Jewish Orthodoxy

Some words of encouragement quoted from a comment to a news item at Come and See, a Christian news page from Nazareth, Israel. There is a permanent hyperlink to this site in the side bar in two places: under Hebrew Orthodox Christianity, the link Hebrew Greek Orthodoxy, and under With no apologies, I visit…, the link Come and See. The author of what follows signs himself only as Reuven ben Yohanan.

Shalom,

Here are just some words of encouragement for anyone reading who is a Jewish Orthodox Christian.

As a Jewish Orthodox Christian, I think it is important not to forget our Jewish identity. Just read the Gospel of Matthew or the book of Acts and you will see how Jewish the Early Church was. The Early Jewish Christians kept the Sabbath, attended the Synagogue for daily prayer and kept the Commandments. Even today in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has Jewish roots, Christians practice circumcision, Kashrut, observe laws regarding purity and keep the Sabbath. Jesus was never against the Law, He just criticised the hypocrisy of keeping some aspects of the law to the tiniest detail whilst ignoring the essence and purpose of the Law. Even non-Jewish Orthodox Christians need to be careful with rules such as those about fasting. Jewish Orthodox and non-Jewish Orthodox just need to remember that these laws or rule are not an end in themselves, but a means to attaining communion with God.

There is already so much in our Church which shows us our Jewish heritage. For example, the Liturgical day starts at Sunset, Saturday is still seen as the Sabbath (Sunday is the day of the Resurrection), the Holy Scriptures are processed around the Church for the congregation to see before being chanted (not read), many of our prayers include the clause ‘Blessed…’ as do Jewish prayers, the Prophets from the Old Testament are still remembered on various feast days throughout the year, we still use the Tehillim extensively in our services, traditional altars have a menorah, we make bows at various points during our prayers.

The Chabad movement like us remembers various Holy people important to the faith, and the list continues. More importantly, when it comes to some matters of theology, especially regarding the nature of man and sin, Orthodox Theology is actually much closer to Jewish Theology than it is to Western Christian Theology. For example, both an Orthodox Jew and an Orthodox Christian would be turned off by an Augustinian explanation of the fall, man’s nature, sin and redemption. For more information, you may enjoy the book Surprised by Christ by Fr James Bernstein.

Jewish Orthodox Christians can express their Jewish identities in many ways. For example, keeping the Sabbath day, praying traditional blessings over all of one's actions and celebrating Jewish feasts are all good examples.

Just like every Orthodox Church has its own focus, so can the local Jewish Orthodox Church. For example, in the Serbian Orthodox Church there is a special custom called the Krsna Slava, a family's celebration of their conversion from Paganism to Christianity. This includes breaking bread, drinking wine and reciting certain prayers. This is only done in the Serbian Church.

Similarly, in the Russian Church there are certain feast days and traditions which are only observed among Russians. Even in the West some Orthodox parishes celebrate local celebrations, like Father's Day, by mentioning special prayers and feasting. So there is no reason why Jewish Christians should not remember the important events in our people's history such as Purim and Hannukah, even more so the great feasts of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.

As Jewish Orthodox we have a lot to be proud of. The King of the Universe gave our small nation the honor of defending monotheism and through our people all nations were blessed with Christ being born to a Jewish mother, meaning He was a Jew!

Today we also have an important role. Firstly, to other Christians we have to show that there is nothing wrong with being Jewish and being Christian. Unfortunately anti-Semitism still exists in all circles, even some Jewish people feel ashamed to be Jewish.

To an Orthodox, besides the fact that Christ Himself was a Jew, we can point to Holy people such as Mother Maria Skobstova, who has been canonised for her heroic effort to save Jews during the holocaust which ultimately led to her dying in a concentration camp.

Secondly, to our Jewish brothers and sisters we need to remind them that Orthodox Christians are monotheists and observers of the Noahide Commandments.

Most importantly, we need to be an example of love to the world. In this age of so much hate, we need to show others the way of the Messiah. Hearing about the vandalism of the Church saddens me, but I want to encourage the local community to respond with love.

Anyway, Abouna is right that such persecution only strengthens the community. Remember the words of Christ to ‘pray for those who persecute you’ and that ‘blessed are the peacemakers.’

Remember the words during the Liturgy: ‘Blessed are you when you are persecuted...Rejoice and be glad.’ We need to love all people and never be caught with a bad word in our mouth about another. As followers of the Messiah, we need to start acting like Him!

— Reuven ben Yohanan

The Righteousness of God

The following is from a talk given by Pastor Zac Poonen of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India.

• The reason why many Christians never attain to the righteousness of God is because they are satisfied with their external righteousness (that of the Law).
• The righteousness of the Law can distinguish between right and wrong (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) but brings death. The righteousness of God, however, listens to the promptings of the Holy Spirit (the tree of life).
• Jesus died for a lot more than to just forgive our sins.
• To glorify God is to finish the work He gave us to do on earth (John 17:4).
• The righteousness of God…
—Is seen in Jesus’ one-line autobiography: “I came from heaven never to do what I want to do but only what My Father wants Me to do” (John 6:38).
—Chooses the profitable things from among all the lawful things we could do (1 Corinthians 6:12).
—Leads us to never please ourselves (Romans 15:3).
—Makes others know that we are willing to be disturbed at any time, even when it’s not convenient for us (e.g. Jesus spent time with Nicodemus in the middle of the night - John 3:2).
—Is that where we cannot do whatever we want, whenever we want. In other words, our time is not always “opportune” (John 7:6).
—Never expects anything of anyone and has no inward complaint against anyone. Jesus didn’t expect anyone to offer Him even a place to sleep for the night (John 7:53-8:2).
—May make us leave a place of outward revival, when humanly speaking that doesn’t make sense (Luke 4:40-44; 1 Corinthians 2:14-15).
—Leads us from being immature children of God (Romans 8:16) to become mature sons (and daughters) of God – those who are not only born of the Spirit but led by the Spirit as well (Romans 8:14).
—Is willing to be “interrupted” by God when we’re busy doing something else.
—Leads us to continuously peel away the layers of selfishness within us – like we would peel away the layers of an onion.
—Is to have the same attitude as Jesus had in every circumstance and towards every person (Philippians 2:5) – one that is free from selfishness and pride (v3);
—Leads us to always put ourselves first in the matter of judgment (I Peter 4:17).

Entering God’s Rest

The following is from a talk given by Pastor Zac Poonen of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India.

• Most Christians would read a will written by a millionaire father more carefully than they would the Bible – because they love money more than they love God!
• If we grumble or have unbelief in our heart, then we believe in a “giant” Devil and a “grasshopper” Jesus (Numbers 13:33). To enter into God’s rest is to conquer all the giants in our flesh. For that you need to see Jesus as Almighty and the Devil as a “grasshopper”.
• A gospel that stops at “Christ can forgive us our sins” is not really “good news” - for it leaves us enslaved to our sins.
• The apostles constantly said they were witnesses of Christ’s resurrection – not of His crucifixion! We need to proclaim the resurrection power of Christ each time we speak about the cross.
• The fear of death is greater than every other fear in man. Jesus made it possible for us to be free from every fear when He took away the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
• We can be completely free from all fear because “as Jesus is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17-18).
• God cannot make us holy if He does not give us the freedom to obey Him or disobey Him. He did not make man to be a robot.
• The angel who came to Cornelius couldn’t preach the gospel to him because he (the angel) hadn’t experienced it himself (Acts 10). For that, God needed Peter. We are not permitted by God to preach about anything that we have not experienced.
• The devil couldn’t tempt Adam and Eve during their first day (the Sabbath day when they walked with God). If we walk in the presence of God, temptation loses its power. “There is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God - a place where sin cannot molest.”

Loving Christ and His Church

The following is from a talk given by Pastor Zac Poonen of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India.

• The love of Christ…
—Is seen in Gethsemane when He said to the Father that He was willing to have His eternal fellowship with the Father broken for three hours on the cross for our sake. This was the cup He dreaded to drink.
—Is seen on the Cross where He experienced Hell (=being forsaken by God for three hours) for our sake.
—Is seen in His giving Himself up for the Church (Ephesians 5:25).
—Is seen in the fact that He never offered His Father that which cost Him nothing (2 Samuel 24:24).
• The Cross will not mean much to us if we don’t see the dreadfulness of our sins.
• Money will mean more to us than God if we think we have been forgiven little.
• The inconveniences we face in serving the Lord will become insignificant when we compare them with the “inconvenience” Christ suffered on the Cross for us.
• Jesus is looking for those who will love Him and His Body with this type of love.

The Hurt

You say you want to seek the truth, but it's hard to find
No one to help you, your friends don't have the time
So you ride around in your car, switch on the radio
You want to relate to something you once read in a book
What kind of a way to try to take a look

Until I got hurt I was looking, I was on my way
Until I got hurt, until I got hurt, darling I painted my face grey
Until I got hurt, 'til got hurt, why didn't I
I didn't think of this, until I got hurt
'Til I got hurt, baby, I didn't know what love is

You say you want to learn to laugh, 'cause music makes you cry,
But the tears you shed are only in your eye
So you turn to any phony mouth with a tale to tell
But he's just a hoaxer, don't you know, selling peace and religion
Between his jokes and his karma chewing gum

Until I got hurt, I was looking, I was the same as you
Until I got hurt, until I got hurt, darling I did not know what to do
Until I got hurt, 'til I got hurt, why didn't I
I didn't think of this, until I got hurt
'Til I got hurt, baby, I didn't know what love is

Young son, don't let me down, young son
I'm trusting you to keep on, never turn away now
Hold on, never let go, now hold on
Turn your heart to the bright sun
Love will come your way
'Cause till you make that final show
You'll never know what love you've been missing
Missing

You say you want to seek the truth, but you work alone
No one to help you and nobody to push you on
So you sit at home drinking your wine, television on
You wait for a miracle, 'cause you say, one day one'll come along
But wishful thinking, boy, any minute now, you might be gone
I'd like to help you, brother, but that would be wrong

Until I got hurt, I was looking, I was on my way
Until I got hurt, until I got hurt, darling I didn't know which way
Until I got hurt, 'til I got hurt, why didn't I
I didn't think of this, until I got hurt
'Til I got hurt, baby, I didn't know what love is

Until I got hurt, oh I didn't know, what love is

Cat Stevens

Love is like the feet

Love is the hallmark of the true Church—nothing else!—and where love is, God is, Christ is, the Holy Spirit is. Christ does not tell us in the gospels, "Make sure each other is believing in exactly the right doctrine," but rather "Love one another as I have loved you."

I am not saying that doctrine is unimportant, but that it is secondary.

Love is like the feet, very humble, but they're the parts of the body that enable you to follow Jesus, they lead you to Him.

Doctrine is like the head, full of itself, often lost in the clouds of speculation, often misguiding the feet, often putting up "mental roadblocks" where the feet know better, where the feet would go if not restrained.

No one has ever walked by using his head as the organ of locomotion. If you don't have feet, then you must use a wheelchair, but you still don't hop along on your head.

The church I belong to is the one where we are all of one mind because we are all of one loving heart.

The mind of Christ is the only mind that is not flawed, the only mind that does not fantasize, lie or lead astray, or prevent the blessed feet from walking after Him.

The church I belong to is really that one, and you and me, brother, and our Lord, Master and Savior is here with us, among us, and within us, "He pitched His tent among us and became man," so that we might pitch our tent in the heavenlies, and there abide forever in the wedding feast of the Lamb.

What does Christ see when He looks upon the Church?

Nothing and no one that He hasn't placed there.
Whatever and whoever is of the world is as invisible to us, as we are to it and to them.

Exodus

Open your eyes and look within:
Are you satisfied with the life you're living?
We know where we're going;
We know where we're from.
We're leaving Babylon, y'all!
We're going to our Father's land.

Exodus!
Movement of Jah people!

The reggae legend Bob Marley died on 11 May, 1981, almost 30 years ago, in a Miami hospital after an 8 month battle with cancer. He was 36. To the masses he was known as Bob Marley, the man who brought them reggae and Rastafarianism. His was the voice of classics like No Woman No Cry, recorded live at the London Lyceum Ballroom in 1975.

However, what most people don't know, and many try to cover up, is the fact that Bob Marley converted to Christianity in 1980. In fact, on 4 November 1980 he was baptised and became a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. When he was buried under Orthodox rites on 21 May, 1981, it was with his Bible and his Gibson guitar!

Bob Marley was born at Nine Miles, St Ann's in Jamaica. His father was Norval Sinclair Marley, a 50-something Liverpool born captain in the British Army. His mother, an 18 year old teenager, was Cedella Booker. His birthday is thought to be 6 February, 1945, although no birth certificate has ever been found.

His mother, and his grandparents, read the Bible at home and worshipped in a Christian church. Bob Marley strayed away from that upbringing as a teenager and as an adult embraced Rastafarianism. He had married Alpharita Anderson in February, 1966, and while he was away in the USA earning some money to pursue his musical career she had converted to Rastafarianism, following the visit to Jamaica of Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia.

Rastafarians worshipped Selassie as the Messiah and Saviour. Bob followed suit and spent his career espousing the beliefs of Rastafari in songs like One Love, Jammin, and Exodus.

The worship of Selassie is a little ironic as Selassie was a Christian and in the 1970's personally commissioned Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq to go to Jamaica to start a church that worshipped Christ and not himself, in the hope that Jamaicans would follow the true Christ. Yesehaq became the head of the Kingston chapter of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The archbishop told how Bob Marley had come to his church for some time. When he had expressed a desire to be baptised, people close to him who controlled him and who were aligned to a different aspect of Rastafari prevented him from going ahead.

Bob was under the spiritual guidance of the archbishop but was baptised just a year before his death, after 3 aborted attempts to convert in Kingston. He backed out each time, says the Archbishop, after being threatened by other rastas. Marley was finally baptised in the Ethiopian Church in New York where less resentments were less inflamed. The Archbishop christened him Berhane Selassie, ‘light of the Trinity.’

Yesehaq testifies: ‘I remember once while I was conducting the liturgy, I looked at Bob and tears were streaming down his face. Many people think he was baptised because he knew he was dying, but that is not so. He did it when there was no longer any pressure on him, and when he was baptised, he hugged his family and wept. They all wept together for about an hour."

Yesehaq is adamant Bob's conversion was genuine. It is clear that Marley denounced the belief of Selassie as God at his conversion and baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and accepted the faith, otherwise his funeral would never have taken place in the church. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church does not allow any ceremonies including funerals for non-members.

Why is the story of Bob Marley's conversion not more widely known? Judy Mowat, one of Marley’s backing singers the I Threes, says,

‘If people knew, they would be drawn to Jesus Christ. Nobody wants to promote that in Jamaica. I said it on a popular television program over there, and a Rasta man met me, and asked me why did I have to say that? I told him it was because it's the truth! But he never wanted me to reveal that and I think that nobody wants it to be revealed because so many people would be drawn to Jesus.’

Bob Marley's official website doesn't even mention his conversion, although a number of fan sites do. Bob Marley found a Redemption Song that Satisfied his Soul. The question is will the People Get Ready for their Exodus!

Bob Marley knew Jesus. Do you?

Postscript (7 March 2011):
Songs of Freedom: The Rastafari Road to Orthodoxy

Draw near

There is no struggle in the Church for us, if we just keep our eyes on Jesus, and take care not to walk ourselves into trouble.

Ecclesiastes says, ‘When you go to the Temple, be on your guard. Go near so you can hear. The offering is more valuable than the sacrifice of fools, even if they are unaware of doing wrong.’

In other words—and this is from King Solomon in the pre-Christian days, how wise!—don't let anything the pious and God-fearing Christians do in church or out, good or bad, wreck the work of God in you, or for you in them.

Just go near, whatever that looks like to you or anyone. Just go near, so you can hear. He is always there for us, and when we ‘draw near’ as the deacon announces while holding up the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood, we are not just physically coming up to partake bodily of a spiritual food. We are drawing near to His eternal presence, out of which we can never walk, without walking into nowhere.

The Thorny Path to God

An interview with Elena Skorokhodova — actress, film director, and playwright. Read the whole interview here. Very interesting, especially for those who are interested in the media and the impact it has on one's life in Christ.

An accomplished actress on stage (sixteen years in the Pushkin Theatre, Moscow) and screen, Elena Skorokhodova is also a director, writer, and author of plays, including Don't Throw Ashes on the Floor. Her creative talent has led her to an acute perception of the unfolding drama of individuals along her life's path, and the fate of her country.

– Elena, tell us about how you came to faith in God.

– I would have to tell you my entire life story in order for it to make sense. I was born in an atheistic soviet family. By the way, that atheism was superficial. We believed in goodness and justice, as something that goes without saying. No one ever looked deeper into the source of this belief in our souls. A true atheist is a terrible being, deprived of morality, and obsessed with no more than his own material gain by any means. After all, he has nothing other than this earthly life; there will be no other life for him, and therefore he has to grab the maximum of goods and pleasures here. As Dostoevsky wrote, ”If there is no God, then everything is allowed.” But we, of course, were never that kind of atheist.

When I was four years old, my father once pointed to the sky and said that it was infinite. I remember that it took my breath away. I began to think about it. Later, when I became interested in mathematics, I tried to apply the principles of that science to my search for truth. If you logically seek the first cause of anything at all, you will inevitably run into that emptiness from which everything originated. But emptiness itself cannot produce something outside of a certain mysterious power. In general I thought a lot about this, drew graphics with the beginning point of existence (racking my brains over the question, ”But what came before that point?”), read various philosophers, and even created my own philosophical concepts. Then the Gospels somehow came into my hands. This book created an amazing impression upon me. I suddenly had a sharp perception that the truth was precisely here. It was as if I saw with my own eyes how Christ preached, worked miracles, was crucified, and resurrected. Truly resurrected! No such perception of reality has ever occurred to me with any other reading. Well, my eyes having been opened, I ran to the church, bought a stack of books, immersed myself in Church life, and began to ”terrorize” my family and friends. I am a very emotional person and easily carried away; and of course, my missionary attempts at converting my parents took on a somewhat aggressive character at first. But with God's help, everything eventually normalized.

It seems to me that any person who purposefully seeks the truth will come sooner or later to an Orthodox church, regardless of his nationality, ancestral religion, or other factors. The truth is simply here, and nothing else has meaning.

Continue…

Love and hate

We love those whom we want to love, and we hate those whom we want to hate. Reasons why we love someone are real, but love itself has a greater reality than those reasons. Love is its own justification. It’s different with hate.

Hate knows that it’s unreal, that it’s an intrusion of nothing into something, and without an army of reasons to justify it, it can’t support itself. Once we’ve decided to hate, we have to work very, very hard, making up reasons to justify it.

Reasons we can find, reasons we can fabricate, whatever it takes to prove our hate, to justify ourselves for hating, we make the effort. It doesn’t matter that we pay a very high price. We’re even willing to stake our lives on it, when we want to hate.

Who goes searching through the Bible to look for proof texts to justify his love for his neighbor? Sure, the words are there, even voiced as commands, ‘You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbor as yourself’ (Matthew 20:37-39).

The passages enjoining love do nothing for our ego. They neither magnify nor diminish us in our own eyes; they are simply there to be followed, and if we want to love, we don’t need them to justify ourselves. Love is its own justification.

When we hate, our ego is like a drowning man grappling for a plank to hang on to, and if he finds enough planks, he feels safe. So passages enjoining not hate, but providing what we think are reasons to hate others, are found, and we cling to them.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that has given Christianity a very bad taste in the mouths of those who are haters in the second degree. They justify their hate of Christians not by bible proof texts, but by the behavior of the haters of the first degree.

The haters of the first degree carry signs that they say speak for God, for righteousness. They say they are His witnesses, but I doubt very much that the god for whom they are witnesses is any different than the god of terrorists. Hate is hate, and it cripples.
It doesn’t matter what name we place on love or on ourselves when we love: it is obvious to all what we are, and what we are doing. They may not like us, they may not like our love, and they may persecute us for it, as did pagan Rome, but they can’t deny it.

It doesn’t matter what name we place on our hate or on ourselves when we hate, either: it is obvious to all (but ourselves) what we are (for hate blinds those who practice it). Even the world, all on its own, can raise itself above hate sometimes, though not ingloriously.

But we know where love comes from, and wherefrom is hate. ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God’ (1 John 4:7). ‘Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother’
(1 John 3:12).

Yes, we love those we want to love, and hate those we want to hate. The better way is to hate no one at all, but to love our neighbor as God has loved us, for that is truly the yoke that Christ calls ‘easy’ and the burden that He calls ‘light.’

That which we have sown

But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat,
and went away. Matthew 13:25

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9

How great it must be to be called a son of God! The only one who was ever worthy to be called the Son of God now gives His disciples the dignity of sharing with Him the divine nature. Though He is One of the Holy Triad, He has flung open the gates of paradise to those He calls friends, even brothers, welcoming them into the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, who is it for, if not for them?

Do we take it for granted that if we say we are followers of Jesus, that we are also peacemakers?

In this saying of the Lord, along with the others in what is called ‘the Beatitudes,’ there doesn’t seem to be any blanket requirement to ‘believe in Jesus.’ In fact, He is teaching not His disciples, but ‘the crowds.’ Does this mean that they, that just anyone, can be recipients of the blessings He is proclaiming? It almost seems that His words are the preamble to belief in Him.

He is giving the crowds their first glimpse of what they’re in for, if they follow Him. Yes, by the end of this passage, He lets the cat out of the bag, ‘Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you’ (Matthew 5:11-12). Christians are quick to assume they are the ones Christ calls blessed, but what if they are the other ones?

Christians are not perfect. Sometimes they have misunderstandings, disagreements. Sometimes they have arguments. Sometimes they take offense at each others’ words or deeds. Sometimes through weakness they even give offense, sometimes blind to their own sin they accuse others. When this happens, we can depend on other Christians to step in and be peacemakers, step in voluntarily, not be forced in by one side or the other. But we can depend on one of them to be a peacemaker, right?

It would never happen that any of those who confess Christ and follow Him would even think of doing anything other than being a peacemaker when brothers are at enmity, right?

So what does a peacemaker do?
Encourages each side to approach the other in repentance and humility, to forget for the moment whatever it is that seems to have caused the trouble, to abandon self-righteousness, for each to put himself in the other’s shoes, to let love cover any perceived offenses.

Yet this is not what some Christians do. Not only do they not work for peace, but they themselves are the cause of division, of strife. They plant seeds of suspicion, distrust, and evil motives, trying to disrupt holy fellowship between brothers that they themselves cannot have because of the spirit of envy that is in them. Holy fellowship shames them, and so they do all in their power to disrupt it, following the father of lies, planting lies, hoping not for peace but for judgment and calumny.

Where there once was love and trust, they plant hatred and suspicion. ‘There is not just one offended person in this situation. At this point, he has offended you repeatedly by his refusal to read communication, refusing to meet…’

They try to manipulate others and egg them on in their fratricidal fury, ‘You didn’t ask him to mediate, but to be your witness that he is in the wrong.’ Instead of working for peace, they demonize and slay with slander, ‘That whiny conniver has subtly turned the tables on this—he is an expert at that—and suddenly the man you wanted to be your witness against him is his witness against you!’

Rather than seeking peace and reasons for reconciliation, they fuel the fire of hate, ‘He’s not innocent in this. He’s been childish, foolish and recalcitrant. He will not hear, he will not see. He sees only his man-made religion and his self-styled images of Jesus. He loves what he thinks Christianity is, having made it into something palatable. But the raw reality of face to face service is not in his religion. He wants to be thought of as an innocent martyr, but rather than accept rebuke from you in a Christ-like manner, he doesn't even consider the possibility that he is wrong. No, he is offended, not by what you say, but that you didn't say it right, or with the right attitude, or in a church, or with your pants on, or in a synagogue, or holding your mouth just so or some other such thing.’

Yes, there are Christians who talk like this not to make peace but to make war, jealous of a unity in the spirit that they cannot have themselves, so they attempt to destroy it in others. New Nicolaitans, they make use of their age, authority, or some other advantage, to conquer others in secret, just as the devil does, ‘divide and conquer.’ Their work is just the opposite of the work of Christ, yet while they perform it they crown themselves with righteousness, and they trample brotherly love and all other good. I have seen this happen again and again, and I always ask myself, ‘How can they have such hatred?’

It makes me really sick at heart when I consider these things, how those whom we trust to love us and present us with prayer to our heavenly Father sometimes seek to slay us, thinking they are doing God a favor. What kind of earthly parent does that to his own child? It is not for nothing that our Lord warned us, ‘a man's enemies will be the members of his own household’ (Matthew 10:36), yet we do not listen, we do not watch, but gladly let ourselves be marched back into prisons of flesh and spirit, herded by hate against our brothers.

‘Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness’ (James 3:18), but what about those who sow in war?
What do they harvest?

Sad when we see the workers of enmity unleashing their rage in the world, but more than sad when they call themselves Christians. We cannot stop them, they will keep going from bad to worse, disheartening the brethren with their accusations and lying spirits, but as for us, ‘let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up’ (Galatians 6:9).

And what will we reap? What else, but that which we have sown.

Accepting what is provided

One way in which we train children and even disciples of Jesus is to elevate them to a greater level of responsibility, in effect letting faith have a role both in us the trainers and in them the trainees. As the trainees are dealing with their new responsibilities, we encourage them by making the most of their successes and minimizing their failures, in effect saying, “I believe in you, you can do it.” This is not to put faith in humans, as it may appear on the surface; it is actually putting faith in God, on whom we depend for everything, for virtue in ourselves and in others, because apart from Him we can do nothing good.

The experiment of taking “problem kids” and doctoring their records, then turning them over to a new batch of teachers who didn't know them, and who taught them with high expectations of their success, which they rose to, is a variation of this same method, except it was involuntary on the part of the teachers.

We have been given the grace of God to be followers of Jesus because someone or several believed in us enough to pray for us, gently guide us into the life of salvation, helping us to rise to their expectations because, knowing they loved us so much, we thought, “How can I disappoint him?” This is my story, and the story of many others I personally know or have read about.

Speaking of a promotion a brother wrote, “After noticing what a positive change the event had in me, I was bopping about my life mostly reflecting that this is a positive thing. But then I read this account of someone talking about how they did not want their identity wrapped up in anything other than Christ. They were headed to a new job, and they did not want this to impact who they were.”

This person who did not want his new job to impact who he was, because he didn't want his identity wrapped up in anything other than Christ, this is faulty thinking. The fact that he was given a new job or responsibility level has the significance of God personally assigning him a commandment which he alone can fulfill. The wrongness of his attitude comes itself from pride, and from trying to be more spiritual than God, who arranged his new job in the first place. Do you understand what I am getting at?

Here is a story from the Desert Fathers that applies to this situation of rejecting what we think ordinary and pretending to a loftier call:

It was said of Abba John the Dwarf, that one day he said to his elder brother, “I should like to be free of all care, like the angels who do not work, but ceaselessly offer worship to God.” So he took off his cloak and went away into the desert. After a week he came back to his brother. When he knocked on the door, he heard his brother say, before he opened it, “Who are you?” He said, “I am John, your brother.” But he replied, “John has become an angel, and henceforth he is no longer among men.” Then the other begged him saying, “It is I.” However, his brother did not let him in, but left him there in distress until morning. Then, opening the door, he said to him, “You are a man and you must once again work in order to eat.” Then John made a prostration before him, saying, “Forgive me.”

Three spiritual principles

Do not resent. Do not react. Keep inner stillness.

These three spiritual principles, or disciplines, are really a summation of the Philokalia, the collection of Orthodox Christian spiritual wisdom. And they are disciplines every single one of us can practice, no matter where we are in life—whether we’re in the monastery or in school; whether we’re housewives or retired; whether we’ve got a job or we’ve got little kids to run after. If we can hold on to and exercise these three principles, we will be able to go deeper and deeper in our spiritual life.

…

One of the things which is so difficult to come to terms with is the reality that when we bear anger and resentment and bitterness in our hearts, we erect barriers to God’s grace within ourselves.
It’s not that God stops giving us His grace.
It’s that we say, ‘No. I don’t want it.’

What is His grace? It is His love, His mercy, His compassion, His activity in our lives. The holy Fathers tell us that each and every human person who has ever been born on this earth bears the image of God undistorted within themselves.

There is no such thing as fallen nature. There are fallen persons, but not fallen nature. The implication of this truth is that we have no excuses for our sins. We are responsible for our sins, for the choices we make. We are responsible for our actions, and our reactions.

‘The devil made me do it’ is no excuse, because the devil has no more power over us than we give him. This is hard to accept, because it is really convenient to blame the devil. It is also really convenient to blame the other person, or our past. But, it is also a lie.
Our choices are our own.

On an even deeper level, this spiritual principle—do not react—teaches us that we need to learn to not react to thoughts. One of the fundamental aspects of this is inner watchfulness. This might seem like a daunting task, considering how many thoughts we have.

However, our watchfulness does not need to be focused on our thoughts. Our watchfulness needs to be focused on God. We need to maintain the conscious awareness of God’s presence.

If we can maintain the conscious awareness of His presence, our thoughts will have no power over us. We can, to paraphrase St. Benedict, dash our thoughts against the presence of God. This is a very ancient patristic teaching. We focus our attention on the remembrance of God.

If we can do that, we will begin to control our troubling thoughts. Our reactions are about our thoughts. After all, if someone says something nasty to us, how are we reacting? We react first through our thinking, our thoughts.

Perhaps we’re habitually accustomed to just lashing out after taking offense with some kind of nasty response of our own. But keeping watch over our minds so that we maintain that living communion with God leaves no room for distracting thoughts.

It leaves plenty of room if we decide we need to think something through intentionally in the presence of God. But as soon as we engage in something hateful, we close God out. And the converse is true—as long as we maintain our connection to God, we won’t be capable of engaging in something hateful. We won’t react.

— attributed to Bishop Kállistos of Xelon
former metropolitan of Denver

What then shall become of his heart?

This morning I was startled by reading a prose essay at Nothing Hypothetical, a place I usually go to be startled by truth tucked in between lines of poetry. Strangely, what David writes about has some parallels to my post just below, and so I thought it was appropriate to share a few thoughts from Love the One You're With here, and then, if you're interested, encourage you to read his whole essay there…

We find that a noble endeavor becomes suddenly corrupted and corrupting to those involved. And if our well-meaning citizen who launched this project decides to bully everyone into cleaning up their involvement for the greater good, what then shall become of his heart?

The impulse to do good can be salvific. But if the pursuit of the good requires others to be subverted for your purpose the impulse leads to destruction. We cannot achieve our grand plan without the objectification of others. We must reduce them from persons to resources. If we think of them as persons freely loved, then our effectiveness in the pursuit of our goals is at risk.

We make up all manner of excuses. Beware sentences that contain categorical imperatives! But we must do this or we cannot have that. These are the words of autocrats to those they see as their subjects…

Cleanse

“Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.” “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
These are what defile a person…”
Matthew 15:12-20

We take such great care to keep ourselves undefiled by outward conformity to what we consider standards of righteousness in action and in thought. It doesn’t matter whether these standards are those of our own invention or those based on our reading of scripture. Our behavior before God is in His sight as well as those of other men, and He sees the motives of the heart. It isn’t what we say of ourselves, that we are sinners and unworthies saved by grace, and the like, that has any bearing on the reality of our salvation, but what we say of others. This is heard not only by men, but by God, who hears what fills the heart before we ever speak. No one has to tell Him who is speaking; He knows whether the words are His, or the enemy’s.

Whether we speak or remain silent, it is what fills the heart that cannot be hidden forever. A good testimony within us can’t help but get out; so it is also with a bad testimony. Who it is that we have enthroned in the heart, that is whom we really obey and serve, whatever we might profess outwardly. We have good reason to fear, not only for the Day of Judgment in the future, but for the Day of now, for what the prophets spoke they still speak, and their words are not for the dead, but for the living: ‘In the pride of your heart you say, ‘I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.’ But you are a mere mortal and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god. Are you wiser than Daniel? Is no secret hidden from you?’ (Ezekiel 28:2-3).

Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
Matthew 12:33-37

Yes, it is true, ‘For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person…’

Where are we, Lord? Where have we placed ourselves? At the foot of Your throne in heaven? At the foot of Your cross on earth? What offerings do we bring You, our Lord and Savior? Is it the blood of goats and rams, our wicked and our righteous brothers, like the priests of old? Or is it our own blood, following the example of Your Son? Is it the sacrifice You require? Or is it that which we feel it is our right to offer You, the fruits of our soil. We think ourselves innocent farmers and envy our shepherd brother, as Cain envied Abel, and where does that envy lead us? Save us, O Lord, from ourselves! Cleanse us, since we have no soap to wash our hearts clean. You alone can purify us. Have mercy, Lord!

Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name: through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect for Purity, Book of Common Prayer (1662)

Day 1 – Psalm 3 – Mizmor Gimel ג

PSALM 3

Morning prayer of the virtuous man under persecution

Psalm of David when he was escaping from his son Absalom.

Yahweh, more and more are turning against me,
more and more rebelling against me,
more and more saying about me,
‘There is no help for him in his God’. Selah.

But, Yahweh, my encircling shield,
my glory, You help me hold up my head.
Loudly I cry to Yahweh,
and He answers me from His holy mountain. Selah.

Now I can lie down and go to sleep
and then awake, for Yahweh has hold of me:
no fear now of those tens of thousands
posted against me wherever I turn. Selah.

Rise, Yahweh!
Save me, my God!
You hack all my enemies to the cheekbone,
You break the teeth of the wicked.
From Yahweh, rescue.
On Your people, blessing!

Mizmor Gimel ג

LISTEN

מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד: בְּבָרְחוֹ, מִפְּנֵי אַבְשָׁלוֹם בְּנוֹ
יְהוָה, מָה-רַבּוּ צָרָי; רַבִּים, קָמִים עָלָי
רַבִּים, אֹמְרִים לְנַפְשִׁי: אֵין יְשׁוּעָתָה לּוֹ בֵאלֹהִים סֶלָה
וְאַתָּה יְהוָה, מָגֵן בַּעֲדִי; כְּבוֹדִי, וּמֵרִים רֹאשִׁי
קוֹלִי, אֶל-יְהוָה אֶקְרָא; וַיַּעֲנֵנִי מֵהַר קָדְשׁוֹ סֶלָה
אֲנִי שָׁכַבְתִּי, וָאִישָׁנָה; הֱקִיצוֹתִי--כִּי יְהוָה יִסְמְכֵנִי
לֹא-אִירָא, מֵרִבְבוֹת עָם-- אֲשֶׁר סָבִיב, שָׁתוּ עָלָי
קוּמָה יְהוָה, הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי אֱלֹהַי-- כִּי-הִכִּיתָ אֶת-כָּל-אֹיְבַי לֶחִי
שִׁנֵּי רְשָׁעִים שִׁבַּרְתָּ
לַיהוָה הַיְשׁוּעָה; עַל-עַמְּךָ בִרְכָתֶךָ סֶּלָה

Mizmór l’Davíd: B’varchó, mipp’néy ’Avshalóm b’no.
’Adonáy, mah-rabbú tzaráy; rabbím, qamím ‘aláy.
Rabbím, ’om’rim l’nafshí: ’eyn y’shu‘átah lo b’Elohím sélah.
V’attáh ’Adonáy, magén ba‘adí; k’vodí, umerím roshí.
Qolí, ’el-’Adonáy ’eqrá’; vayya‘anéni mehár qod’shó sélah.
’Aní shakháv’ti, va’ishánah; heqitzóti – ki ’Adonáy yism’khéni.
Lo’-‘irá’, meriv’vót am – ’ashér savív, shátu ‘aláy.
Qumáh ’Adonáy, hoshi‘éni ’Eloháy – ki-hikkíta et-kol-’oyváy léchi;
shinéy r’sha‘ím shibbárta.
L’Adonáy hay’shu‘áh; ‘al-‘am’khá vir’khatékha sélah.

Miracle

Τίς Θεός μέγας, ως ο Θεός ημών;
Συ εί ο Θεός ημών ο ποιών θαυμάσια μόνος.

Who is so great a god as our God?
You are the God who alone works wonders.

The deeper you enter into the mystery of suffering, following the Lord, the more miraculous does the world become. You have left behind the kind of life that you lived all alone, with yourself as your guide, your wishes your command, where you never looked back to your Master except when your way forward to your delight was barred. Then, you stopped, turned around, and asked Him for a miracle, maybe. Or was it yourself that you asked? No matter. Now, you have left that life behind you.

To follow the Master, to have Him as your delight, His wishes your command, His living Word your guide, living no longer alone but always with Him, taking what He gives, what greater miracle can you want? The world has become all miracle, because He has pitched His tent here. The world has become all miracle, because it has become all cross, it has become the place where suffering is transfigured into sovereignty. Dying with Him, we share in His kingdom, Who is the King of Glory.

‘Lost, let them nail me, while my ransomed soul a steed of Spirit mounts, and my hungers hang. Let me inherit what the jailer stole, and hidden, as I thirst, what prophets sang.’ {+}

The whole world was shining with brilliant light and, unhindered, went on with its work; over them alone there spread a heavy darkness, image of the dark that would receive them. But heavier than the darkness, the burden they were to themselves. But for Your holy ones, all was great light…
Wisdom of Solomon 17:19-20, 18:1 Jerusalem Bible

We don't have the truth

Something in man cries out to be heard, to be recognized, to be known and to be loved. What else can this be, if not the soul? What else can be the source of this longing? What else, this demand for meaning? Yes, ‘soul’ is too imprecise, has no shape, even asks itself constantly ‘What am I? Am I spirit, or life force, or blood? What am I?’ Perhaps ‘heart’ is better, because though the soul is shapeless, invisible, we can see the heart, or at least the organ that seems to be where it is tabernacled. Whatever else it is, this something in man wears the face of desire, but until the Desired reveals itself, it knows not why it is.

The Voice is heard first, but it is not seen. It calls incessantly. It commands obedience, while holding out promises. ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing…’ (Genesis 12:1-2). To obey brings not blessings but calamity, not ease but hardship, not safety but danger. Man hears the Voice and all at once the something in him that cries out to be heard, recognized, known and loved, senses that what it seeks is somehow enfolded in the Voice.
He obeys.

The Sign is seen first, and again the Voice is heard. The Voice and the Sign are one. There was the Bush blazing, but it was not being burned up. ‘I must go and look at this strange sight’ (Exodus 3:2-3). Something in man wears the face of desire and now begins to understand that ‘face desires to look upon Face.’ He asks, ‘Show me your glory, I beg you’ (Exodus 33:18). The Voice says, ‘not yet,’ but relents. ‘I will let all my splendor pass in front of you, and I will pronounce before you the name…’ and then, ‘You cannot see my face, for man cannot see me and live’ (Exodus 33:19-20).

The Voice again relents. Something in man cries out, and draws compassion to itself, and the Voice in yielding reveals more than it intended. ‘Here is a place beside me. You must stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with my hand as I pass by. Then I will take my hand away and you shall see the back of me; but my face is not to be seen’ (Exodus 33:21-23). The Sign is alive, not only does it not consume what it burns, but as it burns it feeds. ‘He laid no hand on these notables… They ate and they drank’ (Exodus 24:11).

The Voice and the Sign are heard and seen by many in diverse places and times, calling, commanding, promising, protecting, saving and delivering, but something in man is still not satisfied with hearing and seeing. The face of desire will not let itself be unfulfilled, for ‘face desires to look upon Face.’ Until that moment, something in man still fears, it all could be just a beautiful dream. It cries, ‘Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down—at your Presence the mountains would melt, as fire sets brushwood alight, as fire causes water to boil—to make known your name to your enemies, and make the nations tremble at your Presence, working unexpected miracles such as no one has ever heard of before. No ear has heard, no eye has seen, any god but you act like this…’ (Isaiah 64:1-3).

Now the Sign is seen alone. ‘It is this: the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel’ (Isaiah 7:14). Then Voice and Sign and Son appear together. ‘No sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rests on you’ (Mark 1:10-11). Something in man cries out to be heard, to be recognized, to be known and to be loved. Something in man wears the face of desire and finally knows that ‘Face desires to look upon face.’

That which is in us crying out, no longer to guess, no longer to doubt, no longer to only believe or hope, runs after the one it has long desired, ‘Rabbi, where do you live?’ and hears, ‘Come and see,’ already so sure. ‘We have found the Messiah’ (John 1:38-39, 41). To this something in man wearing the face of desire, the Desired reveals himself, knowing why he is. ‘To have seen me is to have seen the Father…’ (John 14:9), and ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know the Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him’ (John 14:6-7).

We don’t need, we don’t want, mere theories, thoughts, formulas, dissertations, dry words which satisfy no thirsty soul, no hungry heart. ‘Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again’ (John 4:13-14). ‘Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that a man might eat it and not die’ (John 6:49-50). We want the living One, now that He has arrived, in whom we were hidden when the splendor passed by. ‘Show us the light of your face, turned toward us!’ (Psalm 4:6)

Brothers, we are the most fortunate of men, for that which cries out in us has been answered, not by fellow creatures lulling us to a wishful peace, quieting our cry with soothing untruthful words. That which cries out in us has been met not by mere words, but by the Word Himself, appearing in human form, in whose Image we are made, who was enfolded in the Voice, who burning did not consume in the Sign, and who in the Son showed us the Face that longed to look upon our faces, who loved us before we loved Him, whose desire for us begat our desire for Him.

Brothers, we don’t have the truth. The Truth has us.

Witness at the edge of night

…I was told over and over, “But the deeper I went into the Church, the more deeply I felt myself as belonging to the people of Israel,” and, “The more I am Christian, the more I feel myself a Jew.” What is more, this Jewish identity had become positive and internal, rather than the negative, externally reinforced anti-Semitism that was their basic identification with Jewishness before entering the Church. They did not become ‘Russian’ in the Russian Church, but ‘Jewish.’

Father Alexander Men' probably needs no introduction to many of you. He is the late priest in the Russian Orthodox Church who was found murdered by an axe in September 1990, and whom the late academic Sergei Averintsev called "The man sent from God to be missionary to the wild tribe of the Soviet intelligentsia."

…

This post about hieromartyr Alexander Men' consists entirely of quotes from an online article sent me by a dear sister in the Lord. To read the entire article, click HERE. Father Michael is an Orthodox priest of Russian Jewish origin. Photo is of Alexander Men' as a youth.

It was an issue of how to maintain your difference. ... To stay a spiritual personality. Not to be completely engulfed. In this sense, the Church helped to support the human personality, the personality of the intelligentsia, for whom personhood is extremely important. Not to be completely dissolved into the aggressive Soviet mass. … It was the power that I found to stay myself. (Father Michael)

For another Russian-Jewish intellectual affected by the wave of baptisms in the late sixties:

… Living in the Soviet Union, and always being bothered by the constant lie, you had the sensation that there must be a great deal that they are simply hiding. I was led to a sense of readiness, readiness to believe in something else. I didn't know what that something was, but the readiness was there. ("Osip")

There were and are, of course, many ways to respond to such inner "readiness." They could have sought out Judaism, to the extent that was feasible in the Soviet Union of the time. They could have become Zionists, and tried to go to Israel. Or they could have followed the secular dissident pattern of, say, Sakharov. Indeed, in the sixties, these paths did not seem so disparate, as one interviewee acknowledged:

From the same underground came the dissident movement and the Zionist movement. Discussions would take place in the same house…
I didn't hide the fact that I went to church. For those Jews in those days the fact that we were Christians was not an issue. Most of them had been in Stalin's camps. Christians were not enemies. They were all allies. In those days we were a minority of outcasts.
(Father Michael)

For many of these "outcasts," as I have said, it was Father Alexander Men', by both example and word, who showed them the way out of what has been variously called the ideological lie, the vacuum, the cellar, or the prison of Soviet culture. Born a Jew, thus an outsider, a "dissident" by birth, trained as a scientist in a Soviet institute, Men' came to represent for these intellectuals the best of all worlds.

Men' clearly had charisma. But he also had a message that appealed to a generation straitjacketed in their institutes for Historical Materialism and Marxism-Leninism. The way out of the cellar that he showed them celebrated the highly sensual ritual, the materiality of Russian Orthodoxy not as a utilitarian end, but as the incarnation of mystical Truth and as a sign of the possible deification of creation. Spirit and matter, religion and secular knowledge were not so far apart, after all. Engineers, historians, and mathematicians were attracted by Men's readiness to build a bridge between the Church and secular society, between science and religion: "This idea of dialogue with the world has stuck with me all my life," wrote the Jewish priest [Fr Michael].

…

…perhaps the most radical, and controversial of the followers of Men' now gather to pray in the basement of the building housing the Center for Human Rights, near the Nikitskie Gates [in Moscow]. To be clear, this small community is not part of the Patriarchate of Moscow. It belongs to the so-called Apostolic Orthodox Church, founded in May of 2000 through the authority of the True-Orthodox (Catacomb) Church, a body that never reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate since the 1920s. It is sometimes called Gleb Iakunin's Church, for its founder, the famous dissident from the 60s. At the recommendation of Iakunin, this dissident Church's synod canonized Father Aleksandr on September 8, 2000.

The canonization of Men' was, and still is, highly controversial. Many followers of Men' with whom I spoke agreed that the canonization was perhaps deserved, but nonetheless, in this form and by this splinter Church, nothing more, and nothing less than an unnecessary provocation: We split with them over this, Men's brother explained. I understand their views, but it was all done on their own, which only disturbs the situation. Men's son, Mikhail, currently the deputy major of Moscow and a controversial figure in his own right, wrote: "I look on this as a provocation directed against all my family. ... by an organized group of people having no relationship to the Russian Orthodox Church."

But a saint he is, say some. The makeshift Church of the New Martyrs, led by Father Yakov Krotov [photo right], is divided by an iconostasis with only three icons: the Mother of God, Christ, and one of Father Aleksandr. The wall is punctuated by wide arches in place of the closed royal doors of a traditional icon stand, thus making the altar fully visible, and accessible, to the congregation. The services are conducted in Russian, rather than the Church Slavonic recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church, and, thus, also easily accessible to the worshippers. There is no choir; the congregants themselves are expected to chant the entire service, and Father Iakov recites all prayers aloud, rather than mumbled as is usually done in the Orthodox Church. All of these innovations, Krotov believes, make his service more democratic, more inclusive, and more in the spirit of Father Aleksandr Men's own teachings.

…

Does he deserve sainthood for this legacy, as those in Gleb Iakunin and Iakov Krotov's Church believe?

According to one of Men's Russian Jewish Christians:

I do think that according to the Orthodox definition of a saint, Fr. Alexander is a saint. There are a few different types of saints. One of these types is a person who lived a great life, was extremely important for his time and people around him, bravely preached about faith in the time of danger, wrote beautiful books about faith, and died as a martyr. Who will fit this definition better then Father Alexander Men?

The OCA [Orthodox Church of America] website gives the following definition:

It means only that, within the context of his age, he manifested the image of God in himself in some way — that he was an ikon, an original creation, a new creature in Christ.

Canonization does not make a man a saint. Rather, it establishes the fact, publicly and for all to see, that the man is already a saint…

Was Father Alexander Men' such a man? I don't know. I never met him. I don't believe in saints. I don't even believe in Jesus Christ. And I'm crazy about Jews converting to Christianity. I do know, however, that his ministry, and, even more, the presence of his spiritual children, grandchildren, cousins, and fellow travelers, especially among the Jews, continue to press the case of his significance, and in so doing, to test the saintliness of the contemporary Church itself. "In his day," in the "cellar" of the Soviet Union, he did something unusual. He was an "original creation" as an intellectual in the Church.

"Pasha," a Russian Jewish Christian now living in New York suggested the following:

To show you are a Jew in Orthodoxy is a kind of litmus paper. Jewry is the verification of faith for a Christian. Why? If you take this paper, Jewry, and you immerse it in someone's faith, and the paper changes color, even just a little, then that is a marker that something is not right in his faith. True Orthodoxy, the Orthodoxy his followers believe was preached by Men', is thus associated with tolerance and ecumenism, with what they see as the true message of the gospels. And any Orthodoxy that does not accept Jews, that flunks the litmus test, must have abandoned its true ecumenical form and become intent only on its own ritualistic laws. Did Men' revolutionize the Russian Orthodox Church? By no means. Was he a messiah? Absolutely not. Does his legacy point out to the Church how it might "heal itself"? In a quiet, sometimes defeatist and always paradoxical way: Yes.

More good testimonies

Throughout the era of the Communist domination of Eastern Europe, there were many heroes who suffered and died in prison for trying to help Christians behind the Iron Curtain. One of the most well-known of these heroes is Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, a Jewish convert to Christ and a Lutheran minister who started an underground ministry in Romania in 1945. Of the next twenty years, he spent fourteen in prison. Finally ransomed out of Romania in 1965, he established a ministry to smuggle Bibles and practical aid to the families of Romanian martyrs. He died in February of 2001, suffering to the end from the maltreatment he had received at the hands of the Communists. Pastor Wurmbrand himself and those whose stories he relates are shining examples of how faithful Christians can not only survive, but be illuminated through the dreadful sufferings of imprisonment. The color photo of Pastor Wurmbrand comes from this web site dedicated to his memory, and is from an original given to the designer of the site. It is used with her permission.

A Lutheran Pastor’s Firsthand Account
of Prison Life

by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

I am a Christian from an Orthodox country — the country of Romania. Having been in prison for fourteen years for my faith, it is now my missionary work to help persecuted Christians in Communist countries. I would like to tell you the stories of several Orthodox Christians with whom I was privileged to come into contact during my time in prison. Their examples and their deeds have been a constant source of encouragement to me throughout the years.

Always Rejoice

The first man was a priest who was put in jail at the age of seventy. His name was Surioanu. When he was brought in with his big white beard and white pate, some officers at the gate of the jail mocked him. One asked, “Why did they bring this old priest here?” And another replied with a jeer, “Probably to take the confessions of everybody.” Those were his exact words.

This priest had a son who had died in a Soviet jail. His daughter was sentenced to twenty years. Two of his sons-in-law were with him in jail — one with him in the same cell. His grandchildren had no food, they were forced to eat from the garbage. His whole family was destroyed. He had lost his church. But this man had such a shining face — there was always a beautiful smile on his lips. He never greeted anyone with “Good morning” or “Good evening,” but instead with the words, “Always rejoice.”

One day we asked him, “Father, how can you say ‘always rejoice’ — you who passed through such a terrible tragedy?”

He said, “Rejoicing is very easy. If we fulfill at least one word from the Bible, it is written, ‘Rejoice with all those who rejoice.’ Now if one rejoices with all those who rejoice, he always has plenty of motivation for rejoicing. I sit in jail, and I rejoice that so many are free. I don’t go to church, but I rejoice with all those who are in church. I can’t take Holy Communion, but I rejoice about all those who take. I can’t read the Bible or any other holy book, but I rejoice with those who do. I can’t see flowers [we never saw a tree or a flower during those years. We were under the earth, in a subterranean prison. We never saw the sun, the moon, stars — many times we forgot that these things existed. We never saw a color, only the gray walls of the cell and our gray uniforms. But we knew that such a world existed, a world with multicolored butterflies and with rainbows], but I can rejoice with those who see the rainbows and who see the multicolored butterflies.”

In prison, the smell was not very good. But the priest said, “Others have the perfume of flowers around them, and girls wearing perfume. And others have picnics and others have their families of children around them. I cannot see my children but others have children. And he who can rejoice with all those who rejoice can always rejoice. I can always be glad.” That is why he had such a beautiful expression on his face.

Heaven’s Smile

Let me interrupt to tell you about another Orthodox Christian. He was not a priest, but a simple farmer. In our country, farmers are almost always illiterate, or nearly so. He had read his Bible well, but other than that he had never read a book. Now he was in the same cell with professors, academicians, and other men of high culture who had been put in jail by the Communists. And this poor farmer tried to bring to Christ a member of the Academy of Science. But in return, he received only mockery.

“Sir, I can’t explain much to you, but I walk with Jesus, I talk with Him, I see Him.”

“Go away. Don’t tell me fairy tales that you see Jesus. How do you see Jesus?”

“Well, I cannot tell you how I see Him. I just see Him. There are many kinds of seeing. In dreams, for instance, you see many things. It’s enough for me to close my eyes. Now I see my son before me, now I see my daughter-in-law, now I see my granddaughter. Everybody can see. There is another sight. I see Jesus.”

“You see Jesus?”

“Yes, I see Jesus.”

“What does He look like? How does He look to you? Does He look restful, angry, bored, annoyed, happy to see you? Does He smile sometimes?”

He said, “You guessed it! He smiles at me.”

“Gentlemen, come hear what this man says to us. He mocks us. He says Jesus smiles at him. Show me, how does He smile?”

That was one of the grandest moments of my life. The farmer became very, very earnest. His face began to shine. In the Church today there are pastors and theologians who can’t believe the whole Bible. They believe half of it, a quarter of it. Somehow they can’t believe the miracles. I can believe the whole of it because I have seen miracles. I have seen transfigurations — not like that of Jesus, but something apart. I have seen faces shining.

A smile appeared on the face of that farmer. I would like to be a painter to be able to paint that smile. There was a streak of sadness in it because of the lost soul of the scientist. But there was so much hope in that smile. And there was so much love and so much compassion, and a yearning that this soul should be saved. The whole beauty of heaven was in the smile on that face. The face was dirty and unwashed, but it held the beautiful smile of heaven.

The professor bowed his head and said, “Sir, you are right. You have seen Jesus. He has smiled at you.”

Pure Orthodoxy

Now, to come back to this priest, Surioanu. He was always such a happy being. When we were taken out for walks, in a yard where there was never a flower, a piece of herb, or grass, he would put his hand on the shoulder of some Christian and ask, “Tell me your story.”

Usually the men would talk about how bad the Communists were. “They’ve beaten me and they’ve tortured me and they’ve done terrible things.”

He would listen attentively; then he would say, “You’ve said plenty about the Communists; now tell me about yourself. When did you confess last?”

“Well, some forty years ago.”

“Let us sit down and forget the Communists and forget the Nazis. For you are also a sinner. And tell me your sins.”

Everybody confessed to him — I confessed to him, too, and I remember that as I confessed to him, and the more I told him sins, the more beautiful and loving became his face. I feared in the beginning that when he heard about such things he would loathe me. But the more I said bad things about myself, the more he sat near to me. And in the end he said, “Son, you really have committed plenty of sins, but I can tell you one thing. Despite all of these sins, God still loves you and forgives you. Remember that He has given His Son to die for you, and try one day a little bit, and another day a little bit, just to improve your character so it should be pleasant to God.”

My experiences with this priest were among the most beautiful encounters of my life. He is no longer on this earth. He was an example of what real Orthodoxy is all about. There exists such Orthodoxy. I don’t see much point in becoming an Orthodox from a Lutheran background or from a Baptist background or from any other background unless one desires that kind of Orthodoxy. His was an excellent Orthodoxy, a pure Orthodoxy. May God help us all to be truly Orthodox, after the example of so many saints who are depicted on the icons, and after the example of so many saints alive today.

This is the mug shot of Pastor Wurmbrand taken in 1947. It clearly shows that he is of the people of Israel, and so I want to share these photos also, as it is an evidence of his martyrdom. As I have said and written many times in this blog, Orthodoxy is the heritage of all followers of Jesus, but there is a man-made kind of Orthodoxy which saves no one, and an Orthodoxy which is of the Spirit of God, where men worship the Father in spirit and truth and are thereby transformed by Him and taken up into the life of the Holy Triad, even while they live on earth. It is the second kind of Orthodoxy that I want, because only that kind is real.

When Pastor Wurmbrand was dying, he confessed to Romanian Orthodox presbyter Fr George Calciu that, in his heart, he loved Orthodoxy, but considered he was not worthy of it, and because of this he did not succeed in becoming fully Orthodox. This was his own opinion of himself, and it held him back, but surely not in the eyes of the Lord whom he served, of whom he witnessed, and for whom he suffered. As I have written elsewhere, true Orthodoxy cannot be contained in its vessel, but continually overfills and overflows it.

Glory to You, O God, glory to You!

So what does one do to enter the Orthodox Church seeking this kind of Orthodoxy?

One may not meet there the kind of Christians we think we are, or hope to be, only religionists and ceremonial spectators. One may not find priests like Fr Surioanu or Fr Calciu, only businessmen dressed in clerical collars or fancy robes. One may be annoyed or scandalized by what seems unorthodox or superfluous, nationalistic or impious, or, as one woman put it to me recently, "It's just wrong!" My response is the only one I have a right to give, because I did it myself.

You just go forward as to an altar call. You enter and lay down your life, trusting in the Lord whom you serve now and whom you want to serve better, trusting that He will always be your Lord, that no one can ever change that or stand between you and Him, and that what the Church is, who it is, will be revealed to your eyes, as you begin to find your place in it, keeping your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith. The Lord will send to you, or send you to, people like yourself, with whom you can work out your salvation, serving Him together, according to your call. No fear that anyone will take this from you, and never mind those people or things that would have kept you out.

As I said to myself, putting on my tie in front of a mirror on the morning I was going to be received into the Orthodox Church by chrismation, and as Pastor Wurmbrand thought of himself, "How can I do this, I'm not worthy," you too will hear the words spoken to you as you are baptised or chrismated, "Axios! Worthy!"

Now, the new life really begins. Go where He sends you, and always say, "Yes," when He calls.