THE ORTHODOX WORD
A Bimonthly Periodical
OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT HERMAN OF ALASKA
Established with the blessing of His Eminence the late John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Western America and San Francisco, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 96076
1970, Vol. 6, no. 6 (35)
November – December
CONTENTS
243 The Feast Day of St. Herman of Alaska
244 The Report of Bishop Alexy of Alaska
248 The Life of Blessed Nazarius, Abbot of Valaam
260 "Renovated Orthodoxy": The Liturgical Theology of Fr. A. Schmemann by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazan ky
265 The Orthodox Spiritual Life: The Counsels of the Elder Nazarius (I)
281 Documents of the Catacomb Church: The Sergianist Schism of 1927 (1, 2)
286 Martyrology of the Communist Yoke: Bishop Hierotheus and His Friend, Schema-Hieromonk Seraphim
COVER: A desert dweller of Russia's Northern Thebaid, the spiritual legacy which Saint Herman brought to America: nineteenth-century engraving by O. Miloradovich. Page 245: Icon, courtesy of Wolmar Holmstrom, Ortodox Kyrkotidning, Stockholm.
Copyright 1970 by Orthodox Christian Books & Icons.
Published bimonthly by Orthodox Christian Books & Icons. Second-class postage paid at Redding, California.
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THE ORTHODOX WORD, PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 96076
The Feast Day of Saint Herman of Alaska
UKASE No. 1124 OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
To Diocesan Bishops and to Rectors of Churches Directly Under the Chairman of the Synod of Bishops
ON SEPTEMBER 10/23, 1970, we considered: Concerning the celebration of the day of coramemoration of our Holy and God-bearing Father, Herman of Alaska. Previously the Synod of Bishops had established a feast in honor of the Saint on December 13, old style. This is the traditional date under which the Life of Elder Herman has long been placed. According to certain researches this might be the date not of the Elder's repose, but of his burial, and he may have reposed almost a month before burial. But even apart from this we know, for example, that in the case of the determination of the' feast of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, who reposed on November 27, inasmuch as this is the feast in honor of the Mother of God of the Sign, which was especially commemorated in Irkutsk, the feast of St. Innocent began to be commemorated on November 26. Likewise, with regard to the commemoration of St. Herman, inasmuch as on December 13, o.s., there is appointed a service with polyeleos to the Five Holy Martyrs Eustathius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius, and Orestes, and this service sometimes is even joined by a special rule to the service for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, and consequently is not to be omitted, it is therefore convenient to fix the day of commemoration of St. Herman one day earlier.
We have decreed: To consider the feast day of our Holy and Godbearing Father, Herman of Alaska, Wonderworker, as December 12, o.s.
Concerning which this Circular Ukase is given to Diocesan Bishops for appropriate execution and guidance.
September 29 October / 12, 1970
New York City
Chairman of the Synod of Bishops
Metropolitan Philaret
Secretary
Bishop Laurus
The Report of Bishop Alexy of Alaska
SAINT HERMAN, SCANDINAVIAN ICON
This, the earliest official document concerning the canonization of Saint Herman, has never before been published in any language. It was obtained for publication in THE ORTHODOX WORD only after the canonization services of last summer.
June 27, 1939
Unalaska, Alaska
TO HIS EMINENCE THEOPHILUS, METROPOLITAN OF ALL AMERICA AND CANADA
WITH THE GREATEST RESPECT I report to Your Eminence that after Pascha, on April 22, together with Father Hierodeacon Elias, I left from Unalaska for Spruce Island. On April 30 we arrived at Ouzinkie, where we were met by the Treasurer of the Monastery which is being built (on the island), Archimandrite Gerasim. On May 2 we set out in a motorboat for the grave of Elder Herman and settled in the cell of Archimandrite Gerasim, in which cell I lived right up to my departure from the Monastery on May 30.
The chapel on the site of the former cell of Elder Herman and the church on his grave are kept up by Father Gerasim in exemplary good order and cleanliness. The relics (holy bones) of Elder Herman are in a coffin which is kept under lock and key and is located in the church on a raised place, like a sarcophagus, adorned by a decorous covering and with lamps. The grave of Elder Herman is frequently visited by the faithful and panikhidas are celebrated at his coffin. Is it not time for panikhidas to be replaced by molebens?
The matter of Elder Herman's canonization was considered at the Sobor of Bishops in Chicago in 1936, and it was postponed until there should be a clearer indication of God's will. Such an indication of God's will might be miraculous occurrences. Therefore, I have begun to collect information concerning healings from infirmities by the intercession in prayer of the Blessed Elder. There can be no doubt that Elder Herman has pleased the Lord God. Concerning this there is the testimony of the reverent memory that has been preserved among the Alaskan Orthodox people of him as of a holy as cetic and great man of prayer and intercessor before God. Notwithstanding the fact that the grave of Elder Herman is located in the dense forest of the wild and little-accessible Spruce Island, surrounded by the constantly raging ocean, the path of people to it has not been overgrown. Although it is difficult to get to his grave because of the craggy, surf-drenched shores and the want of a suitable bay, nonetheless the infirm have been drawn to his grave in expectation of blessed help by his intercession in prayer before the Throne of God, in various sufferings, in grief and need, in sorrows and afflictions. And their labors and hopes have not been in vain.
Here follow 25 cases of the miraculous intercession of St. Herman, both before and after his repose. Of these the first 21 have been collected by the St. Herman Brotherhood from other sources and are already known to the readers of THE ORTHODOX WORD.
22. Tatiana Hably, who lived in Unga, at times of illness would drink water in which earth from the grave of Elder Herman had been placed; and each time she would receive healing. The earth was sent to her by Fr. Paul Shadura, who was at that time Psalmist in Kodiak. She died at the age of 70 and was buried in Unga by Fr. Gregory Kochergin.
23. Anfisa Shaposhnikova, who lives in Unalaska, related the following: "In November of 1926 my feet became severely afflicted, so much so that for more than eight months I could not walk. At the request of Matushka Alexandra Kashevarova, Fr. Nicholas Kashevarov sent earth from the grave of Elder Herman. Bishop Amphilocius, who was at that time in Unalaska, served a moleben and commanded the earth to be put on the afflicted places. I kept the earth on for four days. On Friday, August 18, 1927, I felt better and I began to walk; and on Saturday I went to the All-night Vigil. Since that time I have been completely well."
24. I myself can testify to the blessed help of the Elder St. Herman. In 1934, while travelling in the northern part of Alaska, I caught cold and came to Kodiak in October still not having gotten over the cold. My cough wearied me to death. On November 20, 1934, I was able to go to the grave of Elder Herman and serve a panikhida there. With faith I drank some water from his spring, and the cough immediately left me and I began to feel relieved and well.
25. In March of this year, 1939, two men set out from Kodiak for the grave of Elder Herman – one of them Orthodox but unbelieving, and the other non-Orthodox. First the man who was not Orthodox drank water from Fr. Herman's spring, but when the unbelieving Orthodox man wanted to do this the water in the spring became so muddy that it could not be drunk.
From the above it becomes clear that the pious Elder Herman has attained sanctity, and there is no reason to delay and postpone to a later time the canonization of the God-pleasing Saint.
To the canonization of the Blessed Elder Herman there likewise should be joined that of the Aleut Martyr Peter and Hieromonk Juvenal, who was killed by savages in 1796 near Lake Iliamna.
Thus one should begin the consideration of this great and holy matter at the Sobor of Bishops and send what is decreed on this question for confirmation to the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
The Report ends with a rather detailed plan for canonization services to be held on Spruce Island, and is signed
The Most Humble Servant of Your Eminence, My Most Merciful Archpastor and Father, Alexy, Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska
Monk's Lagoon at Spruce Island
On Spruce Island in 1939: Bishop Alexy with the builders from Ouzinkie. At the far right are Fathers Gerasim and Elias.
"THE RIGHTEOUS LIVE FOREVER"
THE LIFE OF
BLESSED NAZARIUS
ABBOT OF VALAAM
who is commemorated on the 23rd of February and the 14th of October
BLESSED NAZARIUS, ABBOT OF VALAAM
1735—1809
REJOICE in the Lord, O most blessed and most honorable Father
Nazarius, together with thy Valaam brethren in Christ! Thy paternal kindness and deeds of love toward my lowliness shall in no way ever be erased from my heart: neither the terrible impassable Siberian wilds, nor its dark forests; neither the rapids of great rivers, nor the mighty ocean can quench these feelings of mine; for in my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam, and constantly behold it across the waters of the great ocean.
ST. HERMAN OF ALASKA
(Letter of May 19th, 1795)
Although not yet officially canonized himself, the Blessed Elder of St. Herman of Alaska, and probably of St. Seraphim of Sarov as well, was the direct progenitor of a whole century of great ascetics of Valaam Monastery, whose lives comprise a splendid "Valaam Patericon," an adornment of the Church of Christ, and could be an abundant source of inspiration for true Orthodox Christians today.
The following Life – an essential part of the spiritual legacy of St. Herman himself – has been compiled and translated from material published in the late 19th century by Valaam and Sarov Monasteries.
AT THE TIME when Niphon was Abbot of Sarov Hermitage (1806—1842), there in retirement lived Abbot Nazarius, a man of virtue who loved the solitary life of silence in the wilderness. Out of a desire for desert dwelling, he left Valaam, where he was Abbot, and came to dwell in the wilderness three miles from Sarov Hermitage, where he lived in asceticism, spending his life in prayer and serving as an example of virtuous life for the brethren.
In his forest cell, where he pleased God by the ascetic feat of complete reclusion, transported in spirit he was wont to say, following St. Basil the Great: "O life of solitude, house of heavenly learning and divine knowledge, school wherein God is everything that we learn! O desert, paradise of sweetness, where fragrant flowers of love now blaze with fiery color, now shine with snow-like purity. With them is peace and quiet; and those who live beneath them remain unmoved by the wind. There, is the incense of complete mortification, not only of flesh, but, what is more praiseworthy, of the will itself, and the censer of perpetual prayer burns ceaselessly with the fire of divine love. There, are diverse flowers of virtue. resplendent with diverse adornments, blossoming with the grace of unfading beauty. O desert, delight of holy souls, paradise of inexhaustible sweetness! Thou art a furnace, the power of whose blazing flame the Three Youths make cool by prayer, and by means of burning faith they extinguish around themselves the fierce flame in which both arrows and chains burn away, but those in chains do not burn, only the bonds of sin are loosed, and the soul is led up to the singing of divine praise, exulting: Thou hast burst my bonds asunder; I will offer Thee the sacrifice of praise" (Ps. 115: 7. 8).
ABBOT NAZARIUS was born in 1735 in Tambov Province, in the village of Anosov. His father was a church reader, Kodrat, and his mother was named Mavra. His name in the world was Nicholas. Having come to love God, he left the world in his early youth. From his youth he was distinguished by his piety, and in the 17th year of his life he went to Sarov Hermitage, in order to lead the monastic life there. In 1760 he was tonsured a monk with the name Nazarius. In 1776 he was ordained Hieromonk.
A strict fulfillment of the monastic Rule was the constant concern of Nazarius. His whole later life was a labor of asceticism. From his very youth he loved the Lord, sought Him and clung to Him by the learning and keeping of His commandments The reading of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers was the daily food of his soul. His soul became so penetrated by the thought of Divine things that the only subject of his conversations was what might profit the soul. As for worldly things, he knew not at all how to speak of them. But if he opened his mouth in order to speak of ascetic labors against the passions, of love for virtue, then his converse was an inexhaustible fount of sweetness. And both he himself, and those who listened to him, forgot the hour and the time in sweet converse. His words were correct, straightforward, and sharp. He did not like to begin a conversation without the word of God as a foundation; and so he taught others, in order that soul-saving counsels should be founded not on one's own mind but on the word of God. Severe and seemingly inaccessible in appearance, by his words he attracted the hearts of all to love and obedience toward him. Himself humble, to everyone who asked his instruction he taught first of all humility. He spent his life unchangingly in fasting and non-acquisition; for his clothing he had scarcely more than rags. He wore his shoes for six years.
About 1774 he retired into complete seclusion in the forest of Sarov. There his severe ascetic life so excited the envy of the demons that they more than once attempted to frighten him and lead him astray. He himself related later that there once came to him the thought of planting turnips, thinking to himself that the brethren would come, take these turnips, and would receive healing. No sooner had he conceived this prideful thought than he suddenly felt that someone had struck him on the head as if with a stick, and so powerfully that he could not stay on his feet, and he fell to the ground, smelling a stench and foul odor in the air. From this he was so frightened that he was scarcely able to crawl to the monastery.
The fame of the ascetic life of the desert-dweller Nazarius reached St. Petersburg. At that time Metropolitan Gabriel had decided to re-establish the monastery on the islands of Valaam, which for over a century had lain in virtual desolation. He sought an able and spiritual monk as Abbot, and his choice rested on Father Nazarius, of whom he had heard much from his cell-attendant Theophan, who was a close friend of Nazarius. In 1781 he summoned Nazarius to this work from Sarov, in order that in Valaam Monastery there would be introduced the Rule of the Sarov Hermitage. Father Nazarius humbly declined the heavy burden of becoming an Abbot, setting forth his unworthiness; and Abbot Pachomius of Sarov, wishing to keep the great ascetic, reported about him to Metropolitan Gabriel as of a man of little intelligence and inexperienced in spiritual life. The hierarch, however, penetrated the secret of Fr. Nazarius' humility and replied: "I have many of my own 'wise' men; send me your fool." Thus the fathers of Sarov unwillingly were compelled to let their humble ascetic go, and in 1782 Fr. Nazarius was confirmed as Abbot of Valaam.
THE MONASTERY OF VALAAM, situated on the islands of Lake Ladoga, with the coming of Nazarius soon became a great monastic citadel, bringing into reality the great Orthodox monastic ideals. Among the ever increasing number of the brethren there shone forth some truly great ascetics, uncanonized saints. But when Nazarius had come to Valaam there was just one tonsured monk, besides some novices and two lay priests, both of whom drowned shortly after his coming, so that Fr. Nazarius for almost a year had to conduct all the church services himself.
During the course of Abbot Nazarius' twenty-year governance, the Monastery was completely rebuilt and re-established. The Monastery's chief benefactor was Metropolitan Gabriel himself, who had the utmost love and respect for Fr. Nazarius. Even more remarkable than the outward was the inward renewal of the Monastery. Fr. Nazarius installed in minutest detail the whole Sarov tradition. He introduced a strict order into the church services and re-established the three kinds of monastic life which Valaam had had almost from its foundation many centuries earlier: c;nobitism, skete-life, and anchoretism. He began the building of the Great Skete in the woods beyond the Monastery enclosure as well as other sketes, and encouraged anchoritesmaking himself the first example of eremitic life.
The glory of Abbot Nazarius' deeds spread beyond the bounds of Russia, so that even from the Holy Mount of Athos monks came to Valaam and with wonder beheld a monastic way of life which they preferred even to that of the Holy Mountain.
The students of the great Elder Paissy Velichkovsky brought to Metr. Gabriel copies of the Slavonic manuscript of the Philokalia and other patristic writings, which the hierarch undertook to publish. Those who were occupied in the work of editing these writings in preparation for their publication, in accordance with the Metropolitan's instructions, had constantly to verify all obscure points with several spiritual elders, who knew in practice the elevated teaching contained in the Philokalia. Among these elders the first was Fr. Nazarius. "These fathers," Metropolitan Gabriel told the editors, "although they do not know the Greek language, out of experience know better than you the truths of the spiritual life and therefore understand more correctly the teaching contained in this book." Since its publication in 1795 the Philokalia has been an essential part of the Valaam tradition. It is known that St. Herman had the Philokalia in Alaska, where it was used by many people. When Fr. Nazarius returned to Sarov, it was through him that St. Seraphim obtained the Philokalia.
When Metropolitan Gabriel was forming a Spiritual Mission to be sent to America, he had Abbot Nazarius select its members from among his monks. This Mission left in 1794 and converted thousands of pagans to the Christian Faith. It is remarkable what love and devotion these preachers of God's word preserved for Fr. Nazarius, as may be seen from the letters sent to him from America. His devoted disciple, the head of the Mission, Fr. Ioasaph (Bolotov), was later consecrated bishop and left the first scholarly description of Alaska.
ONCE, AT THE TIME of a naval war with the Swedes near Petersburg in the reign of Catherine II, great fear came upon the residents of Petersburg. Metropolitan Gabriel had locked himself up in seclusion and was praying, when suddenly Elder Nazarius came and demanded that the Metropolitan be told that he had come. The cell attendant replied that Vladika had left word that he would not receive anyone. To this Fr. Nazarius answered: "This is something else. There is no need for him to 'receive' me. He might not have any business with me, but I have some business with him. I will simply go to him."
After finally being allowed to see Vladika, Fr. Nazarius resolutely told him that he should be calm and have expectation of victory and safety. He even pointed to the sky in the direction of the sea, indicating the souls of warriorsthose who had given their lives in battle – ascending to heaven on bright clouds. Metropolitan Gabriel immediately informed the Empress of this. Later, when Fr. Nazarius' words were fulfilled in reality, the Empress graciously received the Elder together with Metropolitan Gabriel.
Father Nazarius was once on monastery business in Petersburg, and was walking on the street with another Elder. At this time the Grand Duke Paul (the future Emperor Paul I) was crossing the Neva River in a carriage. Seeing the Elders in humble attire, he stopped the carriage and asked them: "Where are you from, and what kind of Elders are you?" And discovering that one of them was Abbot Nazarius, he thanked him for the successful reestablishment of Valaam Monastery and said that he had heard much of Abbot Nazarius, who was renowned for his spiritual experience and his care for the good of the Monastery.
In the reign of Paul I, the Elder Nazarius was once invited in Petersburg to the house of a certain K., who at that time had fallen into the Tsar's disfavor. The statesman's wife begged the Elder: "Pray, Father Nazarius, that my husband's case will end well." "Very well," replied the Elder; "one must pray to the Lord to give the Tsar enlightenment. But one must ask also those who are close to Him." The statesman's wife, thinking he was referring to her husband's superiors, said: "We've already asked all of them, but there is little hope from them." "No, not them, and one shouldn't ask in such a way; give me some money." She took out several gold coins. "No, these are no good. Haven't you any copper coins, or small silver ones?" She ordered both kinds to be given him. Fr. Nazarius took the money and left the house.
For a whole day Fr. Nazarius walked the streets and places where he supposed poor people and paupers were to be found and distributed the coins to them. Towards evening he appeared at K.'s house and confidently said: "Glory be to God, all those close to the Tsar have promised to intercede for you." The wife went and with joy informed her husband, who had become ill out of sorrow, and K. himself summoned Fr. Nazarius and thanked him for his intercessions with the high officials.
Fr. Nazarius had not even left the sick man's bed when news came of the successful end of K.'s case. Immediately K. in his joy felt already stronger, and he asked Fr. Nazarius which of the Tsar's officials had shown the more favor to him. Here he found out that these "officials" were paupers – those close to the Lord Himself, in the words of Fr. Nazarius. Deeply moved by the piety of the Elder, he always kept for him a reverent love.
BUT ABOVE ALL Blessed Nazarius was a true father to monks and nuns, possessing a tried experience and knowledge of the spiritual life in practice: its trials, its pitfalls, its paths to the ascetic heights. His watchful eye was keen, his actions precise, and his word had great spiritual power; for he was burning with an unquenchable flame of sobriety and love of truth. This alone worked miracles of spiritual instruction for monks.
One brother, the later Schema-monk Kiriak, was converted to Holy Orthodoxy through an evident Divine manifestation, after which he came to Valaam to Fr. Nazarius and became a zealous ascetic. After his conversion his prayer was always accompanied by a mysterious heavenly fragrance, a sign of grace to him. But one day, becoming excessively critical, in the manner of converts, he allowed himself to judge the Abbot, Fr. Nazarius – and immediately, being in church, he sensed a foul odor about him. After some agonizing confusion he realized and confessed his sin to the Abbot. Having forgiven him with love, the Blessed Nazarius said: "If you lose grace, it will not be easy to gain it back again." And indeed, it took him a long time of hard labor, through the prayers of Blessed Nazarius, to have this grace abide in him once more.
A certain Peter B., a disobedient disciple of Fr. Nazarius' friend, the renowned Blessed Abbot Theodore of the Sanaxar Monastery, left the latter's c;nobitic monastery out of pride, claiming that community life was not spiritual enough for him, and settled alone deep in the forest. He lived there for three years without any spiritual direction. He took the Lord's words, If thy hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off (St. Matt. 18:8), contrary to their proper understanding and decided to put these words into literal practice. Thus he chopped off his left hand. The blood 'had begun to flow abundantly, when suddenly he heard a stern voice – apparently an angel of God – saying: "What a presumptuous thing you have done! Tie your arm or you will die." He immediately tied the arm and did not feel great pain. When Fr. Nazarius heard of this he immediately recognized that Peter had fallen into prelest, and he was amazed at God's mercy to the poor man. Wishing to save him he deliberately went all the way from Valaam into the forest where he was and took him back to Valaam with him. Later he tonsured him, giving him the name of Paul. He lived in Valaam for some time and died and was buried there.
Father Nazarius was well known for his spiritual direction of nuns in various convents, especially during the latter part of his life. Once when he was travelling he stopped at the house of a noble family, Diartievs, who at that time were about to marry off their young daughter against her wish. The young Helen, seizing the opportunity, revealed to Fr. Nazarius her soul's desire to become a nun, and she begged him to intercede with her parents for her. Fr. Nazarius implored the parents to let the girl serve Christ, but it was to no avail; they were determined to see their daughter married. When the Elder was about to leave the house, Helen implored him to tell her what she should do. "Be a fool for Christ's sake," said the holy man; "cover your mind with madness, and by such a path you will save your soul and please God!" Such was the Elder's answer, coming not from his own reasoning but from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and spoken with the boldness of one having spiritual authority and clairvoyant insight into the girl's future.
And from that very moment the girl took upon herself – rather, was given by the Holy Spirit – this most severe ascetic exploit of foolishness for Christ's sake. She let the parents go through with the wedding ceremonies, although she answered negatively to the priest's question. After the service, when all the guests were solemnly seated at the wedding banquet, she got up and jumped from a window into a mud puddle and began wallowing in the mud, to the horror of all present. Thus on her wedding day, in her bridal attire, she became the bride of Christ and was recognized by all as a mad woman. Then for many years she wandered homeless until finally she was taken in by a convent at Arzamas, where she achieved great sanctity as a clairvoyant eldress, finally reposing in the Lord her Bridegroom on the first day of Pascha. A great multitude gathered for her burial, as for the burial of a saint, and her humble cell was turned into a chapel where the holy Psalter was read ceaselessly, until the coming of the godless yoke of Communism.
IN 1801, HAVING earned well a rest from the heavy burden of governing the monastery, Fr. Nazarius retired for a life of solitude and divine vision a mile inland from the monastery. While he was still abbot he had had a cell built for him, where he occasionally would retire in silence. But his love for Sarov Monastery, the place where he had laid his ascetic beginnings and given his monastic vows, kept summoning him to return there. So, after three years of seclusion in Valaam, he decided to retire to Sarov. He took with him his disciple, Fr. Ilarion, bade farewell to Valaam, and crossed the waters of Ladoga. At one of the rest halts the following incident occurred, which vividly illustrates the power of Fr. Nazarius' Orthodoxy in practice.
Having come on a Saturday to a certain village in a small cart with their own horse, they asked lodging at the priest's house. The priest gladly received the travellers, and after conversing with Fr. Nazarius he came to have great respect for him. The time came for the All-night Vigil before Sunday. But Fr. Nazarius noticed that the priest was not making preparations to serve the Vigil, and he asked him: "Batushka, do you then have the Sunday Vigil in the morning?" The priest replied that he very rarely served and had no intention to serve even the next morning. "Although my parish is large and there are no schismatics, still, none of the peasants come to church on feast days. They gather only for amusements in the church yard. They don't even take a look inside the church. The church is always empty. To such an extent have they grown cold toward the Church, and because of them I have grown lazy, thinking: when they don't come to church, there is no one to celebrate the service for."
Fr. Nazarius remarked to the priest that he was severely mistaken, and that this was a temptation from the enemy of our salvation. "If your parishioners do not fulfill their most important obligation, nonetheless you, being a pastor, should fulfill your own obligations without fail. A church of God can never be empty. From the time of the church's consecration, there is in it the guardian of the Lord's Altar, an angel; and what is more, even if your parishioners do not come to the Divine services which you celebrate, the church will always be filled with angels, the guardians of their souls. For at every Divine service, in their flaming love toward their God, the angels of God are the first ones who both concelebrate and attend with hymns of praise. And it is they who would fill your church while you serve. When you yourself zealously fulfill your obligations for the salvation of your own soul, and if you would pray for your flock that the Lord would warm their hearts and convert them to repentance and prayer – then the Lord, for the sake of your prayers, would command their guardian angels to approach their souls and arouse them to prayer and instil in them zeal for the Divine services which you celebrate in the holy temple, where you offer for them the sacrifice of mercy before the Lord in the Divine Eucharist. And what answer will you make in the day of the Lord's terrible Judgement for the doom of your own flock, when you on your side use no means for their conversion and salvation?"
Touched to the heart by the just words of Fr. Nazarius, the priest replied: "Help me, O Elder, and instruct me. I will try to do what you advise." Fr. Nazarius said: "Very well; now let us go to God's temple. Order the bell to be sounded for the Vigil and the Reader to prepare for the Allnight service. And Fr. Ilarion and I will help you."
The bell was sounded for the Vigil and the service began. And indeed, in the beginning there was no one in church. Then no more than ten people gathered in church, old men and women. Fr. Nazarius read the Six Psalms, and Fr. Ilarion the Kathismata. After the reading of the Gospel, it was brought out to the middle of the church. Fr. Nazarius and Fr. Ilarion went to reverence and kiss it, but those present, out of habit, did not do so. The Elder went up to them and explained to them concerning the benefit of the sanctification to be received at this moment from venerating the Holy Gospel. And the old people came, kissed the Gospel, and thanked the Elder. Father Nazarius spoke with them and advised them to tell those at home and their neighbors how profitable it is to participate in the Divine services and be sanctified by venerating and kissing the Holy Gospel as well as other holy objects in church.
After the Sixth Song of the Canon Fr. Nazarius read from the spiritual instructions of the Prologue. Several of the old people managed to go home and call their own people to church, until some thirty people had gathered. As the people left the church, the Elder spoke with them on the necessity and benefit of praying in God's temple.
In the morning the priest celebrated the Divine Liturgy, and Father Nazarius, at the time of the sermon, read from a book of spiritual instruc tion; rather more people were in attendance at the Liturgy than had come to the Vigil. Having rested after dinner, the Elder saw that many people had gathered in the yard around the church, and the priest explained that on all holy days the people gather for their own amusement. "Let us go too," said Fr. Nazarius to the priest. "Take the book of the Lives of Saints." Having chosen a convenient place near the church, they sat down, and the Elder had the priest read out loud the Life of the saint commemorated that day. The old people were glad to see Fr. Nazarius after having made his acquaintance the night before, and were the first to go to him. He persuaded them to sit down and listen to the Life of the saint. Once in a while he stopped the reading and himself gave instructive comments. The number of listeners increased, and Fr. Nazarius rejoiced with his whole heart that Orthodox people had been awakened to listen to spiritual converse.
The next day was the Feast of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, and the priest, at the advice of the Elder, celebrated both the All-night Vigil and the Liturgy, as he did also on all the succeeding feast days. The parishioners showed their evident disposition toward prayer, their number at the church's Divine services increasing from day to day. Fr. Nazarius, persuaded by the priest, spent more than two weeks there, not omitting a single opportunity of conversing with and instructing in true Christian piety both the peasants of this village and those who came to the Elder from neighboring places to take advantage of his instruction; and everyone came to have a heartfelt love for him. The priest, having become his spiritual son, fulfilled his counsels with all zeal, and he saw in Fr. Nazarius a God-sent tool both for his own salvation and for that of his flock. The Elder, bidding farewell to the priest and the parishioners, went on his way.
Some time later, after some deviations in their route, the travellers decided to pass through that village again and without fail to visit the priest: and it so happened that they came to the village while the bells were ringing for the Liturgy on Sunday morning. The people, gathered in large numbers at the church, saw the approaching Elder and almost took him from his cart and carried him into the church. The priest, gladdened by his arrival, was serving the Proskomedia. With tears the Elder thanked the Lord for such a grace-filled change, noting that the church was full of people. The people with reverence crowded around the Elder to receive his blessing, and the priest, having celebrated the Divine Liturgy, and embracing the Elder, indicated to him their mutual joy and told those who stood nearby that such a great gathering of people was the fruit of Fr. Nazarius' prayers. The church could no longer hold the multitude of people, who filled even the church steps.
Having spent some time in that village, Fr. Nazarius begged both the pastor and his flock to continue and grow from this good beginning, devoutly fulfilling their obligations. Then Fr. Nazarius made ready to depart. He was accompanied with tears by the priest with all his parishioners, who had gathered to bid farewell to their Elder, Father, and benefactor (for so they began to call him). They accompanied him for several miles from the village, and the priest remained in correspondence with Fr. Nazarius and to his very death took advantage of his counsels.
HAVING ARRIVED in Sarov, Fr. Nazarius made a secluded cell in the forest on the river Sarovka, three miles from the Monastery, and settled in it. When his strength allowed, he loved in the nighttime to walk in the forest, reciting from memory the ancient Rule of the Twelve Psalms, and he would return to his cell no earlier than sunrise. More than once he encountered bears in the dense forest, but they never touched him, and he would fearlessly walk on, always trusting the will of God. Many hermits and others living apart from the world came to him to verify their thoughts and their life, to see whether they were of God; and the instruction of the spiritually experienced Elder they accepted as the will of God. One of such was St. Seraphim, whose "Far Hermitage" was located two miles up the same river and five miles away from the Monastery. The two saints had a common care, that of the Diveyevo Convent, whose foundress, the holy Abbess Alexandra Melgunova, had a great reverence toward Blessed Nazarius. She had a portrait of the Elder, and whenever she had some important project to commence she would turn in prayer to the portrait as if addressing Fr. Nazarius himself, and would ask his blessing. And her prayers were always immediately answered, as are those of all others who do likewise. Shortly before her death in 1789 St. Seraphim promised her that he would take care of her "orphans," as Fr. Nazarius evidently had done earlier.
Under the guidance of Fr. Nazarius, many monastic communities for women sprang up in the region of Tambov, composed of those wishing to live a chaste and God-pleasing life. He directed and instructed the nuns mostly by means of letters. In the latter is revealed the character of his own spiritual life. "I do not know about you," he wrote to one nun, "but as for myself, I feel that I am at fault before everyone and am indebted to all; and how can one become angry at anyone after that? To love very much three or four persons – how very little; that is nothing! It is better to love everyone in the world! I have a loving simplicity: to all the gates of my heart are open. And even though there may be someone who is not happy with me, yet I am happy with him."
On February 23rd, 1809, Fr. Nazarius reposed and was buried in Sarov Monastery.
The Blessed Elder was meek and humble, and his heart was aflame with love toward God, so much so that at no time would he cease to say the mental Jesus Prayer, constantly going over the knots in the prayer rope in his hand. "Let us pray with the spirit and let us pray with the understanding also," he wrote to a nun. "Let us enter into the words of St. Paul: I had. rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in a tongue (I Cor. 14: 15, 19). I am unable to express how fortunate we are that we have become worthy to utter these five words. What joy! Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner. Just think! O Lord! Whose Name am I pronouncing? That of the Creator, the Founder of everything, before Whom all heavenly powers tremble! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God! Thou hast shed Thy blood for me, hast saved me, hast come down to earth... Put your understanding and heart together, close your eyes, raise your mental eyes to the Lord... O sweetest and dearest Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God..."
O Lord, through the prayers of our most blessed and most honorable Father Nazarius, have mercy on us, preserve us, and save us! Amen.
—Beginning in this issue (page 265), the complete Spiritual Counsels of the Elder Nazarius will be presented in THE ORTHODOX WORD.
"RENOVATED ORTHODOXY"
THE LITURGICAL THEOLOGY OF FR. A. SCHMEMANN
By PROTOPRESBYTER MICHAEL POMAZANSKY
In past centuries the greatest peril to the Church of Christ came from false teachers who were singled out and condemned because of their dogmatic errors. Thus the early Fathers and Councils condemned Nestorianism, Arianism, Monophysitism, Iconoclasm, etc. But the enemy of man's salvation does not sleep, and in our day, when there is no basic new heresy – unless it be that conglomeration of all heresies, ecumenism – he has inspired various currents of "renovationism" within the Church which have attacked chiefly the life and practice of traditional Orthodoxy, beginning with the outright Protestantism of the "Renovated" or "Living Church" in Russia in the 1920s, through the reforming uniatizers of the Church of Constantinople (Patriarchs Meletios Metaxakis and Athenagoras, Archbishop Iakovos) to the numerous would-be reformers who may be found in almost every Local Orthodox Church today.
In this article the work on liturgical theology of one well known and widely respected contemporary Russian theologian is carefully criticized and its "reformist" tendency pointed out. In all fairness it should be noted that Fr. Schmemann probably does not see himself as a "reformer," and it will doubtless be left to other less sensitive souls, another generation removed from the life of genuine Orthodoxy, to draw the inevitable iconoclastic conclusions from Fr. Schmemann's already Protestant views.
The author of this article, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, one of the last living theologians to have graduated from the theological academies of pre-Revolutionary Russia, has taught theology to generations of Orthodox priests, and now teaches and resides at Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, New York. (Text from ORTHODOX WAY, Jordanville, 1962. All page numbers in the text below are from the English edition of Fr. Schmemann's book.)
BEFORE US is a work of Archpriest (now Protopresbyter) Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Paris, YMCA Press, 1961; English translation: The Faith Press, London, 1966). The book is presented as an "introduction" to a special course in liturgical theology projected by the author. In it are indicated the foundations of a proposed new system of theology, and then there is given an historical outline of the development of the Rule or Typicon of Divine services.
The basic part of the Introduction to Liturgical Theology – the history of the Typicon – is based primarily on Western scientific investigations in French, English, and German, and partially on Russian sources. The author is convinced that he has succeeded, as he expresses it, in "escaping the Western captivity" while using non-Orthodox sources. He avoids the extreme affirmations of Protestant historians. He writes: "We categorically reject the understanding of the Peace of Constantine (i.e., the era of Constantine the Great) as a 'pseudo-victory' of Christianity – victory bought at the price of compromise" (p. 86). But such affirmations are not enough in themselves, and we consider it our obligation to focus attention on the book's contents in one respect: has the author indeed escaped the Western captivity? As many facts testify, he has in fact not escaped it.
THE ORTHODOX LITURGICAL ORDER:
THE PRODUCT OF HISTORICAL CAUSE AND EFFECT, OR DIVINE INSPIRATION AND GUIDANCE?
IN INVESTIGATING the chief stages of development of the Rule of Divine services, or Typicon, the author looks upon them as upon an ordinary historical manifestation, formed as a result of the influence of changing historical circumstances. He writes: "Orthodox writers are usually inclined to 'absolutize' the history of worship, to consider the whole of it as divinely established and Providential" (p. 72). The author rejects such a view. He does not see "the validity of principles" in the definitive formulation of the Rule; in any case he acknowledges them as dubious. He rejects or even censures a "blind absolutization of the Typicon" while in practice this is joined, in his observation, to a factual violation of it at every step. He acknowledges that "the restoration of the Rule is hopeless"; the theological idea of the daily cycle of services he finds "obscured and eclipsed by secondary strata in the Ordo" which have lain upon the Divine services since the 4th century (pp. 161-2). The ecclesiological key to the understanding of the Rule, according to the author, has been lost, and it remains by the historical path to seek and find the key to liturgical theology.
Such a view of the Rule is new to us. The Typicon, in the form which it has taken down to our time in its two basic versions, is the realized idea of Christian worship; the worship of the first century was a kernel which has grown into maturity in its present state, when it has taken its finished form. We have in mind, of course, not the content of the services, not the hymns and prayers themselves, which often bear the stamp of the literary style of an era and are replaced one by another, but the very system of Divine services, their order, concord, harmony, consistency of principles and fullness of God's glory and communion with the Heavenly Church on the one hand, and on the other the fullness of their expression of the human soul – from the Paschal hymns to the Great Lenten lamentation over moral falls. The present Rule of Divine services was already contained in the idea of the Divine services of the first Christians in the same way that in the seed of a plant are already contained the forms of the plant's future growth up to the moment when it begins to bear mature fruits, or in the way that in the embryonic organism of a living creature its future form is already concealed. To the foreign eye, to the non-Orthodox West, the fact that our Rule has taken a static form is presented as a petrification, a fossilization; but for us this represents the finality of growth, the attainment of the possible fullness and finality; and such finality of the form of development we observe also in Eastern Church iconography, in church architecture, in the interior appearance of the best churches, in the traditional melodies of church singing: further attempts at development in these spheres so often lead to "decadence," leading not up but down. One can make only one conclusion: we are nearer to the end of history than to the beginning... And of course, as in other spheres of the Church's history, in this one also we should see a destiny established by God, a providentialness, and not a single logic of causes and effects.
The author of this book approaches the history of the Typicon from another point of view; we shall call it the pragmatic point of view. In his exposition the basic apostolic, early Christian liturgical order has been overlaid by a series of strata which lie one upon the other and partially supplant each other. These strata are: "mysteriological" worship, which arose not without the indirect influence of the pagan mysteries in the 4th century; then the liturgical order of desert monasticism; and finally the final working over which was given by monasticism that had entered the world. The scientific schema of the author is thus: the "thesis" of an extreme involvement of Christianity and its worship in the world in the Constantinian Era evoked the "antithesis" of monastic repulsion from the new form of "liturgical piety," and this process concludes with the "synthesis" of the Byzantine period. Alone and without argumentation stands this phrase as a description of the stormy Constantinian Era: "But everything has its germ in the preceding epoch" (p. 73). The author pays tribute to the method that reigns completely in contemporary science: leaving aside the idea of an overshadowing by Divine grace, the concept of the sanctity of those who established the liturgical order, he limits himself to a naked chain of causes and effects. Thus does positivism intrude nowadays into Christian science, into the sphere of the Church's history in all its branches. But if the positivist method is acknow ledged as a scientific working principle in science, in the natural sciences, one can by no means apply it to living religion, nor to every sphere of the life of Christianity and the Church, insofar as we remain believers. And when the author in one place notes concerning this era: "The Church experienced her new freedom as a providential act destined to bring to Christ people then dwelling in the darkness and shadow of death" (p. 87), one wishes to ask: And why does the author himself not express his solidarity with the Church in acknowledging this providentialness?
THE CONSTANTINIAN ERA
WE ALL KNOW what an immense change in the position of the Church occurred with Constantine the Great's proclamation of freedom for the Church at the beginning of the 4th century. This outward act was reflected also in every way in the inward life of the Church. Was there here a break in the inner structure of the Church's life, or was there a development? We know that to this question the self-awareness of the Orthodox Church replies in one way, and Protestantism in another. A chief part of Fr. A. Schmemann's book is given over to the elucidation of this question.
The era of Constantine the Great and afterwards is characterized by the author as the era of a profound "reformation of liturgical piety." Thus the author sees in the Church of this era not new forms of the expression of piety, flowing from the breadth and liberty of the Christian spirit in accord with the words of the Apostle: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty-but rather a reformation of the interpretation of worship and a deviation from the early Christian liturgical spirit and forms: a point of view long ago inspired by the prejudices of the Lutheran Reformation.
A propos of this, it is difficult to reconcile oneself also to the term "liturgical piety." In the ordinary usage of words, piety is Christian faith, hope and love, independently of the forms of their expression. Such an understanding is instilled in us by the sacred Scriptures, which distinguish only authentic piety (piety is profitable unto all things – I Tim. 4:8) from false or empty piety (James 1: 26, II Tim. 3:5). Piety is expressed in prayer, in Divine services, and the forms of its expression vary depending on circumstances: whether in church, at home, in prison, or in the catacombs. But we Orthodox scarcely need a special term like "liturgical piety" or "church piety," as if one were pious in a different manner in church than at home, and as if there existed two kinds of religiousness: "religiousness of faith" and "religiousness of cult." Both the language of the Holy Fathers and the language of theology have always done without such a concept. And therefore it is a new conception, foreign to us, of a special liturgical piety that the author instils when he writes: "It is in the profound reformation of liturgical piety and not in new forms of cult, however striking these may seem to be at first glance, that we must see the basic change brought about in the Church's liturgical life by the Peace of Constantine" (p. 78). And in another place: "The center of attention is shifted from the living Church to the church building itself, which was until then a simple place of assembly... Now the temple becomes a sanctuary, a place for the habitation and residence of the sacred... This is the beginning of church piety" (pp. 89-90). The freedom of the Church under Constantine establishes, writes the author, "a new understanding of the cult, a new liturgical piety" (p. 80), a "mysteriological piety." In his usage of such terms one senses in the author something more than the replacement of one terminology by another more contemporary one; one senses something foreign to Orthodox consciousness. This fundamental point is decisively reflected in the book in the views on the sacraments, the hierarchy, and the veneration of saints, which we shall now examine.
THE SACRAMENTS AND THE SANCTIFYING ELEMENT IN SACRED RITES
THE AUTHOR adheres to the concept that the idea of "sanctification," of "sacraments," and in general of the sanctifying power of sacred rites was foreign to the ancient Church and arose only in the era after Constantine. Although the author denies a direct borrowing of the idea of "mysteries-sacraments" from the pagan Mysteries, he nonetheless recognizes the "mysteriality-sacralization" in worship as a new element of "stratification" in this era. "The very word 'sacrament,' " he writes, citing the Jesuit scholar (now Cardinal) J. Danielou, "did not originally have the meaning in Christianity that was subsequently given it, a mysteriological meaning; in the New Testament Scriptures it is used only in the singular and with the general significance of the economy of our salvation: the word 'sacrament' (mysterion) in Paul and in early Christianity signified always the whole work of Christ, the whole of salvation"; thus, in the author's opinion, the application of this word even to separate aspects of the work of Christ belongs to the following era.
In vain, however, does the author cite a Western scholar concerning the word "sacrament," if in St. Paul we may read the precise words: Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ and stewards. of the mysteries (sacraments) of God (I Cor. 4:1). The Apostles were stewards of the sacraments, and this apostolic stewardship was expressed concretely in the service of the Divine stewardship: (a) in invocatory sermons, (b) in joining to the Church through Baptism, (c) in bringing down the Holy Spirit through laying on of hands, (d) in strengthening the union of the faithful with Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, (e) in their further deepening in the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, concerning which the same Apostle says: Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom (I Cor. 2: 6-7). Thus the activity of the Apostles was full of sacramental (mysterion) elements.
Basing himself on the ready conclusions of Western researches in his judgements on the ancient Church, the author pays no attention to the direct evidence of the apostolic writings, even though they have the primary significance as memorials of the life of the early Christian Church. The New Testament Scriptures speak directly of "sanctification," sanctification by the Word of God and prayer. Nothing is to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (I Tim. 4:4-5) And it is said of Baptism: Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified (I Cor. 6: 11). The very expression cup of blessing (I Cor. 10:16) is testimony of sanctification through blessing. The apostolic laying on of hands cannot be understood otherwise than as a sanctification.
A special place in the book is occupied by a commentary on the sacrament of the Eucharist. The author maintains the idea that in the early Church the Eucharist had a totally different meaning from the one it subsequently received. The Eucharist, he believes, was an expression of the ecclesiological union in assembly of the faithful, the joyful banquet of the Lord, and its whole meaning was directed to the future, to eschatology, and therefore it presented itself as a "worship outside of time," not bound to history or remembrances, as eschatological worship, by which it was sharply distinct from the simple forms of worship, which are called in the book the "worship of time." In the 4th century, however, we are told, there occurred a severe reformation of the original character of the Eucharist. It was given an "individual-sanctifying" understanding, which was the result of two stratifications: at first the mysteriological, and then the monastic-ascetic.
Notwithstanding the assertions of this historico-liturgical school, the individual-sanctifying significance of the sacrament of the Eucharist, i.e., the significance not only of a union of believers among themselves, but before anything else the union of each believer with Christ through partaking of His Body and Blood, is fully and definitely expressed by the Apostle in the tenth and eleventh chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself. and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning the Lord's Body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many die (I Cor. 11:27). These teachings of the Apostle are concerned with individual reception of the holy Mysteries and with individual responsibility. And if unworthy reception of them is judged, it is clear that, according to the Apostle, a worthy reception of them causes an individual sanctification. It is absolutely clear that the Apostle understands the Eucharist as a sacrament: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? (I Cor. 10:16) How can one say that the idea of "sacrament" was not in the Church in apostolic times?
Maintaining the idea of the total "extra-temporality" of the Eucharist in the early Church, Fr. A. Schmemann considers as a violation of tradition the uniting to it of historical remembrances of the Gospel. He writes: "In the early Eucharist there was no idea of a ritual symbolization of the life of Christ and His Sacrifice. This is a theme which will appear later... under the influence of one theology and as the point of departure for another. The remembrance of Christ which He instituted (This do in remembrance of Me) is the affirmation of His 'Parousia,' of His presence; it is the actualization of His Kingdom... One may say without exaggeration that the early Church consciously and openly set herself in opposition to mysteriological piety and the cults of the mysteries" (pp. 85-6).
Despite all the categoricalness of the author's commentary on the words: This do in remembrance of Me, it contradicts the indications of the New Testament Scriptures. The Apostle says outright: For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come (I Cor. 11: 26). That is, until the very Second Coming of the Lord thie Eucharist will be joined to the remembrance of Christ's death on the Cross.
And how could the Apostles and Christians of the ancient Church pass by the thought, while celebrating the Eucharist, of the sufferings of Christ, if the Saviour in establishing it, at the Last Supper, Himself spoke of the sufferings of His Body, of the shedding of His Blood (which is broken for you, which is shed for you and for many), and in Gethsemene prayed of the cup: Let this cup pass from Me? How could they not preface the joyful thought of the resurrection and glory of the Lord with the thought of His Cross and death? Both Christ and the Apostles call upon us never to forget the Cross.
THE HIERARCHY AND THE SACRAMENT OF PRIESTHOOD
THE AUTHOR adheres to the idea that only in the post-Constantinian era did there occur a division into clergy and simple believers, which did not exist in the early Church and occurred as the result of a "breakthrough of mysteriological conceptions." The very idea of the "assembly of the Church," he says, was reformed: "In the Byzantine era the emphasis is gradually transferred... to the clergy as celebrants of the mystery" (p. 99). "The early Church lived with the consciousness of herself as the people of God, a royal priesthood, with the idea of election, but she did not apply the principle of consecration either to entry into the Church or much less to ordination to the various hierarchical orders" (p. 100). From the 4th century on, he continues, there can be traced the "idea of sanctification," i.e., consecration to the hierarchical ranks. Now the baptized, the "consecrated," turn out to be not yet consecrated for the mysteries; "the true mystery of consecration became now not Baptism, but the sacrament of ordination." "The cult was removed from the unconsecrated not only 'psychologically,' but also in its external organization. The altar or sanctuary became its place, and access to the sanctuary was closed to the uninitiated" (p. 101); the division was increased by the gradual raising of the iconostasis. "The mystery presupposes theurgii, consecrated celebrants; the sacralization of the clergy led in its turn to the 'secularization' of the laity." There fell aside "the understanding of all Christians as a 'royal priesthood'," expressed in the symbol of royal anointing, after which there is no "step by step elevation through the degrees of a sacred mystery" (p. 100). The author quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who warned against revealing the holy mysteries "to profane impurity," and likewise similar warnings of Sts. Cyril of Jerusalem and Basil the Great.
In the description cited here of the Constantinian era and thereafter, the Protestant treatment is evident: the golden age of Christian freedom and the age of the great hierarchs, the age of the flowering of Christian literature, appears from the negative side of a supposed intrusion into the Church of pagan elements, rather than from the positive. But at any time in the Church have simple believers actually received the condemnatory appellation of "profane"? From the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem it is absolutely clear that he warns against communicating the mysteries of faith to pagans. And St. Basil the great writes of the same thing: "What would be the propriety of writing to proclaim the teaching concerning that which the unbaptized are not permitted even to view?" (On the Holy Spirit, ch. 27.) Do we really have to quote the numerous testimonies in the words of the Lord Himself and in the writings of the Apostles concerning the division into pastors and "flock," the warnings to pastors of their duty, their responsibility, their obligation to give an accounting for the souls entrusted to them, the strict admonitions of the Angels to the Churches which are engraved in the Apocalypse? Do not the Acts of the Apostles and the pastoral Epistles of the Apostle Paul speak of a special consecration through laying on of hands into the hierarchical degrees? The author of this book acknowledges that a closed altar separated the clergy from the faithful. But he gives an incorrect conception of the altar. One should know that the altar and its altar-table in the Orthodox Church serve only for the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice at the Liturgy. The remaining Divine services, according to the idea of the Typicon, are celebrated in the middle part of the church. An indication of this is the pontifical service. Even while celebrating the Liturgy the bishop enters the altar only at the "Little Entrance" in order to listen to the Gospel and celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist; all remaining Divine services the bishop celebrates in the middle of the church. The litanies are intoned by the deacon at all services, including the Liturgy, outside the altar; and the Typicon directs priests who celebrate Vespers and Matins without a deacon to intone the litanies before the Royal Doors. All services of the Book of Needs (Trebnik) and all sacraments of the Church, except for the Eucharist and Ordination, are celebrated outside the altar. Only to augment the solemnity of the services at feast day Vespers and Matins is it accepted to open the doors of the altar for a short time, and that only for the exit of the celebrants at solemn moments to go to the middle of the church. During daily and lenten services the altar, one may say, is excluded from the sphere of the faithful's attention; and if the celebrant goes off into the altar even then, this is rather in order not to attract needless attention to himself, and not at all to emphasize his hierarchical prestige.
One must consider an evident exaggeration the idea of the appearance from the 4th century on of a new "church" piety. Christians who had been raised from the first days of the Church on images not only of the New Testament, but also of the Old Testament, especially the Psalter, could not have been totally deprived of a feeling of special reverence for the places of worship (the House of the Lord). They had the example of the Lord Himself, Who called the Temple of Jerusalem "the House of My Father"; they had the instruction of the Apostle: If any man defile the Temple of God, him shall God destroy (I Cor. 3:17), and although here in the Apostle the idea of temple is transferred to the soul of man, this does not destroy the acknowledgement by the Apostle of the sanctity of the material temple.
THE INVOCATION AND GLORIFICATION OF SAINTS
SPEAKING OF the invocation and glorification of saints in the form in which it was defined in the 4th to 5th centuries, Fr. A. Schmemann underlines the excessiveness of this glorification in the present structure of our Divine services, and he sees in this an indication of the "eclipse of catholic ecclesiological consciousness" in the Church (p. 166). But is not the trouble rather that he does not enter into the catholic fullness of the Orthodox view of the Church?
What is it in the Divine services – something significant, visible to everyone that distinguishes the Orthodox Church from all other confessions of the Christian Faith? It is communion with the Heavenly Church. In this is our pre-eminence, our primogeniture, our glory. The constant remembrance of the Heavenly Church is our guiding star in difficult circumstances; we are strengthened by the awareness that we are surrounded by choirs of invisible comforters, co-sufferers, defenders, guiders, examples of sanctity, from whose nearness we ourselves may receive a fragrance. How fully and how constantly we are reminded of this communion of the heavenly with the earthly by the content of our whole worship – precisely that material in place of which Fr. A. Schmemann intends to build his system of "liturgical theology"! How fully did St. John of Kronstadt live by this sense of the nearness to us of the saints of Heaven!
Is this awareness of the unity of the heavenly and the earthly justified by the Revelation of the New Testament? It is completely justified. Its firm general foundation is found in the words of the Saviour: God is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for in Him all are living (St. Luke 20:38). We are commanded by the Apostles to remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their lives (Heb. 13:7). Protestantism is completely without an answer before the teaching of the Apostle in Hebrews 12:22-23, where it is said that Christians have entered into close communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Heavenly Church of angels and righteous men who have attained perfection in Christ. And which for us is more necessary and important: to strive for ecumenical communion and union with those who think differently and who remain in their different opinion, or to preserve catholic communion of spirit with those teachers of faith, lamps of faith, who by their life and by their death showed faithfulness to Christ and His Church and entered into yet fuller union with Her Head?
Let us hear how this side of the Church's life is accepted by Fr. A. Schmemann.
He affirms that there occurred an abrupt change in the Constantinian era in that there appeared a new stratum in worship in the form of "the extraordinary and rapid growth of the veneration of saints" (p. 141). As the final result of this, with us "the monthly Menaion dominates in worship... The attention of liturgical historians has been for some time directed at this literal inundation of worship by the monthly calendar of saints' days" (p 141).
Concerning this supposed "inundation" of worship we shall note the following. The execution of the daily Vespers and Matins requires no less than three hours, while a simple service to a saint takes up some four pages in the Menaion, occupying only a small part of the service. In the remaining services of the daily cycle (the Hours, Compline, Nocturn) the remembrance of the saints is limited to a kontakion, sometimes a troparion also, or it does not appear at all; and it occupies a small place in the services of Great Lent. If the day of worship is lengthened by a festive service to a saint, precisely thereby it acquires that "major tone," for the diminishing of which the author reproaches the contemporary Typicon.
Let us continue the description given in the book of the glorification of saints. The author writes: "In the broadest terms this change may be defined as follows. The 'emphasis' in the cult of saints shifted from the sacramentally eschatological to the sanctifying and intercessory meaning of veneration. The remains of the saint, and later even articles belonging to him or having once touched his body, came to be regarded as sacred objects having the effect of communicating their power to those who touched them... The early Church treated the relics of the martyrs with great honor – 'But there is no indication,' writes Fr. Delahaye, 'that any special power was ascribed to relics in this era, or that any special, supernatural result would be obtained by touching them. Toward the end of the fourth century, however, there is ample evidence to show that in the eyes of believers some special power flowed from the relics themselves.' This new faith helps to explain such facts of the new era as the invention of relics, their division into pieces, and their movement or translation, as well as the whole development of the veneration of 'secondary holy objects' – objects which have touched relics and become in turn themselves sources of sanctifying power."
Let us note: under the pen of an Orthodox writer this description shows a particular primitivization and irreverence.
"At the same time," the author continues, "the intercessory character of the cult of saints was also developing. Again, this was rooted in the tradition of the early Church, in which prayers addressed to deceased members of the Church were very widespread, as evidenced by the inscriptions in the catacombs. But between this early practice and that which developed gradually from the 4th century on there is an essential difference. Originally the invocation of the departed was rooted in the faith in the 'communion of saints' prayers were addressed to any departed person and not especially to martyrs.... But a very substantial change took place when this invocation of the departed was narrowed down and began to be addressed only to a particular category of the departed."
Thus it turns out, according to the author, that if we appeal with the words 'pray for us' to the departed members of the Church without reference to whether they were devout in their faith and life or were Christians only in name, then this fully corresponds to the spirit of the Church; but if we appeal to those who by their whole ascetic life or martyr's death testified to their faith, then this is already a lowering of the spirit of the Church!
"From the 4th century onward," continues the excerpt from the book, "there appeared in the Church first an everyday and practical, but later a theoretical and theological concept of the saints as special intercessors before God, as intermediaries between men and God."
This is a completely Protestant approach, unexpected from an Orthodox theologian. It is sufficient to read in the Apostle Paul how he asks those to whom he writes to be intercessors for him and intermediaries before God so that he might be restored to them from imprisonment and might visit them; in the Apostle James (5:16): The prayer of a righteous man availeth much; in the Book of Job (42:8): My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept.
The author continues: "The original Christocentric significance of the veneration of saints was altered in this intecessory concept. In the early tradition the martyr or saint was first and foremost a witness to the new life and therefore an image of Christ." The reading of the Acts of the Martyrs in the early Church had as its purpose "to show the presence and action of Christ in the martyr, i.e., the presence in him of the 'new life.' It was not meant to 'glorify' the saint himself.... But in the new intercessory view of the saint the center of gravity shifted. The saint is now an intercessor and a helper.... The honoring of saints fell into the category of a Feast Day," with the purpose of "the communication to the faithful of the sacred power of a particular saint, his special grace... The saint is present and as it were manifested in his relics or icon, and the meaning of his holy day lies in acquiring sanctification (?) by means of praising him or coming into contact with him, which is, as we know, the main element in mysteriological piety."
Likewise unfavorable is the literary appraisal by the author of the liturgical material referring to the veneration of saints. We read: "We know also how important in the development of Christian hagiography was the form of the panegyric... It was precisely this conventional, rhetorical form of solemn praise which almost wholly determined the liturgical texts dealing with the veneration of saints. One cannot fail to be struck by the rhetorical elements in our Menaion, and especially the 'impersonality' of the countless prayers to and readings about the saints. Indeed this impersonality is retained even when the saint's life is well known and a wealth of material could be offered as an inspired 'instruction.' While the lives of the saints are designed mainly to strike the reader's imagination with miracles, horrors, etc., the liturgical material consists almost exclusively of praises and petitions." (pp. 143-146.)
We presume that there is no need to sort out in detail this whole long series of assertions made by the author, who so often exaggerates the forms of our veneration of saints. We are amazed that an Orthodox author takes his stand in the line of un-Orthodox reviewers of Orthodox piety who are incapable of entering into a psychology foreign to them. We shall make only a few short remarks.
The honoring of saints is included in the category of feasts because in them Christ is glorified, concerning which it is constantly and clearly stated in the hymns and other appeals to them; for in the saints is fulfilled the Apostle's testament: That Christ may dwell in you (Eph. 3:17).
We touch the icon of a saint or his relics guided not by the calculation of receiving a sanctification from them, or some kind of power, a special grace, but by the natural desire of expressing in act our veneration and love for the saint.
Besides, we receive the fragrance of sanctity, of fullness of grace, in various forms. Everything material that reminds us of the sacred sphere, everything that diverts our consciousness, even if only for a moment, from the vanity of the world and directs it to the thought of the destination of our soul and acts beneficially on it, on our moral state whether it be an icon, antidoron, sanctified water, a particle of relics, a part of a vestment that belonged to a saint, a blessing with the sign of the crossall this is sacred for us because, as we see in practice, it is capable of making reverent and awakening the soul. And for such a relationship to tangible objects we have a direct justification in Holy Scripture: in the accounts of the woman with a flow of blood who touched the garment of the Saviour, of the healing action of pieces of the garment of the Apostle Paul and even of the shadow of the Apostle Peter.
The reasons for the seemingly stereotyped character of church hymns, in particular hymns to saints, are to be found not in the intellectual poverty nor in the spiritual primitiveness of the hymn-writers. We see that in all spheres of the Church's work there reigns a canon, a model: whether in sacred melodies, in the construction of hymns, or in iconography. Characteristic of hymns is a typification corresponding to the particular rank of saints to which the saint belongs: hierarchs, monk-saints, etc. But at the same time there is always the element of individualization, so that one cannot speak of the impersonality of the images of saints. Evidently the Church has sufficient psychological motives for such a representation.
As for petitions to saints, they have almost exclusively as object their prayers for our salvation. Is this reprehensible? Is there here a lowering of church spirit? Thus did the Apostle Paul pray for his spiritual children: I pray to God that ye do no evil; and for this also we pray, even for your perfection (I Cor. 13:7). If in prayers, especially in molebens, we pray for protection from general disasters and for general needs, this is only naturai; but these molebens do not even enter into the framework of the Typicon.
CHURCH FEASTS
WE SHALL CONCLUDE our review with a question of secondary importance, namely, concerning Church feasts as they are presented in the book. The author agrees with a Western liturgical historian that for ancient Christians there was no distinction between Church feasts and ordinary days, and he says in the words of this historian (J. Danielou, S.J.): "Baptism introduced each person into the only Feast the eternal Passover, the Eighth Day. There were no holidays since everything had in fact become a holy day" (p. 133). But with the beginning of the mysteriological era this sense was lost. Feast days were multiplied, and together with them ordinary days were also multiplied. (So asserts the author; but in reality it is precisely according to the Typicon that there are no "ordinary days," since every day there is prescribed the whole cycle of church services.) According to Fr. A. Schmemann, the bond with the liturgical self-awareness of the early Church was lost, and the element of chance was introduced in the uniting of feasts among themselves and to the "Christian year." The author gives examples: "The dating of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on August 6th has no explanation other than that this was the date of consecration of three churches on Mount Tabor" (p. 136), whereas in antiquity, according to the author's assertion, this commemoration was bound up with Easter, which is indicated also by the words of the kontakion: that when they should see Thee crucified... The dates of the feasts of the Mother of God, in the words of the author, are accidental. "The Feast of the Dormition, on August 15th, originates in the consecration of a church to the Mother of God located between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and the dates of September 8 (the Nativity of the Mother of God) and November 21 (Her Entrance into the Temple) have a similar origin. Outside the Mariological cycle there appeared, for similar reasons, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (connected with the consecration of the Holy Sepulchre), and the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist on August 29th (the consecration of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Samaria at Sebaste)" (p. 137).
In these references of the author a characteristic sign is his trust of Western conclusions in the face of, as we believe, the simple conclusion from the order of the church-worship year. The Byzantine church year begins on September 1st. The first feast in the year corresponds to the beginning of New Testament history: the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God; the last great feast of the church year is in its last month: the Dormition of the Mother of God. This is sequential and logical. The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord occurs at the beginning of August doubtless because the cycle of Gospel readings at about this time approaches the account of the Evangelist Matthew of the Lord's Transfiguration, and the commemoration of this significant Gospel event is apportioned to a special feast. As for the words of the kontakion of the Transfiguration: that when they should see Thee crucified, they correspond to the words of the Lord spoken to His disciples six days before His Transfiguration on the Mount and repeated immediately after the Transfiguration: From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go into Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day (St. Matt. 16:21, 17:9, 22). Therefore the Church, in accordance with the Gospel, six days before the Transfiguration begins the singing of the katavasia "Moses, inscribing the Cross" (it may be that the bringing out of the Cross on August 1st is bound up with this), and just forty days after the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated the commemoration of the Lord's sufferings on the Cross and death on the day of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross. And the designation of the time of this feast also is scarcely accidental: this time corresponds, like the time of the Feast of the Transfiguration, to the approach of the Gospel reading at the Liturgy of the Lord's suffering on the Cross and death. Here is one of the examples that indicate that the structure of Divine services in the Typicon is distinguished by proper sequence, harmony, and a sound basis.
If it be represented that in the church calendar a strict sequentialness of the Gospel events is not observed, this is because the Gospel remembrances take in many years and in the calendar they are arranged as it were in the form of a spiral embracing several years: it contains a series of nine-month periods (from the conception to the nativity of St. John the Baptist, the Mother of God, the Saviour), two 40-day periods of the Gospel, etc.
In the concluding part of his book the author, not in entire agreement with what he has said up to that point, is ready to come closer, it would seem, to the historical Orthodox point of view; but just here he makes such reservations that they virtually conceal the basic position. He says: "The Byzantine synthesis must be accepted as the elaboration and revelation of the Church's original 'rule of prayer,' no matter how well developed in it are the elements which are alien (?) to this lex orandi and which have obscured it. Thus in spite of the strong influence of the mysteriological psychology (?) on the one hand and the ascetical-individualistic psychology on the other – an influence that affected above all the reformation (?) of liturgical piety, the Ordo (Rule) as such has remained organically connected with the 'worship of time' which, as we have tried to show, contained the original organizing principle. This worship of time, we repeat, was obscured and eclipsed by 'secondary' layers (?) in the Ordo, but it remained always as the foundation of its inner logic and the principle of its inner unity" (p. 162).
Such is the author's resume. It remains for one to be satisfied with little. It was too much to expect that our Rule has preserved even the very principle of Christian worship!
CONCLUSION
WE HAVE CONSIDERED in so much detail the book of Father A. Schmemann because in future there will be given the Orthodox reader, based on the views presented in this book, a liturgical dogmatics. But if the foundations are so dubious, can we be convinced that the building erected on them will be sound? We do not at all negate the Western historico-liturgical and theological science and its objective values. We cannot entirely manage without it. We acknowledge its merits. But we cannot blindly trust the conclusions of Western historians of the Church. If we speak of worship as members of the Orthodox Church, there should be present to us that principle in the understanding of the history of our worship and its present status by which the Church Herself lives. This principle diverges fundamentally from Western Protestant attitudes. If we have not understood this principle, our efforts should be directed to finding it, discovering it, understanding it.
The logic of history tells us that in public life departures from a straight path occur as the consequence of changes in principles and ideas. And if we maintain the Orthodox Symbol of Faith, if we confess that we stand on the right dogmatic path, we should not doubt that both the direction of church life and the structure of worship which was erected on the foundation of our Orthodox confession of faith, are faultless and true. We cannot acknowledge that our "liturgical piety," after a series of reformations, has gone far, far away from the spirit of Apostolic times. If we see a decline of piety, a failure to understand the Divine services, the reason for this lies outside the Church: it is in the decline of faith in the masses, in the decline of morality, in the loss of church consciousness. But where church consciousness and piety are preserved, there is no reformation in the understanding of Christianity. We accept the Gospel and Apostolic Scriptures not in a refraction through some kind of special prism, but in their immediate, straight-forward sense. And we are convinced that our public prayer is made on the very same dogmatic and psychological foundations on which it was made in Apostolic and ancient Christian times, notwithstanding the difference in forms of worship.
But is Father Alexander Schmemann prepared to acknowledge that the character of his piety is different from the character of the piety of the ancient Church?
THE ORTHODOX SPIRITUAL LIFE
The Counsels of the Elder Nazarius
Although not a literary figure, the Blessed Abbot Nazarius occupies a very prominent place in 18th century Orthodox monasticism; and indeed, the breadth and depth of his influence make him one of the great Church Fathers of pre-Revolutionary Russia. His writings, drawn chiefly from his letters of instruction to monks and nuns, his spiritual flock, were first compiled in ASCETICS OF SAROV MONASTERY, published in 1884. The next year they were re-edited and enlarged by the monks of Valaam and went through many subsequent editions. The present translation of these COUNSELS, in their entirety, has been made from the first Valaam edition of 1885. They are presented now – in this and future issues of THE ORTHODOX WORD – as an example of the genuine Orthodox spirituality that nurtured St. Herman of Alaska. May they fall on fertile soil and, by the prayers of our Holy Fathers, bring forth abundant fruits in the English-speaking Orthodox world!
INTRODUCTION
BELOVED brethren in Christ!
Arise, you that have fallen, open the eyes of your soul, take your fill of the bread which is the word of God, and drink the wine of the chalice of God's wisdom.
If sorrow should come to you-then with good will and love examine what is written here, and believe that with the aid of God's grace you will be comforted.
Confirm yourself in this truth: that every Divine writing that is in agreement with the path of salvation instructs, teaches, chastizes, and strengthens, that our path might be ever according to God.
I
ON THE LOVE OF GOD
WE ALL HAVE the desire to follow a higher calling, to that place where from of old an eternal dwelling has been prepared for us, filled with unspeakable joy: For our life is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour (Phil. 3:20). And thus he who wishes to receive that eternity must unfailingly know in what consists God's love for us, and our love for God. And just as He loved us, so must we also love Him. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son for us, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (St. John 3: 16). And in another place the same Apostle writes: In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son as the cleansing of our sins (I John 4:9, 10).
But in what manner He has cleansed our sins we shall examine in greater detail. Isa;ah declares that He took upon Himself the form of a slave; and He had no form nor comeliness, but His form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men (Is. 53: 2, 3). He endured cruel tortures, in order through them to blot out our crimes, He accepted a shameful death, in order through this to give us life and salvation. And so, when He did not spare Himself only for us, should not we, Christians, love Him? Should we not walk in His steps?
Let us listen to the Apostle who said: For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps (1 Peter 2:21). And how did He suffer? Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by Whose bruises ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray without a shepherd; but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls (I Peter 2:24, 25). And thus we should have toward Him such love and obedience as He demands of us. Did not He Himself with His own most pure lips say: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind (St. Luke 10:27)? And in another place Moses said: And these words, all that I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart and in thy soul. And thou shalt speak of them sitting in the house, and walking by the way, and lying down, and rising up (Deut. 6:6, 7).
From this we see that one must unceasingly keep in remembrance God's love toward us, and seek a perfect love toward Him. But this is acquired by the fulfillment of God's commandments. If thou wilt love Christ: Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow Me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven (St. Matt. 19:21). In doing this you show Him perfect love. He that hath My commandments, He says, and keepeth them, be it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him (St. John 14: 21).
One must know that without good deeds you do not show love toward Him; for not the bearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Rom. 2: 13).
And thus, see how good and merciful is the Lord. He gave Christians the law for no other reason than for the destruction of our malice, for a cleansing from sins, and for the conquering of the passions that war against God's law.
Therefore, we must not only keep God's commandments, but must also offer gifts in accordance with the commandments: just as the holy Fathers offered, each according to his strength, one five talents, another ten, another thirty. In the same way we also must prosper in doing good and in love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The holy Apostle Paul terrifies with a curse him who does not wish to love Christ: If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema (I Cor. 16:22).
And St. Basil the Great, in his first homily on love toward God, teaches in these words: "We have received the commandment, O brethren, to love God, to desire and thirst after Him alone; we must have Him ever unfailingly in remembrance; and just as infants think of their mothers, so should you think of yourselves that we are created in His image and likeness, that He made us immortal in soul, and that in word and mind we are honored above all creatures and endowed with unutterable goods. For us He came down from the heavens and reconciled us with God and the Heavenly Father, saved, justified and made us sons and inheritors of His Kingdom."
O God, our Saviour! Set love on fire within us, that we might love Thee as it pleases Thee!
Are we worthy of His love, being dust and ashes? Nonetheless, He loved us.
What discontent we feel, not having love toward Him! How we suffer without Him, tossed on the waves of calamity! But even though we sometimes reject Him, He does not turn away from us. We flee Him, but He seeks us and calls us to Himself, saying: Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden (St. Matt. 11:28).
Our God! We reject Thy love, but Thou dost not cease to love us. We not infrequently accept the suggestions of satan more than Thy law. We, not sparing ourselves and our own salvation, are diligent in works of malice. And notwithstanding this, a man often says: I love God. What a contradiction! He thinks that he loves God, but does not fulfill His commandments. What kind of love is this? It is nothing but hypocrisy!
When you say: I love Christ God, then look at what He commands you: Ye should do as I have done to you (St. John 13:15).
If you love Christ God, then endure as He endured, and do all that is pleasing to Him. He taught and did. Unfailingly your love also should be such as does good, endures, is disturbed by nothing present, and in everything ever thanks Him not with words and tongue, but with very deeds. You must love Him with heart, with mind, with your whole soul, strength, and mind.
And if you love Him in this way, then listen to Isaiah who says: Will a woman forget her child, so as not to have compassion upon the offspring of her womb? But if a woman should even forget these, yet I will not forget thee, saith the Lord Almighty (Is. 49: 15).
DOCUMENTS OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH
THE SERGIANIST SCHISM OF 1927
Of the three kinds of documents that give reliable information on the Catacomb Church in the USSR (see THE ORTHODOX WORD, May-June,. page 145), the most fundamental comprises those that date from 1927-29, chiefly from leading hierarchs of that time, stating the reasons why the Orthodox Church cannot accept the "Declaration" of Metropolitan Sergius, and breaking off communion with him. The religious and moral authority of these protesting hierarchs was so high, and their arguments so Orthodox and sound, that for the future historian of the Russian Church there can scarcely be any doubt as to the rightness of their position. As for Metropolitan Sergius and his "Synod" (the present "Moscow Patriarchate"), most of these documents characterize them as perpetrators of a neo-renovationist schism in the line of the "Living Church" of the early 1920s – to which schism Metropolitan Sergius had himself belonged. Even before the "Declaration" of 1927 the clairvoyant Elder Nektary of Optina Monastery had said: "Metropolitan Sergius is a Renovationist... He has repented, but the poison is still in him."
As far as is known, all the anti-Sergianist hierarchs of 1927 were either murdered by the Soviets or died in prison or banishment, the sole "crime" of many of them being that they refused to accept Metr. Sergius "Declaration," which was published in the Soviet press and strictly enforced by the Soviet regime and its Political Police. Many of those who today, for various reasons, accept the Moscow Patriarchate as the legitimate Russian Orthodox Church, would like to believe that with the death of these bishops who founded it, the Catacomb Church itself has ceased to exist, and that therefore there is no opposition within the USSR to the Orthodoxy of the Patriarchate. But quite apart from the testimony of the recent Soviet press concerning the uncovering of Catacomb cells of "Tikhonites" or the "True Orthodox Church," the whole history of the Church of Christ has never heard of an apostate body becoming "Orthodox" simply because its Orthodox opposition has been liquidated! Therefore, since the present-day Moscow Patriarchate is the direct continuation and indeed the very creation of the Sergianist policy of 1927, the statements of the truly Orthodox bishops and faithful in 1927-29 remain as true and valid today as ever, and they speak with full force to the present Moscow hierarchy. Indeed, the one thing that shines forth from these documents of some four decades ago is the unchanging TRUTH for which their authors died, and which neither the tyranny and lie of the Communist yoke, nor all its seemingly brilliant successes abroad, can ever blot out. (Texts from the 1964 ST. VLADIMIR RUSSIAN NATIONAL CALENDAR, Jordanville, N.Y.)
1. THE SEPARATION OF HIEROTHEUS, BISHOP OF NIKOLSK
Document of January 12, 1928
TO ALL MY CO-WORKERS in the Lord's Name on the spiritual field, to the clergy and laymen of the Diocese of Ustiug: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And grant us with one mouth and one heart to glorify Thy most honorable and majestic Name.
Dear pastors and faithful children of the Orthodox Church: You know that without unity there is no salvation. The organism of the Church is one: Christ is the Head of the Church; the mouth, eyes, hands, and feet are pastors and teachers, the organs of the Church; and the body of the Church is all who believe in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The whole body moves with one spirit and is animated by one heart. A part of the body which is not nourished by the heart's blood falls away and perishes. Thus before our own eyes did the Renovationists fall away from the Church; they did not wish to be in communion with the primary person in the Church, the Most Holy Patriarch, and now they are gradually rotting away, like some useless hand or foot that has been cut off and thrown on the ground.
After the Renovationists of the "Living Church" it was the "Autocephalists" the followers of Archbishop Gregory of Ekaterinburg (Gregorians), who did not acknowledge the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter who renounced the unity of the Church. And now the unity of the Church has been broken by Metropolitan Sergius, the Substitute of Metropolitan Peter. As long as he was a faithful guardian of the Patriarchal See which was entrusted to him, the entire Church considered him its guide; but when he has undertaken arbitrary enterprises approved neither by the people of the Church nor by a Council of Bishops, and without the blessing of Metropolitan Peter then no one is obliged to follow the path of his errors.
At the time of the Renovationism of the Living Church all true children of the Church separated themselves from the Renovationist Council of 1923 and from the Living Church Synod, and gradually they united themselves around the Most Holy Patriarch and the bishops who were in ecclesiastical communion with him In the same way now Metropolitans Peter and Cyril, Metropolitans Joseph of Leningrad, Arsenius of Novgorod, and Agathangel of Yaroslavl, Bishop Arsenius Vicar of Moscow (formerly of Serpukhov, now retired), Archbishop Seraphim of Uglich, Archbishop Athanasius of Kiev, Bishops Dmitry of Gdov, Victor of Votkinsk, Seraphim formerly of Dmitriev (Zvezdinsky, retired), Irinarch of Great Ustiug, the Bishops in banishment, and many others, and likewise a group of the clergy of the capital and delegations authorized by communities of believers – all in various forms have declared to Metropolitan Sergius their disagreement with him and their separation from him.
Some of them declare that Sergius has stretched out his hands toward the Patriarchal Throne, striving to overturn it, inasmuch as in his Synod there are persons whom the Church does not trust. Others say that Sergius has introduced a political tendency into Church life (see his Declaration in Izvestia, Aug. 19, 1927). Still others indicate that Metropolitan Sergius has chosen a crooked path of diplomatic doubletalk, agreements, and compromises – as if for the salvation of the Church – and has left the straight but sorrowful path of the Cross, i.e., of patience and firmness.
Finally, he has made use of deceit, calling his Synod Orthodox and Patriarchal, while in reality its organization is a trampling down of the Church's canons: Metropolitan Peter, the Locum Tenens, did not give his approval for such a thing, it having failed to obtain the blessing of the Most Holy Patriarch himself in 1924. What the Renovationists and the Gregoriar.s could not succeed in doing – that Metropolitan Sergius very cunningly did: bound the Church to the civil authority, expressing spiritual submission to it.
The Decree on the Separation of the Church from the Government does not exist for Sergius and his followers. Therefore, for the realization of his plans Metropolitan Sergius, violating the 9th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon, even makes use of the non-ecclesiastical power.
As for me, acknowledging my responsibility before God for the flock entrusted to me, I have declared on January 10/23 of this year to Bishop Sophronius, who has been assigned to the See of Great Ustiug by (Sergius') Synod, that my flock and clergy of Nikolsk – except for the cathedral clergy, who have been rejected by the people – cannot accept him because we have separated from Sergius and from his Synod. And on the other hand I have informed Metropolitan Joseph (of Leningrad) that I canonically join to him the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, in accordance with the blessing of Vladika Irinarch, whose lawful Substitute I am at the present time for the whole Diocese of Great Ustiug.
I have had to suffer much in the way of every kind of slander and offense for my archpastoral labors for the good of the Church. If the Apostolic Canons say that clergy may do nothing without the will of their bishop, then my will expressed in the present epistle, is thereby all the more worthy of every acceptance.
Nevertheless, wishing to hear from you, dear children, that you are one in soul and one in thought with me, and likewise respecting your freedom of self-determination, I propose that my epistle be read and considered at assemblies of the faithful, so that all might know the way the matter stands and freely enter into unity with me, remaining faithful to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, Metropolitan Peter, and to the entire Orthodox Russian Church; concerning which I request you to send me a written statement.
Only the clergy of the Cathedral of the Lord's Meeting in Nikolsk, the priest from the Renovationists Sergius Aranovich (in Kudrilo), and Archpriest John Golubev (in Shango) have openly come out against me, spreading every kind of evil report, slander, and absurdity. They have written unfounded complaints against me to the Synod, and Archpriest Michael Krasov (of Vokhma) personally took these to Moscow; for which they have been prohibited from serving and are in a state of excommunication from me until they shall show sincere repentance in the form established for Renovationists, or until a complete council of bishops shall judge the case of Metr. Sergius and those who are with him (10th Canon of the Holy Apostles).
I place before you these hirelings, who see the wolf approach and flee; do not follow them, my brethren and children, but let us have before us a different example: the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Amen.
On January 12/25, 1928, I have received the reply of Metropolitan Joseph: "Govern yourselves independently. Our justification: faithfulness to Metropolitan Peter. Joseph."
Hierotheus, Bishop of Nikolsk
2. THE SEPARATION OF ARCHPRIEST VALENTIN SVENTITSKY
Document of December, 1927
To Metropolitan Sergius.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
REALIZING ALL MY responsibility before the Lord for my own soul and for the salvation of the souls of the flock entrusted to me, and R with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, I am breaking off canonical and prayerful communion with You and the council of bishops that has been organized under You, which has illegally appropriated to itself the title of "Patriarchal Synod," as well as with everyone who is in canonical communion with You; and I no longer consider You the Substitute of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, for the following reasons:
Your Declaration of July 16/29, as well as everything that is generally known of Your governance of the Church from the time of the publication of the Declaration, without any doubt establishes that You are placing the Church in that same dependence on the government in which the first two "Renovations" wished to place it, in defiance of the holy canons of the Church and the decrees of the civil authority itself.
Both the "Living Church," which seized the authority of the Patriarch, and "Gregorianism," which seized the authority of the Locum Tenens, and now You, who have abused the latter's trust – are all doing the same general anti-ecclesiastical, renovationist work; but You are the founder of the most dangerous of its forms, because while renouncing ecclesiastical freedom, at the same time You preserve the fiction of canonicity and Orthodoxy. This is worse than the violation of separate canons.
I am not creating a new schism, and I do not break the unity of the Church; I go away from and I lead my flock out of a subtle renovationist trap-lest imperceptibly and little by little we lose the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Liberator of all men, has given us as a free gift by His Own blood (8th Canon of the Third Ecumenical Council).
Remaining a faithful and obedient son of the One Holy Orthodox Church, I recognize as Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne Metropolitan Peter; I recognize also those bishops who, not arbitrarily appropriating to themselves general ecclesiastical authority, have already broken canonical ties with You, following their testimony: "until the judgement of a complete Local council," i.e., a council with the participation of all Orthodox bishops, or until the open and full repentance before the Holy Church of the Metropolitan himself.
Archpriest Valentin Sventitsky
—This document is one of many coming from the Petrograd area. Future issues will present, among others, the protests of Vicar Bp. Dimitry of Gdov and the first real head of the Catacomb Church, Metr. Joseph of Petrograd.
MARTYROLOGY OF THE COMMUNIST YOKE
Bishop Hierotheus
AND HIS FRIEND, SCHEMA-HIEROMONK SERAPHIM
THE FIRST MARTYR of the Catacomb Church, who died directly for the purity of Christ's Church at the very outbreak of impious Sergianism, was a young and zealous hierarch, well known to Patriarch Tikhon, Bishop Hierotheus (Athonik) of Nikolsk in the Diocese of Ustiug the Great, a Vicariate of Vologda. And the land of his martyrdom, the northern plains of Russia, once abundant with glorious monk-saints of the "Northern Thebaid," became once more plenteous with saints but now with martyrs and confessors of the Church of Christ.
Bishop Hierotheus was much loved and very popular among his flock. His outspokenness and his refusal to submit to Metropolitan Sergius and his new church policy or to pray for the God-hating Soviet State during church services led him to his martyr's crown. In May of 1928, when the Soviet authorities came to arrest him, the people gathered in great numbers and would not allow him to be arrested. Without further ceremony the authorities shot him in the head and killed him. Thus, falling dead into the arms of his loving flock, the hieromartyr literally fulfilled the words of Christ which he had just quoted in his own epistle to his flock (see page 282): The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. And, like a chosen sacrifice, he went straight to the Throne of God as the first heavenly intercessor of the Catacomb Church, whose members from this time forth were to undergo the cruelest sufferings and tortures, yet thereby multiplying and becoming the sole bearers of the purity of the true Orthodox Church in Russia.
Bishop Hierotheus had a young friend, Father Seraphim. The following account of his life is in the words of a relative of his, H. Kontzevitch.
"Father Seraphim was born in 1897 and was named Sergius. He spent his childhood in Petersburg, where his father, Constantine Voensky, was the chief warden of the Archives of the Ministry of Public Education and a historian. Strange to say, there was something similar between the Voensky family and the "Karamazovs" of Dostoyevsky's novel. The father of the family, having led from childhood a loose life, was light-minded, and his wife, Olga, exasperated by his behavior, was constantly at war with him, which created unpleasant scenes, so that the home atmosphere was very trying.
"This reflected adversely on the frail and sensitive boy. He early realized that his father lived at the mercy of his passions. Sergius did not wish to be like this. Therefore, he began to develop his power of will. He read books on the subject, slept on the bare floor, and even was about to try Yoga. Then one day he went to Valaam. The grandeur of the great monastery left a deep impression on him; there his soul found its home. He began to go frequently to Valaam on pilgrimage; he even talked his father into going there, where the latter by a miracle gave up smoking, which he had never been able to do. In 1917 Sergius finished Military Academy. The whirlwind of revolution scattered the members of the family: his father ended up in Malta, and Sergius and his mother found themselves in the city of Nikolsk, where they settled in the house of a priest and lived in great poverty.
"Here occurred Sergius' most significant meeting with the young Bp. Hierotheus. The bishop ordained him priest, and he served in a parish. Meanwhile the Revolution was raging and the clergy was being exterminated. Bp. Hierotheus presented Fr. Sergius to Patriarch Tikhon already as a candidate for bishop. The Patriarch called him to Moscow. He went, met the Patriarch, and on his return to Nikolsk he was arrested. In prison he underwent the usual tortures inflicted upon members of the clergy by the atheist regime. He developed tuberculosis. He was finally released from prison to 'die at home,' which in fact happened very soon, in the year 1923, when he was just 26 years old. On his deathbed his friend, Bp. Hierotheus, tonsured him in the Great Schema with the name Seraphim, and buried him with the rites of the Church.
"In 1915 I met Father Seraphim for the first time. He was then the student Sergius, a close friend of my brother, who was attending school in Petersburg. He was a short, thin young man, with dark hair, and with an extraordinarily kind and attractive face. He had beautiful, dark blue eyes. There was in him something not of this world.
"When the news came of Fr. Seraphim's death, I wrote to his father: 'Dear Uncle Kostya, How fortunate you are. You are the father of a saint! On the day of your death he will come for you and take you to that land where he is now, where there will be no more tears or sorrow, but eternal joy.'"
O Lord, grant rest to the righteous souls of thy slaves, Bishop Hierotheus and Schema-Hieromonk Seraphim, and by their prayers grant us, too, the strength to confess true Orthodoxy to our last breath. Amen.
Father Seraphim before his martyrdom.
THE FUNERAL OF A MARTYR.
A RARE GLIMPSE OF LIFE UNDER THE COMMUNIST YOKE.
Bishop Hierotheus performs the funeral service for his friend. As the young Father Seraphim lies in his coffin, unrecognizable from the sufferings undergone during his imprisonment, his mother and local peasant friends bid farewell to his earthly remains.
The Orthodox Word No. 35
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