Orthodoxy in
America
by Hieromonk
Seraphim of Platina
A talk, delivered
at the Saint Herman Winter Pilgrimage on December 12/25, 1979, at the Holy
Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, N.Y.
We have gathered here today to
venerate St. Herman, first saint of the American land, first Orthodox missionary
to America, bringer of Orthodox Christianity to the New World. This feast gives
us an opportunity to look at the Orthodoxy he brought: what has happened to
it since his time, where it stands in this country today, what are the hopes
for it -- and for us, who are today's Orthodox Christians -- in the years ahead,
nearly two hundred years after the seeds of the true faith were planted here.
The
Past of Orthodoxy in America
I will say only a few words about
the past of Orthodoxy in America, in order to concentrate chiefly on what faces
us today.
The
Beginning and Early Success
First of all, of course, there
was the mission of St. Herman himself, with the seven other missionaries who
came with him from Valaam and Konevits Monasteries in the north of Russia in
1794. It is really astonishing what an Orthodox foundation these missionaries
laid in Alaska, considering how few they were and what obstacles they faced.
One of these eight, Fr. Ioasaph, was consecrated bishop in order to increase
the work in America, but he was lost at sea on the return voyage before he could
even begin his work. There were few priests in the early years, St. Herman himself
wasn't a priest, and the Russian officials in Alaska were not very cooperative
-- but in those years thousands of natives were baptized, and their descendants
remain Orthodox today; and with St. Herman's labors as a monk, preacher, and
carer of orphans, America saw for the first time a living example of the traditional
Orthodox piety and spiritual life which made Holy Russia. This is something
very important for our Orthodoxy today -- this example of true Orthodox Christianity
in practice. The next great Orthodox missionary
in America was the holy hierarch Innocent of Alaska, who first as priest and
then as bishop gave a classic example of Orthodox missionary activity, translating
the Gospel into the local languages, caring for the bodies as well as the souls
of the flock of his vast missionary territory. In his last years, when he became
Metropolitan of Moscow, he supported missionary labors in other places also.
With the sale of Alaska to the
American government in 1867, the mission territory changed somewhat: the Russian
government continued to send support to Alaska, but the seat of the Diocese
now became San Francisco, and for the first time an English-language mission
was undertaken. The outstanding missionary at the beginning of this century
in San Francisco was Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich, a Serb by birth who died
in Yugoslavia in 1940, whose books on Orthodox faith and practice in English
are still in print. Bishop Tikhon (the future Patriarch of Moscow) also greatly
encouraged the English-language mission, and under him and the other Russian
bishops there were missions also for other national groups -- Syrians, Serbs,
etc.
First
Troubles
However, even at this time the
beginnings of weaknesses could be noted. America is a vast land; the Russians
and other Orthodox settlers were widely scattered; priests were thinly spread;
and perhaps most important of all, there were no otherworldly saints like St.
Herman to plant the seeds of holiness deep in the American soil. Further, the
English-speaking American people were not simple like the natives of Alaska,
and they already practiced some form of Christian faith. For all of these reasons we can
see the beginning, even before the Russian Revolution, of the terrible disease
we see in the Orthodox jurisdictions in America today; the disease of worldliness.
Outwardly, the Orthodox clergy began to look like the non-Orthodox clergy around
them; inwardly, the concern was mainly to provide priests for the widely-scattered
ethnic flock, without deepening their Orthodoxy by providing English texts of
the classic Orthodox books or reaching out to tell the non-Orthodox who might
listen that there is a true Christianity that is undreamed of in the West, the
fullness of Holy Orthodoxy. The Revolution of 1917 in Russia
struck a deadly blow to the Orthodox mission: support from Russia was cut off,
the oneness of the Church fell apart into national jurisdictions, and the clergy
were left pretty much to themselves. The worldliness of American life was left
free to put its stamp on the Orthodox mission, and there was not much strength
to oppose it. When Archbishop Vitaly (later of Jordanville) came to America
in the 1930's to become ruling bishop, he saw that Orthodoxy in America, if
left to itself, would simply turn into an "Eastern-rite Protestantism"
- that is, it would retain some of the externals of Orthodoxy, but inwardly
would be scarcely different from the worldly Protestantism which is the predominant
religion of America.
Opposing
the Worldliness
The second wave of Russian emigration
after World War 11, including the transfer to Jordanville of Archbishop Vitaly's
whole monastic community which he had established in Czechoslovakia -- was the
first major influence acting against the worldliness which has been engulfing
America in the 20th century. But its influence has been mostly restricted to
our Russian Church Outside of Russia -- the other jurisdictions in America for
the most part have continued their worldly path, and this is the chief reason
for the widening difference between us and them. One has only to go into a church
of one of the modernist Orthodox jurisdictions in this country to see some of
the results of this worldly spirit: pews, often organs, streamlined and sometimes
dramatized services, various modern gimmicks for making money; and very often
the chief emphasis is placed on ethnic rather than spiritual values -- including
the newest ethnic emphasis, Americanism. The churches of our Russian Church
Outside of Russia are usually quite different, with no pews or organs, and a
more old-worldly kind of piety; and there has been a noticeable revival of traditional
church iconography and other church arts. The traditional Orthodox influence
is visible even in such external things as the way our clergy dress and the
beards which almost all of our clergy have. Just a few decades ago almost no
Orthodox clergy in America had beards or wore ryassas on the street; and while
this is something outward, it is still a reflection of a traditional mentality
which has had many inward, spiritual results also. A few of the more conservative
priests in other jurisdictions have now begun to return to more traditional
Orthodox ways, but if so, it is largely under the influence of our Church, and
a number of these priests have told us that they look to our Russian Church
Outside of Russia as a standard and inspiration of genuine Orthodoxy. However, the object of this talk
is to go a little deeper than these externals and to see where our Orthodoxy
is today in America, and especially what we ourselves can do to make ourselves
more fervent, more Orthodox, more in the spirit of St. Herman, who for all time
has set the "tone" for Orthodoxy in America. To do this, we must first of all
recognize the chief enemy facing us: it is, of course, the devil, who wants
to knock us off the path of salvation; and the chief means he uses in our times
to do this is the spirit of worldliness. This is what has weakened and watered
down Orthodoxy in America -- and not just in the other jurisdictions. The spirit
of worldliness is in the air we breathe, and we cannot escape it. You cannot
watch television, you cannot go to a supermarket, you cannot walk in the streets
of any city in America -- without being bombarded by this spirit. In supermarkets
and other large stores they even play lighthearted, senseless music in order
to catch you in this spirit and make sure that you don't think or feel in an
otherworldly way. Our Church and everyone in it is attacked by this spirit,
and we can't escape it by isolating ourselves in a ghetto or in a small town;
the outside influences can be lessened, perhaps, in such ways, but if we are
not fighting an inward spiritual battle against worldliness, we will still be
conquered by it without fail. And so the chief question regarding the future
of our Orthodoxy in America -- and in the whole world, for that matter -- is:
how do we remain orthodox and develop our orthodoxy against the spirit of worldliness
that attacks us on all sides? In order to answer this question
we have to ask first another question that might be a little surprising: what
is Orthodoxy? But this question is basic; if we aren't sure just what Orthodoxy
is, we won't know what we're trying to preserve and develop against the spirit
of worldliness. And so let us ask this question:
What
Is Orthodoxy?
Right
is Not Enough
We can define Orthodoxy in no better
way than in the words of the great 18th-century Russian Father, St. Tikhon of
Zadonsk -- a Saint whose fervent spirit is needed very much today by Orthodox
Christians. We should read him more and practice what he teaches. St. Tikhon
calls Orthodoxy "the true Christianity," and he wrote a whole book
under this title. But "true Christianity" does not mean just having
the right opinions about Christianity -- this is not enough to save one's soul.
St. Tikhon in his book, in the
chapter on "The Gospel and Faith," says: "If someone should say
that true faith is the correct holding and confession of correct dogmas, he
would be telling the truth, for a believer absolutely needs the Orthodox holding
and confession of dogmas. But this knowledge and confession by itself does not
make a man a faithful and true Christian. The keeping and confession of Orthodox
dogmas is always to be found in true faith in Christ, but the true faith of
Christ is not always to be found in the confession of Orthodoxy... The knowledge
of correct dogmas is in the mind, and it is often fruitless, arrogant, and proud...
The true faith in Christ is in the heart, and it is fruitful, humble, patient,
loving, merciful, compassionate, hungering and thirsting for righteousness;
it withdraws from worldly lusts and clings to God alone, strives and seeks always
for what is heavenly and eternal, struggles against every sin, and constantly
seeks and begs help from God for this." And he then quotes Blessed Augustine,
who teaches: "The faith of a Christian is with love; faith without love
is that of the devil" ("True Christianity," ch. 287, p. 469).
St. James in his Epistle tells us that "the demons also believe and tremble"
(James 3:19). St. Tikhon, therefore, gives us
a start in understanding what Orthodoxy is: it is something first of all of
the heart, not just the mind, something living and warm, not abstract and cold,
some thing that is learned and practiced in life, not just in school.
To
Be Different
A person who takes Orthodoxy seriously
and begins to really work on understanding it with his heart and changing himself
-- has at least a little of a quality we might call the fragrance of true Christianity;
he is different from people who live by nothing higher than the world. St. Macarius
the Great, the 4th-century Egyptian desert father, teaches in his Homilies that
"Christians have their own world, their own way of life, their own understanding
and word and activity; far different from theirs are the way of life and understanding
and word and activity of the people of this world. Christians are one thing,
and lovers of the world quite another. Inasmuch as the mind and understanding
of Christians is constantly occupied with reflection on the heavenly, they behold
eternal good things by communion and participation in the Holy Spirit... Christians
have a different world ... a different way of thinking from all other men"
(Homily V, 1:20). Later I'll try to say a word on how Orthodox Christians should
be absorbing this different world and way of thinking. Orthodoxy, the true Christianity,
is not just another set of beliefs; it is a whole way of life that makes us
different people, and it is directly bound up with how much heavenly and eternal
things are present in our life. An Orthodox person who is not different
can be worse off than the non-Orthodox. There is nothing sadder than the spectacle
of Orthodox Christians, who possess a treasure that cannot be valued by any
earthly measure, something which many are seeking and do not find in today's
world -- nothing is sadder than Orthodox Christians who do not value and do
not use this treasure.
An
Example for the Orthodox
I'd like to tell you a little about
a group of Protestants who live not too far from our monastery in northern California.
In some ways I think they are actually an example for us, in other ways a warning,
and perhaps most of all an indication of the responsibility and opportunity
we Orthodox Christians have because we have been given the true Christianity.
These Protestants have a simple
and warm Christian faith without much of the sectarian narrowness that characterizes
many Protestant groups. They don't believe, like some Protestants, that they
are "saved" and don't need to do any more; they believe in the idea
of spiritual struggle and training the soul. They force themselves to forgive
each other and not to hold grudges. They take in bums and hippies off the streets
and have a special farm for rehabilitating them and teaching them a sense of
responsibility. In other words, they take Christianity seriously as the most
important thing in life; it's not the fullness of Christianity that we Orthodox
have, but it's good as far as it goes, and these people are warm, loving people
who obviously love Christ. In this way they are an example of what we should
be, only more so. Whether they attain salvation by
their practice of Christianity is for God to judge, for some of their views
and actions are far from the true Christianity of Orthodoxy handed down to us
from Christ and His Apostles; but at least an awareness of their existence should
help us to be aware of what we already have. Some of our Orthodox young people
-- for whatever reason, they don't realize what treasure their Orthodox faith
contains -- are joining such Protestant groups; and some of our uninformed young
people go much farther from Orthodoxy -- one of the 900 victims of Jonestown
a year ago was a Greek Orthodox girl, the daughter of an Orthodox priest.
A
Matter of Life and Death
I'm telling you about these Protestants
both as a warning of how Orthodox young people can lose the treasure they already
have if they haven't been made aware enough of it, and more importantly, as
a means of defining a little better the true Christianity we have and these
Protestants don't have. Some of our Orthodox young people are converted to groups
like this, but it works the other way around also -- some of these Protestants
are being converted to Orthodoxy. And why not? If we have the true Christianity,
there should be something in our midst that someone who sincerely loves the
truth will see and want. We've baptized several people from
this Protestant group in our monastery; they are drawn to Orthodoxy by the grace
and the sacraments whose presence they feel in Orthodoxy, but which are absent
in their group. And once they become Orthodox, they find their Protestant experience,
which seemed so real to them at the time, to be quite shallow and superficial.
Their leaders give very practical teachings based on the Gospel, but after a
while the teachings are exhausted and they repeat themselves. Coming to Orthodoxy,
these converts find a wealth of teaching that is inexhaustible and leads them
into a depth of Christian experience that is totally beyond even the best of
non-Orthodox Christians. We who are already Orthodox have this treasure and
this depth right in front of us, and we must use it more fully than we usually
do; it is a matter of spiritual life and death both for ourselves and for those
around us who can be awakened to the truth of Orthodoxy. Just this last week I crossed the
whole of America by train -- a vast land, with many different kinds of landscapes
and settlements. And I thought of St. Seraphim's vision of the vast Russian
land, with the smoke of the prayers of believers going up like incense to God.
Perhaps someone will say to me: "Oh, you talk like a convert! America is
America. It's full of Protestants and unbelievers, and the Orthodox will always
be a little minority of people who stick to themselves and have no influence
on the rest of America." Well, I'm not saying that we Orthodox will "convert
America" -- that's a little too ambitious for us. However, St. Herman himself
did have such a dream. He wrote a letter after participating in the first "missionary
conference" on American soil, when that small band of missionaries divided
up the vast land of Alaska and argued over who would get the most land to cover.
St. Herman, hearing this, says that he was so exalted in soul that he thought
he was present when the Apostles themselves were dividing up the world for the
preaching of the Gospel. We don't have to have such exalted
ideas in order to see that the prayers of believers could be going up to God
in America. What if we who are Orthodox Christians began to realize who we are?
-- to take our Christianity seriously, to live as though we actually were in
contact with the true Christianity? We would begin to be different, others around
us would begin to be interested in why we are different, and we would begin
to realize that we have the answers to their spiritual questions.
We
Have to Sow More
On this same train trip across
the country I had what could he called missionary encounters. Of course, I wasn't
passing out tracts in the aisles; but just sitting there in my ~ryassa~ with
a cross and my beard, I attracted attention. Some of it wasn't fruitful, but
was typical of how we Orthodox are often regarded in America: one small boy
thought I was "Santa Claus," and a woman pointed me out as "Ayatollah!"
I also had several encounters with people who should have been Orthodox: one
woman who was married to a Greek man; a man who was married to a Greek woman,
but neither of them Orthodox because the woman's grandmother had become a Lutheran
for social reasons -- here it was obvious how worldliness had taken its toll
of yet another Orthodox family in America. But there were some fruitful encounters,
too. To several people I was able to speak about Orthodoxy (which they had never
heard of) and hand out some copies of "The Orthodox Word". One of
these people had a story that should move our Orthodox hearts. For most of the day that I was
crossing vast Wyoming -- full of nothing but frozen, barren land and a few antelope
herds -- I was talking to an intense young man who was searching for the truth
after finding out that the "charismatic" movement is not from God.
After becoming disillusioned with American religion -- the Methodists, Roman
Catholics, Baptists, and various Protestant evangelists -- as a last resort
he is learning Russian in order to go to Russia and find out what he'll be told
by people who are suffering for their faith. "Maybe that will be real,"
he said, as opposed to the religious hypocrisy he sees everywhere. He asked
me eagerly about many things, from doctrines to customs to moral teachings,
and then read the chapter on the charismatic movement in our book, "Orthodoxy
and the Religion of the Future" -- which he said put into words what he
felt (based on his own experience) but didn't have the teaching to express.
Here is where Orthodoxy, the true Christianity, can literally save someone who
otherwise might fall into despair from the inadequacy of the Christianity of
the West. Here again a seed was sown; perhaps Wyoming won't become Orthodox,
but a few souls there might. All this is by way of explaining
that Orthodoxy, in St. Tikhon's definition, is the true Christianity, and it
was never more needed than today. We must realize what a treasure we have, and
make it active in us. This need not mean going door to door like Jehovah's Witnesses,
or preaching in the streets. The outward expression of our faith will come naturally
once we have begun to go inward, finding out what this treasure is and letting
ourselves be truly changed by it. Recently an Orthodox person of
some sensitivity and depth told me: "Orthodoxy is the truth, but it's too
difficult for men today, so I seldom speak of it." There is a kernel of
truth in this statement. Orthodoxy IS difficult compared to the Western denominations;
but still -- anyone who is capable of wanting a demanding faith is capable of
accepting Orthodoxy. We have to sow more, so there will be more to reap. But
first of all we have to go inward and make the true Christianity of Orthodoxy
a living part of ourselves.
Going
Deeper Into Orthodoxy
How do we do this? To some extent,
anyone who is close to Church and tries to keep the Orthodox discipline, knows
the answer to this question: you attend church services, keep the faith, receive
Holy Communion, read Orthodox books. But it is possible to do all this almost
mechanically, without going deeper into Orthodoxy.
Make
an Effort
Therefore, first of all we must
not merely attend services and keep the outward form of Orthodoxy -- we must
be aware of what we are doing. If you've ever talked to an earnest Protestant
or unbeliever who really wants to know what you believe and why you behave the
way you do, you will understand how important this awareness is. You can literally
save the soul of someone like that if you can begin, even in a little way, to
open up to him the depths of Orthodox Christianity. Why do you make the sign
of the Cross? Why do you pray to saints? Why do you stand up in church, or make
prostrations during Lent? Why are you always singing "Lord, have mercy"?
What is Holy Communion? Why do you confess your sins to a priest? Especially
today, when we are surrounded by people who don't know the truth but some of
whom are really thirsting for it -- we can't just do these things out of habit;
we must be able, as the Apostle Peter says, to give an account of what we believe
and do to those outside the Church. There are many ways to become educated in
Orthodox Christianity -- ask your parish priest, read books, obtain a copy of
some of the Church's services and begin to enter more deeply into their meaning.
Further, we must be not just aware
of what our Church teaches and does -- we must be trying to saturate ourselves
in it. St. Seraphim, in his spiritual instructions, says that the Christian
must be "swimming in the law of the Lord" -- and this doesn't mean
just making the Church a little part of one's life; it means going deeper and
doing more. Of course, we start a little at a time. If you have been going to
church just on Sundays, you can begin to go to the Vigil on Saturday night,
and to feast-day services. If you've been trying to keep the fast of Great Lent,
you can begin to go to more of the very moving services of Lent -- the Liturgy
of the Presanctified Gifts, the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, the Praises of
the Mother of God.
Written
for You
And another very important thing:
You should be reading spiritual books. St. John Chrysostom goes so far as to
say that a Christian who doesn't read spiritual books can't be saved. Why? Because
the world, whose spirit we absorb unconsciously many hours a day, is so strong
that we will almost automatically follow its ways unless we are consciously
filling our minds and hearts with Christian impressions. Innumerable books exist for this
purpose, both in Russian and English: first of all the Holy Scriptures and Orthodox
commentaries on them. Then the Lives of Saints and recent ascetics; "My
Life in Christ" by St. John of Kronstadt; "Unseen Warfare" by
St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and Bishop Theophan the Recluse; the Spiritual
Instructions of St. Abba Dorotheos; the Homilies of St. Macarius the Great;
the Orthodox service books, several of which are now in English; the "Lausaic
History" and the Lives and Sayings of the Desert Fathers, which are just
as fresh now as when uttered 1.500 years ago; Lives of Russia's New Martyrs;
Archbishop Andrew's "The One Thing Needful." The Monastery bookstore
here can sell you these and many other books. If you have a spark of Christian
fervor in you, you will be surprised how much your soul will be refreshed by
reading books like these; they will give you a taste of that otherworldliness
without which the Christian soul withers and dies, especially in our worldly
times.
Help
in Struggle
And of course, a central part of
this going deeper into Orthodoxy are the Church's medicines of confession and
Holy Communion, which you should participate in as fully as possible, according
to the counsel of your spiritual father. Then there are the daily opportunities
for expressing Christian love -- giving alms, visiting the sick, helping those
in need. All of these means, if one's heart is in them, are what help to make
the Christian different from the world, because they lift his eyes above this
passing world to the heavenly Kingdom which is our goal as Christians. These
are the positive means of going deeper into Orthodoxy. There are, of course,
negative things you will have to fight against as well. Once you become aware
that there is an unseen warfare going on, that our Christianity is constantly
being attacked by our unseen enemies, especially through the spirit of worldliness,
you will begin to see also the negative things in your life that have to be
changed. But with a firm understanding of the positive, inspiring side of Christian
life, this struggle against negative faults and habits becomes much easier.
Part of our awareness of what Orthodoxy is involves knowing that this world
is largely the domain of the devil, the prince of this world, who acts on our
souls and hearts chiefly by the love of this passing world. But if we are struggling
in an Orthodox way, we are receiving the grace of God which is the only thing
that can raise us above this world that lies in evil.
Some
Pitfalls
Now I'd like to say a word about
a few of the pitfalls into which one can fall once one has begun to take up
the path of fervent Orthodox Christianity. One might think, hearing about our
faith; that all one has to do is to become on fire with zeal for it, and then
one can enter the Heavenly Kingdom. But it so happens that we have an enemy
-- the devil -- and as soon as we become fervent, the enemy comes and begins
to fight. I'll speak here of three of the ways in which he attacks, and this
will also help us to define a little more precisely what is the true Christianity
of Orthodoxy.
Missing
the Basics
The first pitfall occurs when one
begins to read Orthodox books, is inspired by them, but does not apply their
principles properly to one's own life. Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, one of
the great Russian Fathers of the 19th century -- a beacon light for modern times,
together with his contemporary, Bishop Theophan the Recluse -- wrote a special
book, called in English "The Arena," for the monastics of the last
times -- our times -- where he gives advice which all Orthodox strugglers of
our times should heed. In this book he warns beginners on the monastic path
not to become so exalted by some inspiring writings of the Holy Fathers or even
by the Lives of Saints, that one forms "an impossible dream of a perfect
life vividly and alluringly in his imagination" and ceases to do the humble
Christian tasks right in front of him (ch. 10). This is a basic pitfall. One can
think about living in the desert, while right in front of one there may be an
excellent opportunity to practice Christianity -- someone may be in trouble,
and with our high ideas we may not even think of helping him. Or, with these
same high ideas in our mind, we may begin to criticize others and be lacking
in the basic Christian love without which all our high ideas are empty. Through
experience we must learn how to apply the writings of the Holy Fathers and the
Scripture itself to our own level and circumstances. Our spiritual life is not something
bookish or that follows formulas. Everything we learn has to become part of
our life and something natural to us. We can be reading about hesychasm and
the Jesus Prayer, for example, and begin to say it ourselves -- and still be
blind to our own passions and unresponsive to a person in need right in front
of us, not seeing that this is a test of our Christianity that comes at a more
basic level than saying the Jesus Prayer. We have to read Orthodox books that
are on our level -- the ones I mentioned above are more for beginners -- and
we have to read them very humbly, realizing the nature of our times when worldly
influences are present everywhere and affect our thinking even when we aren't
aware of it, and never dreaming that we are on any level but that of raw beginners.
The
Disease of Correctness
Bound up with this is a disease
of today's Orthodox Christians which can be deadly: the "correctness disease."
In a way this is a natural temptation to anyone who has just awakened to Christian
faith and to spiritual life -- the more one finds out about Christian doctrine
and practice, the more one discovers how many "mistakes" one has been
making up to now, and one's natural desire is to be "correct." This
is praiseworthy, although in the beginning one is probably going to be too artificially
"strict" and make many new mistakes out of pride (to which we are
constantly blind). If you are critical of others, self-confident about your
own correctness, eager to quote canons to prove someone else is wrong, constantly
"knowing better" than others -- you have the germs of the "correctness
disease." These are signs of immaturity in spiritual life, and often one
outgrows them if one is living a normal spiritual life. But especially in our days, the
spirit of worldliness is so strong, and there is obviously so much wrong in
our church life -- that there is a strong temptation to make "correctness"
a way of life, to get stuck in it. And this is not only a disease of converts;
one of the best bishops of the Old Calendar Greeks, Bishop Cyprian of Sts. Cyprian
and Justina Monastery near Athens, has written that this spirit of "correctness"
has already done untold damage to Orthodoxy in Greece, causing fights and schisms
one after the other. Sometimes one's zeal for "Orthodoxy" (in quotes)
can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused
an old Russian woman to remark of an enthusiastic American convert "Well,
he's certainly Orthodox all right -- but is he a Christian?" To be "Orthodox but not Christian"
is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be
a Pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church's laws that one
loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity. In saying
this my aim is not to be critical or to point to anyone in particular -- we
all suffer from this -- but only to point out a pitfall which can cause one
to fail to take advantage of the riches which the Orthodox Church provides for
our salvation, even in these evil times. Even when it is not fanatical,
this spirit of "correctness" for its own sake turns out to be fruitless.
As an example, I can tell you of a very good friend of ours, one of the zealot
fathers of Mt. Athos. He is a "moderate" zealot, in that he recognizes
the grace of New Calendar sacraments, accepts the blessings of priests of our
Church, and the like; but he is absolutely strict when it comes to applying
the basic Zealot principle, not to have communion not only with bishops whose
teaching departs from Orthodox truth, such as the Patriarch of Constantinople,
and not only with anyone who has communion with him, but with anyone who has
communion with anyone who in any remote way has communion with him. Such "purity"
is so difficult to attain in our days (our whole Russian Church Abroad, for
example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with
the other Orthodox Churches) that he is in communion with only his own priest
and ten other monks in his group on the Holy Mountain; all of the rest of the
Orthodox Church is not "pure." Perhaps there are only ten or twelve
people left in the world who are perfectly "strict" and "pure"
in their Orthodoxy -- this I really don't know; but it simply cannot be that
there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with
whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think
that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if
we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our
believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such
strictness; we must somehow be less "correct" and closer to the heart
of Orthodox Christianity. In smaller ways, too, we can get
carried away with "correctness": we can like well-done Byzantine icons
(which is a good thing), but we go too far if we are disdainful of the more
modern style icons which are still in many of our churches. The same goes for
church singing, architecture, the following of correct rules of fasting, of
kneeling in church, etc. While striving to be as correct as we can, we must
also remember that these things belong to the outward side of our Orthodox faith,
and they are good only if they are used in the right spirit of the true Christianity
St. Tikhon talks about. Vladimir Soloviev, in his Short Story of Antichrist,
ingeniously suggests that Antichrist, in order to attract Orthodox conservatives,
will open a museum of all Christian antiquities. Perhaps the very images of
Antichrist himself (Apoc. 13:14) will be in good Byzantine style -- this should
be a sobering thought for us.
"Charismatic"
Deception
The third pitfall I'll just mention,
because it doesn't seem to be a problem in our Church. This is the "charismatic"
movement which imagines it is acquiring the Holy Spirit by various Protestant
techniques. This movement is filled with such an obvious spirit of inflated
self-esteem and has so many of the characteristics of what Orthodox writers
describe as spiritual deception (prelest) that I won't dwell on it here. The
true Orthodox spirit is something very different.
Examples
of True Christianity
After mentioning these pitfalls
I'd like to get back to the subject and mention some final ways we have in our
Russian Church Outside of Russia today of increasing our awareness of Orthodoxy
and helping us to value it more and use it better. Our Orthodox faith comes down to
us through tradition. This means it isn't something we just read about or rediscover
through books -- it is something passed on from father to son, from one generation
to the next, which we see being practiced around us by our fathers and brothers
in the faith. If we are in living contact with these people who are passing
down the tradition, "correctness" will not be such a temptation for
us; we will be "hooked up" with the tradition. This doesn't mean we
must believe every opinion we hear from seemingly pious people -- we have the
writings of the Holy Fathers and the whole tradition of the Church to guide
us if there are doubts or perplexities. Some of those who pass on the Orthodox
Faith have a special message for us. I'd like to mention here just three of
those who have something to say to us: two of them died in the last few years,
and some of you here knew them; another is still alive. All three are bound
up with Russia which is now undergoing the terrible trial of atheist rule, and
that also has something to say to us.
Archbishop
Andrew of Novo-Diveyevo
The first of these men is Archbishop
Andrew of Novo-Diveyevo, who died last year after a long and full life in the
Church. He was just setting out in life when the Russian Revolution broke out,
and he had to rethink his whole goal in life under the changed circumstances.
What is life for, and what is worth doing in life if all the normal foundations
of life can be so suddenly overthrown? Having known the warmth of Orthodoxy
in childhood, he sought for it as an adult at first in vain, until he discovered
that he himself had to go deeper and suffer for what he needed. He read Dostoyevsky,
which deepened his view on life; he fell in with a non-Orthodox Christian group,
which had fervor but couldn't satisfy his Orthodox soul. He found a priest who
opened up to him the meaning behind the Church's services and customs. He read
the Holy Fathers, and came hack to life from his earlier despair. And then he
found the elders of Optina: Nectarius, who taught him what true godliness or
piety is -- to keep everything of God's in honor; and the Elder Anatole, who
gave him St. Tikhon's book "On True Christianity" and told him to
live by it. Wherever he was -- in Russia, Germany,
or America -- he strove to establish an atmosphere of Christian warmth where
other seekers could find the peace he had found. He saw that most of our Christian
life is outward and cold, and he strove always to awaken the true inward life
and warmth of Orthodoxy when it is deeply understood and practiced. He hated
the "hothouse" Christianity of those who "enjoy" being Orthodox
but don't live a life of struggling and deepening their Christianity. We converts
can easily fall for this "hothouse" Orthodoxy, too. We can live close
to a church, have English services, a good priest, go frequently to church and
receive the Sacraments, be in the "correct" jurisdiction -- and still
be cold, unfeeling, arrogant and proud, as St. Tikhon has said. In this way
we will not grow because we don't have the sense of urgency and struggle that
Vladika Andrew talked about. Once, when he only suspected that one of his spiritual
children was growing comfortable in his Orthodoxy, he took him by the shoulders
and literally shook him and told him: "Don't you be a hypocrite!"
You can read further about Archbishop
Andrew and his Orthodox philosophy of life in a booklet published several years
ago: "The Restoration of the Orthodox Way of Life." From Vladika Andrew
we can learn that Orthodoxy is a matter of life and death, that it requires
intense awareness and struggle, that it can't be "comfortable" unless
it is fake.
Professor
I.M.Andreyev
The second man I'd like to mention
lived for many years right here in Jordanville. He was a philosopher -- I.M.
Andreyev. He belonged at first to the liberal intelligentsia, and only gradually,
in the first decade of the Revolution, did he come back to Orthodoxy, where
he found the whole philosophy of life which the Western schools could not give.
His pilgrimages to Sarov, Diveyevo, and other monasteries in Russia just before
they were closed, deepened and made real his new-found faith. Then came his
years of standing in the truth when he sided with the Catacomb Church in the
terrible years of the 1920's and '30's. He was a refined and philosophical
thinker, but most of all he had an Orthodox heart, and he grieved most of all
at seeing how few Orthodox people seem to care deeply for God and their faith
and their fellow men. In his article "Weep," after describing how
a young mother in New York City brutally killed her infant son, he addresses
the Orthodox people: "All for one and one for all are guilty... Let each
one think of himself... What were you doing on that evening when this unbelievable
but authentic evil deed was performed? Perhaps it was your sin, your immoral
deed, your malice, which turned out to be the last little drop which caused
the vessel of evil to overflow. This is the way we must reflect, if we are Christians...
Weep, brothers and sisters! Do not be ashamed of these tears... Let your tears
be a fount of a different energy, an energy of good that fights against the
energy of evil... Let these tears also awaken many of the indifferent."
Andreyev's burning concern shows
us that we must have a deeply-feeling heart, or else we are not Christians.
[On his life and philosophy, see "The Orthodox Word," 1971, no. 74.]
Father
Dimitry Dudko
Finally, I'd like to mention one
man who is alive today in Soviet Russia -- Father Dimitry Dudko. He was born
already after the Revolution, and came to Christ in the late Soviet period through
the sufferings of living under the atheist rule and spending 81/2 years in prison
camp. His words in recent years speak with extraordinary power for us Orthodox
Christians outside of Russia. One might disagree with him on a few theoretical
points, but his heart is so right, so Orthodox. In Fr. Dimitry is the same concern
and feeling that Andreyev found largely lacking in the West; the same intensity
and struggle Vladika Andrew preached. Once, when someone asked him at his question
and answer sessions several years ago after the All-night Vigil, recorded in
his book, "Our Hope" -- Isn't Christianity in the West better off,
being in freedom? -- he replied: No. There they have spirituality with comfort,
and you can't expect much from that; here in Russia we have martyrs and suffering,
and from that can come resurrection and new life. Actually, if you take seriously
what Orthodox teachers like Archbishop Andrew, Andreyev, and Father Dimitry
are saying, you can come to think there isn't much hope for us -- we're too
soft, too unaware, too shallow, too outward. Well, it's good to think like that
-- it might make us begin to wake up and struggle. Let the words of these fervent
souls be a warning for us.
Our
Talent of Freedom
We are in a privileged position
of peace and freedom, and this is dangerous for us. We can sit in the midst
of our Orthodox treasures, the treasures that give salvation that no one else
has -- and be satisfied with our situation and so be totally fruitless. If we
have difficulty in being Orthodox -- then let us rejoice, for that means we
must struggle, and there is hope that we won't wither and die spiritually.
Orthodoxy
-- Here and Now
Often we have the wrong idea about
our situation. We think: "If only I could go somewhere else, change my
situation, and the like, my problems would be solved"; but usually this
is not right at all. We must start right now, wherever we are. If it is difficult,
that is all the better -- it means we have to fight for our Christianity; and
if you have to fight and struggle, you become more aware. But there are also opportunities
in our privileged position, and we should use them. First of all, perhaps many of you
don't know that there are many contacts now between people in Russia and people
outside. We can become informed of what is going on there. Read Fr. Dimitry
Dudko's books, or his little newspaper. There are also Western sources which
give fresh information on what is happening to Orthodox Christians in Russia
-- Fr. Victor Potapov's "Orthodox Monitor, the Keston News Service, "Aid
to the Russian Church," and so forth. Find out about these suffering people
and pray for them. Do you know about Nun Valeria, arrested and placed in a psychiatric
hospital for selling belts with the Ninetieth Psalm embroidered on them? About
Father George Calciu in Romania, now in prison for his Christian sermons? About
Alexander Ogorodnikov, imprisoned for holding a Christian discussion group?
About Vladimir Osipov, the Russian patriot and samizdat publisher? About Fr.
Gleb Yakunin, Fr. Vasily Romanchuk, Sergei Yermolaev, Igor Ogurtsov -- the list
is long. We have to start praying for these people who are suffering for their
faith. And we can help them: we have their
prison addresses and can send them letters. Even if they don't receive them,
the prison officials do, and the treatment of prisoners with "friends abroad"
noticeably improves. Through "Orthodox Action" you can send literature
in regular envelopes. There are even ways of getting books through. You can
write to Fr. Dimitry Dudko -- some letters get through, and and he even replies.
Everyone can do something, and every bit helps. In the West we've grown too
passive -- now is the time when we can express our care and concern.
When
Fool's Paradise is Lost
Perhaps even more, we can learn
from the suffering people of Russia and other Communist countries. I don't want
to frighten you, but we'd better face the fact that what they're suffering now,
or something similar, is probably coming here, and soon. We're living in the
last times, Antichrist is close, and what happens in Russia and other countries
like it is the normal experience for our times. Here in the West we're living
in a fool's paradise which can and probably will soon be lost. Let's start to
prepare -- not by storing food or such outward things that some are already
doing in America, but with the inward preparation of Orthodox Christians.Have you ever asked yourself, for
example, the question how you will survive if you are placed in prison or concentration
camp, and especially in the punishment cells of solitary confinement? How are
you going to survive? You will go crazy in a very short time if your mind has
nothing to occupy itself with. What will you have in your mind? If you are filled
with worldly impressions and have nothing spiritual in your mind; if you are
just living from day to day without thinking seriously about Christianity and
the Church, without becoming aware of what Orthodoxy is, and you are placed
in a situation like solitary confinement where there is nothing to do, nowhere
to go, no movies to see, just staying in one spot facing four walls -- you will
scarcely survive. The Romanian Protestant pastor,
Richard Wurmbrand, has a tape devoted to this subject which is very interesting.
In a crisis situation like that, when all our books and outward props are taken
away, we can depend on nothing except what we've acquired within ourselves.
He says that all the Bible verses he knew didn't help him much; abstract knowledge
of dogmas didn't help much -- what is important is what you have in your soul.
You must have Christ in your soul. If He is there, then we Orthodox Christians
have a whole program which we could use in prison. We can remember the Orthodox
Calendar -- which saints and feasts are commemorated when. We don't have to
know the whole Calendar, but from our daily life in the Church we will remember
the milestones of the Church year; whatever we have stored up in our hearts
and minds will come back to us. Whatever prayers and hymns we know by heart
will help us, we will have to sing them every day. You will have to have people
to pray for. The world-wide dispersion of our
Russian Church Abroad is ideal for this. You can go over the whole globe in
your mind, one country or continent at a time, and pray for those you know,
even if you can't think of their names -- bishops and abbesses, parishes and
priests both Russian and missionary, the monasteries in the Holy Land, prisoners
in Russia and Romania and other lands under the atheist yoke, the missions in
Uganda and elsewhere in Africa where it is very difficult, the monks of Mt.
Athos, the suffering Old Calendarists of Greece. The more of these you are aware
of and praying for now, the better it will be for you when you have to suffer
yourself, the more you will have to take with you into prison. As Andreyev says, it is "one
for all and all for one" -- we are involved in practicing our Christianity
in a world that has become atheist, whether or not open persecution is going
on.
Resolve
Every Christian has a talent from
God, and He will ask what we have done with what He gave us. In Soviet Russia
and other Communist countries, there is the talent of suffering for Christ and
being faithful in the midst of trials. In the free world, the talent given most
of us is the talent of freedom: we have been given the freedom to practice our
faith and the opportunity through our abundance of Orthodox texts to become
fully aware of it and deepen it within ourselves. But this Orthodoxy must be
the true Christianity that St. Tikhon describes -- the Orthodoxy not of the
mind but of the heart. This kind of Orthodoxy cannot be acquired overnight;
it requires suffering, experience, testing. But first of all it requires resolve.
If each one of us puts this resolve in his heart, if we take our Christian Faith
seriously and resolve to be faithful to it, there can be a literal resurrection
of true Christianity in our midst, something that Fr. Dimitry Dudko and others
mention as beginning to happen in Russia.
Let me end with the words of St.
Herman, whose feast we are celebrating -- he also was one of those concerned
ones who made full use of the opportunities given them. In the famous incident
when he asked the officers of a ship what they loved most of all, and then put
them to shame by telling them that only God is worth loving so much, he ended
his instruction with these words, which you will find on some icons of St. Herman:
"From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above
all." A very simple thing -- which is exactly what we all must do. May
God give us the strength for it, by the prayers of His great Saint, Herman of
Alaska. Amen.
Fr. Seraphim of Platina (1934-1982) was an Hieromonk of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia at the Monastery of St. Herman of Alaska in Platina, California. |