH 1196, Gland, Switzerland.

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