A sermon preached at St. Silouan of Athos Chapel at St. Gregory of Sinai Monastery on April 6, 2014, by Hieromonk Parthenius, with the blessing of His Grace, Bishop Sergios of Portland, Igoumenos of the Monastery.

Epistle: Heb 9:11-14
Gospel: Mark 10:32-45

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Great Lent is drawing to a close. And as Great Lent is a struggle over a certain span of time, so too our lives. The span of life given us is a struggle, and does not last forever. Man does not go on living this life forever, for “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgement.” [1] At the end of our lives, will we be disappointed when we realize we did not struggle hard enough? Last week, we heard of the Ladder of Divine Ascent. Will we be disappointed to realize that in  climbing up the Ladder of Divine Ascent, we did not reach the heights we should have? When we ask ourselves those final, soul-searching questions, will we have a good answer?

Our focus these past few weeks has been to use this brief span of time of Great Lent to prepare ourselves to worship the sacred and soul saving events of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, which begin next week. At this point we ask ourselves some final questions: “Have I made any progress? Am I more on track spiritually than I was before?” Or perhaps we can even answer that, much to our surprise, we have made some spiritual progress. Then the question becomes, “How do I know I will keep what has been given me? How do I know that I will not become again negligent and lose what was gathered?” If we have made any progress over the past few weeks, will we be able to keep it going?

We hope in God that we can continue our spiritual progress, our struggle, and at the same time we harbor serious doubts, because we know ourselves all too well. We don’t trust ourselves. We are always excusing ourselves because of human weakness. Or perhaps we set limits for ourselves that are no real limits. We can do more, but we don’t want to “overload” ourselves. We forget what is at stake. We forget what God, in His infinite compassion, has done for us.

Our Lord Jesus emptied Himself for us sinners. He poured out His blood in order that we may be purified, healed of our passions that so easily sidetrack us, and give up our sinful ways.

Today’s Epistle reading says that we must have our conscience purged. It tells us that salvation comes from the blood of our Lord. “By His own blood he [entered in once into the holy place, having] obtained eternal redemption for us.” The epistle goes on to say that the Blood of Christ can purge our conscience from dead works, to serve the Living God.”

Dead works – a Living God. We cannot serve the Living God with “dead works,” that is, with sins. Our sins make us sick, make us dead, make us abnormal. Our dead works – our sins – separate us from God, Who creates out of nothing all that is. They propel us toward non-being, toward nothingness, and, contrary to what the world might say, do not make us “more human” or “more real.” Our dead works do not make us more real. They make us less real, abnormal, sick. They make us unfit to receive that true love that only comes from God.

We need spiritual healing. We need our conscience purged and purified of the results of evil desire; then we need to have a healthy desire for things pleasing to God.

The fathers teach that we get sick with the dead works of sins because our desire is sick. You might say it is malfunctioning. St. Paul describes this malady in his letter to the Romans when, in humility, he puts himself in the place of one so afflicted and says, for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.[2] We want to do what is right, but we are always falling down. It seems nature is compelling us to do dead works, things unworthy of the God we serve. Our desire is sick. We desire the wrong things. How do we heal this capacity we have to desire so that we desire what is pleasing to God?

Two examples of unhealthy desire are set before us today. The first occurs in today’s gospel. Christ and his disciples are going up to Jerusalem. Now the disciples are away from the bustle of crowds, the Teacher is speaking to them, and they have Him all to themselves. Christ speaks of the events of His Passion, how in Jerusalem the Chief Priests and Scribes will judge him and deliver him to the Gentiles, who will put him to death. But then, on the third day, He will arise from the dead. The scripture records that the disciples “were amazed.” What is this that He is saying? Isn’t there a new kingdom coming? Won’t the Teacher be that new King who will save them from the tyranny of the Romans? Death and then resurrection? What is all this? Not only does the Scripture say that the disciples were “amazed” but also that they were “afraid.” They did not find these words comforting.

Nevertheless, and rather surprisingly, we hear of two disciples – the brothers John and James – who have an unhealthy desire. Despite the awesome words they have all just heard of the coming Passion of our Lord Jesus,  they form a strong desire to have the preeminence over their brother disciples. In the earthly kingdom they think Christ will soon raise up, they want to have the positions of honor, one on the left, and one on the right, of the Master. In St. Matthew’s gospel, it is revealed that the mother of the disciples had asked Jesus to give special honor to her sons in this way. (“That’s just like a Jewish mother,” a Jewish convert to Orthodoxy once told me.) The other ten disciples are indignant when they learn of the two wanting to have power over them.

Before the Resurrection, before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we see how imperfect the disciples were then. We see how they stood in need of healing of soul. The Son of Man explains to them gently what it means to be a servant of Christ. 

In the world, the power structure can be illustrated by a triangle. In the middle of the triangle are managers. The managers have authority over the many beneath them. But above the managers are the senior managers, and the senior managers rule over the managers, and so on, to the top of the triangle.  In the Church, however, this power structure is inverted. Now the many at the bottom are on top, and the few at the top are now at the bottom,  for Christ says, “ whoever is great among you, shall be your minister.” “For the Son of Man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life as a ransom for the many.” 

The whole of Great Lent, we have been praying the Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. “O Lord and Master of my life,” we have been praying, “ a spirit of ambition give me not.” The spirit of ambition is a bad desire to lord it over the brethren. Yet Christ teaches that Christian Leaders should think of themselves as servants of fellow servants. 

When our desire is healed, therefore, we will desire what is best for others, not ourselves. “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister…”

The second example of unhealthy desire set before us today comes from St. Mary of Egypt, whose synaxis we are celebrating. St. Zosimas meets up with St. Mary in the desert. St. Zosimas’ prayer to God was that he would be shown a monk practicing extreme asceticism leading to enlightenment. He wondered if there was any monk who had surpassed him in his ascetical endeavor. And here this saint he meets, who lives like one without a body, who prays suspended in the air, who is clairvoyant and by the Spirit knows many things, this woman, not a monk, becomes his unexpected answer to prayer. He begs to know her story, how it was that she came to the desert, and how it was that God visited her and made her holy. Was she from a convent? A virgin who had been in the deserts since she was young? What was her story?

St. Mary warns St. Zosimas that the story of her past is not an edifying one. St. Zosimas resolutely  disagrees. He wants the truth and he begs her for it. 

Then almost reluctantly, we hear the sad tale of the past life of St. Mary. We hear how she followed her fleshly desires from her teenage years, always doing what would please her flesh without the least regard to God’s law. The more she followed her desires, the more she attempted to satisfy her insatiable passions, the more she tried to  fulfill the lusts of her soul, the sicker her soul became.

Later, in her life of repentance in the desert, her unhealthy desires followed her. She calls them “mad desires:”

Believe me, Abba, seventeen years I passed in this desert fighting wild beasts -- mad desires and passions. 

So in the desert, St. Mary had unhealthy desires that urged her on to dead works, even though she had come to the desert to serve the Living God. Let us hear how she dealt with her “mad desires.” Let us hear how her soul became well.

But when such desires entered me I struck myself on the breast and reminded myself of the vow which I had made, when going into the desert. In my thoughts I returned to the ikon of the Mother of God which had received me and to her I cried in prayer. I implored her to chase away the thoughts to which my miserable soul was succumbing. And after weeping for long and beating my breast I used to see light at last which seemed to shine on me from everywhere. And after the violent storm, lasting calm descended.

For many years in the desert, St. Mary struggled and cried out to God and the Mother of God. She wept and beat her breast. She followed the holy Prophet King David who says,

I will pour out before Him my supplication, mine affliction before Him will I declare.[3]

And taking pity on her, God granted her His peace, that peace which passes all understanding.[4]And in this way, her desire was healed. By violently forcing herself, by pouring out her heart to God and His Most Pure Mother,  her desire for dead works went away. She was healed, and desired those things “good and profitable for the soul.” She desired God with all her heart. She gained much spiritual progress, and she continued to ascend to the heights. She climbed steadily up the Ladder of Divine Ascent and did not waver, because she was firm in her purpose. In solitude, she struggled, fasted and prayed. She remained steadfast, because God gave her a new desire that replaced her “mad desires,”  which went away, and the sickness left her. She became a new creation and desired, with all her heart, the things of God. 

As St. Silouan the Athonite says,

The soul that has come to know God fully no longer desires anything else, nor does it attach itself to anything on the earth; and if you put before it a kingdom, it would not desire it, for the love of God gives such sweetness and joy to the soul that even the life of a king can no longer give it any sweetness.[5]

So why is it that we cannot desire the things of God as we should? Why cannot our true and fervent desire be to love God and our neighbor, to pray, to fast, to do those things which are pleasing in the sight of God? Why are we given to thoughts not becoming a Christian, and to saying or doing things we later regret? In short, why can’t we find healing from God?

Our answer surely must be that we just don’t try hard enough. We need to make a beginning. Let us consider today how St. Mary of Egypt changed, how her life received a new beginning.

She found herself in Jerusalem, and she desired, along with the great crowds that were there, to worship the Life-giving Cross of the Lord. But as she tried to enter the Church, an invisible force restrained her. But notice that she did not give up. She had, for once, a good desire. She wanted to worship the Holy Cross with the People of God--but though she tried again and again, she was denied entry to the holy temple. Then, she observed an icon of the Mother of God, and she said with tears,

“O Lady, Mother of God, who gave birth in the flesh to God the Word, I know, O how well I know, that it is no honour or praise to thee when one so impure and depraved as I look up to thy ikon, O ever-virgin, who didst keep thy body and soul in purity. Rightly do I inspire hatred and disgust before thy virginal purity. But I have heard that God Who was born of thee became man in order to call sinners to repentance. Then help me, for I have no other help. Order the entrance of the church to be opened to me. Allow me to see the venerable Tree on which He Who was born of thee suffered in the flesh and on which He shed His holy Blood for the redemption of sinners and for me, unworthy as I am. Be my faithful witness before thy son that I will never again defile my body by the impurity of fornication, but as soon as I have seen the Tree of the Cross I will renounce the world and its temptations and will go wherever thou wilt lead me.”

Thereafter, her request was granted, and she entered the church freely. The unseen force that had been preventing her, now ushered her in. She venerated the Precious Wood of the Cross with the other Christians there, visited all the holy places of Jerusalem, then strengthened and fortified, made her way to her new life of repentance across the River Jordan.

From St. Mary of Egypt’s new beginning, we observe how we can make ours. We try to do better and fail. We fall and pick ourselves up. But in order to begin the healing that comes from repentance, we need to cry out to God and to the Most Holy Mother of God.

It is very fitting at this time to think of the All-holy one, the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary. When St. Mary of Egypt was in Jerusalem, we see how readily the Mother of God carried the prayer of St. Mary to the attention of the Lord Jesus. We see how many times in the desert, St. Mary was aided by the All-holy one’s prayers to God. By the intercessions of the Theotokos, St. Mary was rescued from a life of sin and ruin. She will rescue us as well. 

We had the privilege here at St. Gregory’s of a beautiful Service of the Akathist Hymn on Friday night. And now, tonight, we will have a vigil for the Annunciation, and again we will hymn the Most Pure Mother of God.

The Mother of God takes pity on us sinners. Have dead works sickened us? Are we sad? Are we despondent? Do we feel like our prayer is not being heard? Are we having trouble establishing a good desire to pray? Are we always falling into sin? Do we need to make a new beginning?

At these low points, it is high time to call on the Mother of God! She loves and cares for the most desperate sinners, and she will tenderly care for you and I. And not only the Most Holy Mother of God, but all the saints, the angels, our guardian angel, our patron saint: all are waiting for us to ask them for help. This is how we make a beginning: asking for help from God’s holy ones. 

The Mother of God helped St. Mary of Egypt and she can help me and she can help you. Let us remember this.

For, as Great Lent is drawing to a close now, and we are losing unique opportunities to reset our spiritual life, so one day will the end draw nigh for every one of us here today. It may not seem fitting to talk about a new beginning at the end of Great Lent, but especially in the case of the spiritual life, it is better late than never. The last hour of our life draws continually closer.

May that hour find us ready, our conscience purged and purified, with a good and healthy desire to experience God’s love, having put to death the dead works of sin, ready to stand in the presence of the Living God. 

Amen.

[1] Heb 9:27
[2] Rom 7:15
[3] Psalm 141:2
[4] Phi 4:7
[5] St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, IX.13

Some current advocates of the Name Worship heresy have cited Saint Gregory Palamas as a witness in favor of the “theology” underlying Name Worship.[4]  But it turns out that Saint Gregory Palamas’ actual view of the theological significance of names is on record in his Collected Writings, and his stated view can not by any stretch of the imagination be tortured into offering any support for the Name Worship heresy.  We offer this quote for any who remain perplexed by the recent dredging-up of the heresy of Name Worship, who may find Saint Gregory’s clear statement helpful:

Gregoras[5] formulated the insane doctrine that the names are the divine energies.[6]

Far from being a compelling patristic voice in favor of Name Worship, Saint Gregory Palamas in fact demolishes the foundation of the Name Worship heresy.  And this in turn raises a disturbing question regarding the Name Worship heresy’s current advocates:  the question of their ethical standards.[7]

Are they, in their search for a theological vindication of the Name Worship heresy, willing to engage in the dubious ethics of The End Justifies the Means - coupled with the ethically cynical, and theologically self-contradictory view that It’s all right to lie - if lying serves one’s agenda?  After all, the citing of Saint Gregory Palamas as a witness in favor of the heresy of Name Worship - when Saint Gregory’s stated view in fact negates the heresy of Name Worship at its very foundation - can hardly be viewed as having any place in honest discussion.

Which school of spiritual life is it that has ever, anywhere, endorsed such a thing?  Which Father of the Church is it who has ever advocated such unworthy behavior?

One is left with the disturbing thought that the partisans of the heresy of Name Worship are far more indebted to the gospel of Macchiaveli than they are to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

After all, how can the God Who is Truth ever be served by any lie?  Anyone?

And on this very question, it is Saint Gregory Palamas himself who, again, offers a clear, cogent and compelling word: 

For those who belong to the Church of Christ belong to the Truth, and those who do not belong to the Truth do not belong to the Church of Christ either [ . . . ] Christianity is characterized not by persons, but by the truth and by exactness in Faith.[8]

No comment is needed.

+Bishop Sergios of Portland[9]

[1] Name Worship was condemned by the then-Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate under Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople in 1912; his successor Patriarch Germanos V condemned it again in 1913 (Charter No. 758 addressed to Mount Athos, Feb. 15.) The Russian Holy Synod condemned it in 1913 on the basis of a review of Name Worship led by Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitsky) (see Synodal Letter of May 18 and Decree of August 27, No. 7644). It was condemned again by the Russian Synod in 1918 in a decree signed by the Holy Confessing Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow (+1925) and his Synod. Note that Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitsky’s) conclusions were supported by St Barsanuphios of Optina Monastery and by the monks of Glinsk Hermitage. See the well-documented essay on Name Worship in Orthodox England, at <orthodoxengland.org.uk/nameworship.htm>, See also the excellent summary of the name worship heresy at <http://www.hotca.org/orthodoxy/theological-texts/342-the-name-worshipping-heresy>.

[2] For an analysis of HOCNA’s role in the resuscitation of Name Worship see <http://onimyaslavie.blogspot.com/2012/09/analysis-of-statement-of-hocna-hierarchs.html>.

[3] For an analysis of (among other things) sophiology and name worship, see The Idea of Energy in the Moscow School of Christian Neoplatonism, at <http://synergia-isa.ru/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/hor_idea_energy.pdf.> by the truly brilliant Russian writer, Sergey Horujy (or Khorujy).

[4] The best evaluation known to this writer of this claim regarding Saint Gregory Palamas is the essay Smokescreens for Heresy, by Hieromonk Maximos (Maretta) of Ascension Monastery, Bearsville, New York, which can be found at <http://onimyaslavie.blogspot.com/2012/09/smokescreens-for-heresy.html>.

[5] Gregoras was one of the main Greek opponents of Saint Gregory Palamas during that Saint’s brilliant defense of Orthodoxy in the face of a major assault carried out primarily by Barlaam the Calabrian. For a recent discussion of Saint Gregory Palamas’ work, with references to his opponents, see chapter 3, Hesychasm and Deification by Grace Through Union with Christ, in God Made Man and Man Made God, by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna, Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2010. Gregoras is discussed at pp. 79, 95, 101-104, and 127.

[6] Ὁ δὲ Γρηγορᾶς νομιίσας τοῦτον φάναι κατά χρόνον προϋφεστηκέναι τὴν θείαν φύσιν τῶν ενεργειῶν, τὰ ὀνόματα εἶναι τὰς θείας ὲνεργείας φρενοβλαβῶς ἐδογμάτισεν. Saint Gregory Palamas, Discourses II, 28: 5-6, in Collected Works [Συγγραμματα], volume 4, page 286, ed. by P. Chrestou, Thessaloniki, 1988. We thank His Grace, Bishop Demetrios of Boston (now, Metropolitan-Elect of New York and President-Elect of the North American Eparchial Synod of the GOC), for sending us this reference (found by Hieromonk Haralampos of Ascension Monastery in Bearsville, New York).

[7] See also the reference cited above at footnote 4.

[8] Καὶ γὰρ οἱ τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀληθείας εἰσί·  καὶ οἱ μὴ τῆς ἀληθείας ὄντες οὐδὲ τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκκλησίας εἰσί . . . μηδὲ γὰρ προσώποις τὸν χριστιανισμόν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ ἀκριβείᾳ πίστεως χαρακτηρίζεσθαι μεμυήμεθα. “Refutation of the Letter of Patriarch Ignatios of Antioch”, in Γρηγορίου τοῦ Παλαμά, Ἂπαντα τὰ Ἔργα 3, Πατερικαι Εκδοσεις <Γρηγόριος ὁ Παλαμάς, Thessaloniki, 1983, Section 3: 5 - 11,  p. 608

[9] This writer is grateful for a number of suggestions that have improved the text of this essay, among them His Eminence, Metropolitan Demetrios of New York, Primate of the GOC in North America; His Eminence, Metropolitan Moses of Toronto, Reverend Fathers Haralampos (via Metropolitan Demetrios), Maximos, and Ignatios - all members of the Brotherhood of Ascension Monastery in New York State. The author reserves exclusive responsibility for errors to himself.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and his Synod have issued a special Encyclical for the Sunday of Orthodoxy [Protocol #213] in which he takes vehement issue with those whose opposition to the contemporary phenomenon of syncretist ecumenism is based, he claims, on their opposition to dialogue and to the reunion of Christians. 

He writes that their opposition is rooted in fear ("truth does not fear dialogue").  

The full text of his Encyclical can be found on that Patriarchate's website, www.patriarchate.org/documents/sunday-orthodoxy-2010.

In fact the Encyclical could have been entitled, "In Defence of Dialogue", the term dialogue occurring some twenty times through the text of Patriarch Bartholomew's Encyclical.  Clearly, Patriarch Bartholomew wants us to believe that ecumenism consists of nothing more than having conversations with other people.  As anyone familiar with the field knows, this is misleading to say the least.

This writer's preliminary reaction to this strongly-worded Encyclical was one of surprise.  Who are these people who refuse to countenance dialogue with heterodox Christians and non-Christians?

Patriarch Bartholomew minces no words in his characterisation of these anti-dialogists:  they have "challenged [these dialogues] in an unacceptably fanatical way".  

They are members of "certain circles that exclusively claim for themselves the title of zealot and defender of Orthodoxy"; they constitute a group of "opponents of every effort for the restoration of unity among Christians" and in their opposition, raise themselves "above Episcopal Synods of the Church to the dangerous point of creating schisms within the Church".  

Their work consists of "polemical argumentation" undertaken by "critics of the restoration of unity among Christians" and they "do not hesitate to distort reality in order to deceive and arouse the faithful".  They disseminate "false rumours that union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches [sic] is imminent".  

They are an example of irresponsible "fanaticism" and "bigotry".  

The targets of Patriarch Bartholomew's vehement denunciation are likely all those who have written (or have signed) documents currently circulating in Greece and throughout the Orthodox world, most notably theConfession of Faith Against Ecumenism (full text can be found at http://oodegr.com/english/oikoumenismos/omologia_pistews.htm among other places) which is evidently recruiting more signatories daily.  One must stress that the authors and signers of these Confessions arenot Old-Calendarists.  They are members - often prominent members - of Patriarch Bartholomew's own Church.  They may be dissidents; but they are insiders in dissension.

These Confessions of Faith take sharp issue with syncretist ecumenism as currently practiced by Patriarch Bartholomew and the incumbents of all the historic Patriarchates who are embodied members of syncretist ecumenism's chief institutional expression, the World and regional Councils of Churches.  

As of this writing, literally hundreds of monastic leaders, including Athonites (who fall directly under Patriarch Bartholomew's jurisdiction - he is their Patriarch!) as well as clergy and lay leaders, academics and theologians, throughout Greece and the wider Orthodox world, have actually signed their names to these anti-ecumenist statements.

And if they are indeed the intended targets of Patriarch Bartholomew's denunciatory language, two things come to mind.  

First, these anti-ecumenist statements clearly are not directed against dialogue with anybody. 

Second, it is surely curious that in an Encyclical devoted to the cause of dialogue above all else, Patriarch Bartholomew opts to not dialogue with members of his own constituency who are alienated by his approach to syncretist ecumenism but instead, subjects them to sustained invective (calling them bigots, fanatics, unacceptable, creators of schisms within the Church, polemicists, critics of unity, distorters of reality, deceivers bent on arousing the faithful, sources of false rumours and so on - quite a list, actually).

And since Patriarch Bartholomew's targets appear to be his own sons and daughters, canonically-speaking, and since they do not appear in fact to be attacking his ecumenist program because it involves dialogue, there would seem to be grounds to suspect that in focusing his (and his hearers') attention ondialogue Patriarch Bartholomew is sending out a red herring.  And the question always is, when this is the case, Why?  From what is the red herring meant to distract our attention?

That this group of traditionally-minded people - who clearly reject ecumenism - find themselves targeted by Patriarch Bartholomew's surprisingly abusive language enables us to see just how disturbing the ecumenist Patriarchates find this internal opposition, and how forcefully Patriarch Bartholomew has thrown down the gauntlet with respect to the conscientious objection to syncretist ecumenism on the part of a growing body of traditionalists who are willing to see their names publicly associated with a point of view sharply dismissed by the Patriarch of Constantinople as an instance of bigotry, fanaticism, schism-making and a failure to manifest Christian love.  It is quite an exercise.

But the fact is that I cannot remember any instance in which conservative members of the historic Patriarchates decry dialogue with non-orthodox people.  I can remember any number of instances in which conservative members of the historic, and now ecumenist Patriarchates have initiated dialogue with non-orthodox persons, above all on a personal or local level.  

I also recall that the great bone of contention for conservative Orthodox who find themselves under the canonical oversight of ecumenist Hierarchs is largely confined to those practices (by now routine) which place Orthodox delegates to ecumenist assemblies in the position of contradicting clearly-written and pragmatically-based canons which cover situations in which Orthodox and non-Orthodox people are in contact with one another - all those questions of joint, common prayer and worship, for example, or, in more dire cases, joint, common sharing of the Church's Mysteries, or of the sacraments of non-Orthodox communions.  

These matters were supposedly resolved at a conference which took place in Thessaloniki, in May, 1998, as I recall.  

There, representatives of the historic (and ecumenist) Patriarchates met, discussed, and agreed to forfeit such anti-canonical practices in the future.  As I recall, the next World Council of Churches assembly was in Harare, in Africa, and a large number - a majority, as I recall - of the representatives of those Patriarchates at Harare opted to break the promises they had made at Thessaloniki, and participated in the World Council's usual round of joint, common prayer and worship.  Business as usual, the considered decrees of oecumenical and regional councils of Hierarchs sacrificed to the ecumenist imperative.  

So blatant was the breaking of their own promises that a Greek Bishop, questioned about the matter at the time, opined that the various Patriarchates and their delegations obviously did not feel bound by the promises given at the Thessaloniki summit!  Well, what does one say to something like this?

At least one thing is clear - Patriarch Bartholomew, confronted by the continuing vitality of traditional and therefore anti-ecumenist points of view within the ranks of his own constituency, is now so frustrated that he abandons dialogue, and resorts to the extraordinary invective which we find him visiting on the heads of his own traditionalist constituents in this Encyclical!

Having apparently been forced to forfeit dialogue among his own people so spectacularly, one has to ask if an ecumenist dialogue that has blatantly failed to convince a significant group of those within has much chance of success among those without?

Patriarch Bartholomew, finally, suggests that those who oppose his approach to ecumenism lack love.  

I think that his opponents would likely point out that they demonstrate a love of Truth, and in that demonstration, offer a substantive, compassionate and durable love to their neighbours.  

This speaking the truth with love [Ephesians 4:14] is of course non-negotiable for true Orthodox Christians.  Truth without love is something other than truth, as love without truth is something other than love.  Each occurs when the other is present; each without the other is something less than itself.  

Although the question of truth rarely comes up in Patriarch Bartholomew's Sunday of Orthodoxy Encyclical, of course that question is at the heart of the matter for traditionalists under the canonical oversight of the historic (and currently entirely ecumenist) Patriarchates, as among us confessing Orthodox Christians living under the canonical oversight of non-ecumenist Hierarchs.  

To the extent that Patriarch Bartholomew's Sunday of Orthodoxy Encyclical this year clarifies these issues more sharply than he has done in the past, to that extent we welcome it and thank him for the clarification.

+Bishop Sergios of Loch Lomond
Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2010

Attention has recently been drawn to the fate of mankind after death.

As we approach the Sunday of The Second Coming of Christ, popularly known as “Meatfare”, we will hear one of the Saviour’s parables when the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 25: 31-46, is read:

When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye fed Me: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? when saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me nothing to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, or in prison, and ye visited Me not. Then shall they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee? Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The indispensable Explanation of the Gospels by Saint Theofylaktos of Ochrid which we now have in an excellent English edition of 4 volumes (published by Chrysostom Press, Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel, www.chrysostompress.org), draws attention, in its comments on this parable, to the “gentleness”, fruitfulness and utility of sheep; and to the precipitous, unruly and fruitless character of goats.

Saint Theofylaktos refers to the fact that heaven and hell, as ultimate fates, are not assigned until God has judged the individual (The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, p. 219, volume 1 of the above-cited series) - thus avoiding any soteriology smacking of predestination. And he goes on to give the rationale for this judgement: For He loves mankind and teaches us to do the same as well, not to punish until we have made a careful examination. (Op. cit. 219).

And given God’s loving fairness in all this, . . . those who are punished after the judgement will have no cause for complaint. (Ibid. p. 219).

Saint Theofylaktos notes that the fire to which the damned are consigned is the fire prepared for the devil(Ibid. p. 220). For as the demons are without compassion and are cruelly and maliciously disposed towards us, it is fitting that they who are of like mind with them, and who have been cursed by their own deeds, should merit the same punishment. See that God did not prepare the fire for men, nor did He make hell for us, but for the devil; but I make myself liable to hell.

It is striking that both the saved and the damned are surprised to find themselves in their respective circumstance (Then shall the righteous answer . . . when saw we Thee . . . . ? Then shall they [the damned]also answer Him saying . . . when saw we Thee . . . . ?)

The God-Man answers by referring both the saved and the damned to the deeds that characterized their relationship to others over the course of their life on earth, disclosing that in dealing righteously or sinfully with others they were all along dealing righteously or sinfully with the God-Man, Jesus Christ Himself!

Here the Saviour makes clear the distinction between that which is of God, and our own contemporary secular-hedonistic culture, presided over as it is by - inter alia - the French atheist-existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who famously wrote L’enfer, c’est les autres (“Hell is other people”).

Nothing could contradict the word of the Word of God more clearly than Sartre’s terrible observation: for us, “other people” are literally the means of our salvation! Thus the evangelical equation, How we have lived earthly = how we will live eternally.

There is another Gospel in which our Saviour, the God-Man Jesus Christ, speaks of the fate of those who have died. Saint Luke records the Lord’s parable of the Rich Man and Poor Lazaros (Saint Luke, 16:19-31).

And there was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain poor man named Lazaros, who was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the poor man died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazaros in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazaros, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazaros evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

The lesson is the same. He who is indifferent to the plight of the “least of these My brethren” has no place in the bosom of Abraham, that is, in eternal life experienced as paradise.

There is a great gulf fixed between eternity as paradise and eternity as hell. And when the rich man, in torment, remembers his living brothers and asks Saint Abraham to send Lazaros back to earth, to warn them of the fate awaiting them, Saint Abraham refuses: the Rich Man’s living brothers have Scripture, and they must heed it.

The Rich Man disputes this with St. Abraham (!) and tells him (! !) that if one were to go to his brothers from the dead, then they will repent. But Saint Abraham has the last word in this unequal conversation (! ! !): If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

In addition to providing irrefutable scriptural evidence for the fact of intercessory prayer to the saints - the message conveyed is as clear as it is sobering.

The question also arises, naturally in a pluralist society, what will be the fate of those who are not members of the Body of Christ on earth, and there is of course that instructive word from Saint Paul the Apostle to the Nations in Romans 2: 11-16:

For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law: (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

The emphasis is on what is done (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified) throughout a man’s life.

Saint Paul leaves the matter of the fate of men to the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. Man’s fate is in the hands of God, where it belongs.

In 1 Timothy, 2:1-4, the Apostle to the Nations remarks I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

We trust God to know how to propose Himself to everyman, in a manner both effective and respectful of man’s freedom, because His own will is that all men . . . be saved.

We pray for all. At the time Saint Paul instructed Saint Timothy to pray for kings, and for all that are in authority he was referring to the Roman Empire, officially pagan and legally bound to the worship of daemons.

And yet, one prayed for them. One had to pray for them. That was part of the essential responsibility of Christians for others, it was the right way to live out one’s days on this infested earth. The rest is up to God. We do not always know what God will do, nor why. We most certainly do know what we must do, and why.

Saint John Chrysostomos commented on this section of Scripture - as always, remarkably:

And if we are commanded to pray for our neighbors, not only for the faithful, but for the unbelieving also, consider how wrong it is to pray against your brethren. What? Has He commanded you to pray for your enemies, and do you pray against your brother? But your prayer is not against him but against yourself. For you provoke God by uttering those impious words, ”Show him the same!” “So do to him!” “Smite him!” “Recompense him!” Far be such words from you the disciple of Christ, who should be meek and mild. From the mouth that has been vouchsafed such holy Mysteries, let nothing bitter proceed. Let not the tongue that has touched the Lord’s Body utter anything offensive, let it be kept pure, let not curses be borne upon it. For if “revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10) much less those who curse. For he that curses must be injurious; and injuriousness and prayer are at variance with each other, cursing and praying are far apart, accusation and prayer are wide asunder. Do you propitiate God with prayer, and then utter imprecations? If you forgive not, you will not be forgiven. (Matthew 6:15) But instead of forgiving, you beseech God not to forgive; what excessive wickedness is this! If the unforgiving is not forgiven, he that prays his Lord not to forgive, how shall he be forgiven? The harm is to yourself, not him. For though your prayers were on the point of being heard for yourself they would never be accepted in such a case, as offered with a polluted mouth. For surely the mouth that curses is polluted with all that is offensive and unclean.(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 13, First Series, p. 427, Hendrickson Publishers, 1999).

One always feels, in reading Saint John Chrysostomos, just how radical the Christian revolution was in its encounter with the hedonistic paganism of the Roman Empire.

In addition to his Mysteriological emphasis - the centrality of the eucharist in the life of Christians - Saint John Chrysostomos continues to stress the behaviour (interior as well as exterior) of the confessing Christian especially in his relationships with others - the list of what is at variance . . . what is far apart . . . what iswide asunder - in the actual life of confessing Christians grips our attention. We see how deeply provoked Saint John is by the wide horizon of Scripture, as the comprehensive, the catholic documentation of the Saviour’s actual words, forming the context of the liturgical evangelism of the Church throughout space and time.

And when we fail the “other” - The harm is to yourself, not him! To that fundamental truth, all ourremembering of death must remain faithful!

And Scripture must be present not merely as the normative content of our answers to the great questions, it must also be present as the criterion by which we frame the question to begin with. Ask the wrong question - only wrong answers will be found; equally, ask the question wrongly, and the result will be similarly askew.

In placing Scripture at the heart of our attention as we ponder the universe and our place within it, we remainanchored in God.

And in placing Scripture at the heart of the matter, we are always following the Fathers.

+Sergios, Suffragan Bishop of Loch Lomond
The Sunday of the Second Coming of Christ, called Meatfare 2010

Saint Gregory of Sinai was born around 1265, and reposed on November 27/December 10, 1346.  He was thus an older contemporary of Saint Gregory Palamas, who was born in 1296 and reposed in 1359.  This year the monastery celebrated its altar feast with the help of visiting Protopsaltis John Presson from the Portland Cathedral, whose mastery of Byzantine chant enriched the community's offering of prayer and worship on this high feast.  We were moved by and grateful for the presence of quite a number of pilgrims this year whose presence multiplied our joy.  

The writings of Saint Gregory of Sinai have not received the intense academic interest enjoyed by his younger monastic contemporary, Saint Gregory Palamas, but his basic writings are available in volume 4 of Faber's Philokalia  (212-286) with a brief introductory note (207-211).  Kallistos Ware (titular Metropolitan of Diokleia, Ecumenical Patriarchate) wrote a short essay The Jesus Prayer is St Gregory of Sinai, and another British academic, David Balfour, presented Saint Gregory's Discourse on the Transfiguration in an edited version with English translation, in successive issues of Theologia, printed as a single book by Borgo Press in 1989.  A recent (2004) book in modern Greek by Aggeliki Delikari studies the slavonic translation of Saint Gregory's works (Agios Grigorios o Sinaitis: I Drasi kai i Symvoli Tou sti Diadosi tou Isichasmou sta Valkania).  Among the questions that interest modern academics is whether or not the two great hesychasts, Gregory of Sinai and Gregory Palamas, were in contact with one another.

All those who feel jarred and distracted by the confusions of the 21st century will be consoled by the life of Saint Gregory of Sinai.  Born and raised in early youth near Klazomenai, in Asia Minor, he was captured by marauding Moslem pirates with his family and other Greek townsmen and held for ransom.  While in detention he was noted for his ability as a chanter by the Christian worshippers living under Moslem rule.  Once ransomed he seems to have left his family - although still young - and to have gone to Cyprus, where he became a rassoforos monk (the first grade of monastic profession) and then moved on to Sinai where he was tonsured as a fully-professed monk (hence his title, of Sinai, although he spent comparatively little time in Sinai).  There is today a small kelli (one-room monastic cabin) at some distance from the great monastery of Saint Katherine dedicated to Saint Gregory, and the contemporary local view is that he moved to this small hermitage and spent some time there.  Whatever the case, for those who love the Saint it is a very moving experience indeed to stand in the wonderful katholikon of Saint Katherine's on Sinai and consider that he stood in the same building seeing the same great ikonographic program that impresses itself on worshippers today, centering on the great mosaic of the Saviour's Transfiguration filling the eastern apse of the temple.

He moved on to Crete where a monk Arsenios taught him (evidently for the first time) about the guarding of the nous, true watchfulness and pure prayer as his biographer and disciple, the Holy Patriarch Kallistos I of Constantinople wrote in his biography of his beloved Elder.

From Crete Saint Gregory moved on to Mount Athos, probably around 1300, when he would have been about 35.  He did not enroll in one of the great ruling monasteries, but in a remote skete, named Magoula, the ruins of which can still be seen about a half-hour's walk eastward from the modern ruling monastery, Philotheou.  Not much is left of Magoula, but again the ruins bear powerfully upon any who are devoted to Saint Gregory.

Saint Gregory was to live for about a quarter of a century in this place until, around 1325-1328 Moslem piratic incursions became so intrusive and distracting that those seeking solitude and its peace and silence opted to move away from the Holy Mountain (rather than into one of the strongly-fortified ruling monasteries).    He attempted a return at some point in the 1330's but soon abandoned the idea of living on Athos altogether.

Saint Gregory ended his life beyond the borders of the Empire of the New Rome, in a place called Paroria in the Strandzha Mountains overlooking the Black Sea, safely within the borders of the Bulgarian Empire whose Emperor, John Alexander, was devoted to monasticism and its practitioners.  Emperor John Alexander provided not only a monastic facility, but dedicated a number of villages to Saint Gregory's community - the basis of monastic economic life in that era - and provided, in addition, a military guard sufficient to ward off Moslem intrusions.  One must note that Moslems were not Saint Gregory's only problem:  monks in the Strandzha Mountains were moved to jealousy by the imperial patronage given to Saint Gregory's monastery, as also by the high esteem in which the Saint was held by numbers of Christians from far and near, and these envious neighbours stirred up no end of hardships for Saint Gregory and his community.  Time, however, was on the side of the Parorian community, and by the time of Saint Gregory's death, his community counted large numbers of Greek- and Slav-speaking monks, some of whom were to play high and prominent roles in the life of the Church both in Constantinople and in the Slavic areas of the Balkans, and who were to constitute the core of what has been called the 'hesychast international'.

Saint Gregory seems to have played no role at all in the polemics of the era, in which Saint Gregory Palamas defended the practice of hesychast prayer and spiritual life against attacks both by Barlaam of Calabria (acting as a representative of western theological principles) and by a number of Orthodox Christian theologians equally uncomfortable with the assertions of articulate hesychasts, who were emboldened by an experience that was personal and clearly overwhelming, although the Greek-speaking opponents had somewhat different presuppositions at work in their polemical opposition to hesychasm than did Barlaam (and subsequent western critics).

However absent Saint Gregory of Sinai was from the extant polemics of the age, his writings agree entirely with the theological point of view defended by Saint Gregory Palamas.

After many hours of liturgical worship, our community gathered in a very different age and on a mountainside far removed from Athos and the Strandzha range feeling powerfully encompassed by the intercessions of its heavenly patron, noting one and all that for all the contributions of academic monographs to our understanding of the hesychasts of the 14th century - its golden age - nothing compares with a few hours of liturgical Vigil and Liturgy for accessing the heart of the matter.  And to that, Amen.

+Sergios of Loch Lomond, Igoumenos

November 27/December 10, 2007

On November 15/28, as we celebrate the Feast of St. Paissios Velichkovsky whose life and work is crucial for the renewal of hesychast spirituality in the Church, and the beginning of the fast for the Nativity of our Saviour, we are also marking the 70th anniversary of the repose of the New Martyr, Catherine Routis of Mandra, in Attica, Greece.

Her Troparion (printed in The Struggle Against Ecumenism, p. 305) sums up her significance in the life of the Church:

The crown of martyrdom didst thou receive, O Catherine, by struggling steadfastly for the tradition of our Fathers; and thou didst surrender thy soul to Jesus the Bridegroom, when, on the festival of the Archangels at Mandra of Megaris, thou didst sincerely proclaim the dogmas of the Faith of the Scriptures.

New Martyr Catherine was born in 1900 in the village of Mandra in the region of Megara, between Athens and Corinth.  When the western calendar was forcibly imposed on the Christians of Greece in 1924, large numbers of Greek Christians spontaneously rejected both the new order of things and the Hierarchs responsible for enforcing that new order.

The forcible (and violent) imposition of the western calendar was the result of a sinister combination of secularizing political policies, inaugurated by the government of Emanuel Venizelos, coupled with the reformist-ecumenist ideas associated with syncretist freemasonry and an infatuation with the West, which had been quietly emerging within a circle of Hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarch (and elsewhere) from the 19th century forward. These ideas would become the stated policy of that Patriarchate under the guidance of the freemason and ecclesiastical adventurer, Patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis.  

New Martyr Catherine and her husband joined the widespread populist and spontaneous rejection of the government's Synod of Bishops and their policies, and continued to worship with clergy and laity according to the traditional calendar.  While much is written in our times concerning the futility and the wrong-headedness of making an issue of the 13 day difference between the western and the traditional calendar, the fact is that neither the 13 days nor even the calendar itself is the primary issue, any more than boiled wheat (kollyva, in Greek) was the issue during the kollyvades  dispute; any more than painted pictures were the issue during the age of ikonoclasm.  The question raised by the heresy of ikonoclasm was a fundamental christological issue; the issue raised by the kollyvades Fathers concerned the liturgical reflection of fundamental Christian faith and practice, and the issue raised by the "old-calendar" movement is the issue of the basic definition of the Church herself, as that definition is manifested in the decrees of Councils and the writings of acknowledged Fathers.

The defense spontaneously organized by humble laymen and clergy in Greece from 1924 on was only in the first instance the defense of a given calendar, because contained within that defense was the instinctive defense of the integrity of the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" as such.

On the feast of the Archangels, November 8th (November 21st on the western calendar), 1927, Catherine was part of a large congregation of confessing Christians in her native village.  During the Vigil for the feast (presided over by the Presbyter Christopher Psallidas) a detachment of police, ordered out by the Ministry of the Interior acting in response to a demand issued by the head of the government Synod, Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, surrounded the village church.  After an all-night Vigil, as the Liturgy for the feast began, the police began to batter down the doors of the church with their rifle butts.  Windows were smashed.  The apparent goal of the police forces was the arrest of Father Christopher (and the consequent termination of the liturgical assembly).  But the efforts of the police were not met with success and they called for reinforcements.  Meanwhile, inside the temple, most of the congregation received Holy Communion, and were preparing to leave the church and rest after the all-night service.

As the communicants began to leave, and as it became evident that the police were intent on arresting Father Christopher, a group of pious women surrounded him to form a protective wall, under the impression that the police would not physically attack women.  Catherine Routis had left the church after Communion and made sure that her husband and 2 children were safely home, and then she had returned to the church to join the congregation's non-violent efforts to protect its Presbyter.  

The police fired their guns into the air to scare off the lay defenders of their Priest, but to no avail.  One woman, Angeliki Katsarellis, still inside the church, was hit in the forehead by one of the stray bullets.  Women raised their voices against the violent police attack, and when a policeman raised his rifle to strike Father Christopher down, Catherine stepped between the Priest and the attacker and received the hard blow from the rifle butt on the back of her head.  Falling to the floor of the church, her last words were Most holy Mother of God.

She was transferred by some of the women to Annunciation Hospital in Athens, along with the injured Angeliki Katsarellis.  For 7 days New Martyr Catherine suffered in the hospital.  At 4 am on November 15 (November 28 on the western calendar), the first day of the Nativity Fast, Catherine Routis died.  She has been commemorated among the Church's New Martyrs ever since.

It is interesting to note that there is a widespread belief amongst the ecumenists that the old calendarists constitute a violent movement.  There has been violence aplenty, in fact, both in Greece and in Romania and elsewhere, directed against the confessing, traditional Christians by the ecumenists, but actual violence directed by the confessing members of the Church against the ecumenists has yet to be documented.

Sadly the pristine early years of steadfast resistance to the ecumenist innovations were followed by our own era, characterized by disturbances from within, as confessing but undisciplined and irresponsible Hierarchs, much-given to employing the tactics of verbal abuse and to the violent denunciation of fellow confessing Hierarchs, ad hominem for the most part, have become the familiar face of traditionalism in the public square.  This undisciplined and unworthy behaviour defines the confessing Church of our times in the eyes of many, and it does the confessing Church a terrible disservice.  

While theological debate and the defense of truth is necessary, the tone in which that defense is undertaken can determine the actual impact of Christian apologetics. It is not possible to view with any satisfaction the increasing failure of a style of apologetics that clearly has alienated many from within the ranks of the so-called "old calendar" movement, and kept many traditionalists within the ecumenist communities from abandoning their ecumenist Hierarchs and affiliating with confessing Orthodox Hierarchs.  

Clearly, this is not the way to speak for the Church, because clearly, the actual interests of the Church are not served.  One can disagree, without being disagreeable, and one can effectively defend the Church without ad hominem attacks.  When the confessing Hierarchs of our own time understand this, the confessing Church will once again become the real option for serious and honest seekers for the truth both from the ranks of the ecumenist Synods, and from the ranks of those who have no connection with either "world" or with "confessing" Orthodoxy.

New Martyr Catherine of Mandra, pray to God for us and for the steadying and clearing of the Church's voice in our confused and contentious times.

+Bishop Sergios of Loch Lomond, November 28, 2007

Our patron, Saint Gregory of Sinai, has, as we say, three feasts and no services. He is celebrated on April 6 (and on some calendars, April 7), today, August 8/21, and on the day of his repose in 1346, November 27/December 10, the day we keep as our main feast.

The three dates all occur within periods of fasting in most years, appropriately enough for a monastic. The absence of a service is curious. Saint Gregory is a major figure within the world of hesychast spiritual life, and one would expect that a liturgical composer would have been found early-on, drawn from the same circles that composed the service for his younger (and better-known) contemporary, Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki. But no liturgical text is extant for Saint Gregory of Sinai.

Saint Gregory was born in the 1260's (traditionally 1265) in a family which we may see as rural gentry, in a village at the southern end of the bay of Smyrna (currrently Turkish Izmir). He comes to public attention when he, with his family, falls victim to a Moslem raiding party looking for prominent captives who will be ransomed, and humbler captives for the slave markets. The captives were taken to Syrian Laodikeia where they were indeed ransomed, as expected. But during their captivity Saint Gregory comes to the attention of the local community when his chanting in a local church is unusually accomplished, and his physical beauty is remarked. We do not know the fate of the rest of his family after their release, but an apparently teen-aged Gregory goes off to Cyprus, the first stage of a life-long pilgrimage in search of a deeper union with God. On Cyprus he is clothed in the first stage of the monastic life (the stage called rassoforos, from the wide-sleeved robe donned by the beginner) by a hermit. Gregory moves, after a short time, to Mount Sinai, where he is fully-tonsured into the ranks of the monastics at Saint Katherine's Monastery. Looking at the buildings, the interior walls and ikons, and at the magnificent mosaic of the Transfiguration in the conch of the basilica's apse today, we see what Saint Gregory saw during his stay at Sinai. Here he became adept at the ascetic disciplines designed to deconstruct the worldly man, and to reconstruct the heart in Christ. Strictness in keeping the fasts, lengthy vigils (in the church's liturgical cycles and in the individual kelli, the cell), prolonged standing during prayer, all-night chanting of psalms and other severe feats tamed and disciplined the flesh rendered unruly and self-absorbed as a result of the mortality programed into the human condition as a result of the ancestral sin in Eden. The goals included a growing self-mastery, a purification of individual will, and a capacity to detect, and deflect the assault of the daemonic, working through the passions to which all flesh falls heir.

Our knowledge of this phase of Saint Gregory's life and spiritual growth comes from a companion of those early years, one Father Gerasimos, whose verbal account was heard and written down by one of Saint Gregory's late disciples, Kallistos, who later served as Oecumenical Patriarch (twice, in fact: 1350-1353 and 1355-1363). Patriarch Kallistos' life is our one source for the life and teaching of Saint Gregory of Sinai. Kallistos lived in obedience to Saint Gregory for a number of years.

Confronted with the envy of other brothers in the Sinai monastery, Saint Gregory quietly quit the place, taking Gerasimos with him, and landing on Crete during a storm, the two took the landfall as a sign that they were to settle in a quiet, obscure place. Finding a cave, they took up residence and lived on a spare diet of bread and water, while looking for an older monk to mentor their struggle. The Holy Spirit inspired an elderly holy monk, Arsenios, to find them and it was from Arsenios, on Crete, that Saint Gregory learned of the practice of hesychasm, which we call by various names today - contemplative prayer, inner prayer, prayer of the heart. Arsenios told Saint Gregory that the following of a regimen of interior spiritual discipline and prayer could result in the hesychast's becoming wholly light (olos fotoeidis). He explained that Gregory's efforts until now fell under the heading called 'praxis' (bodily ascetic practices), but his advice would be to move inward to 'theoria' (interiorized ascetic disciplning of the mind and of the heart).

The establishment of this connection between Saint Gregory and the monk Arsenios would be, as one of Saint Gregory's recent biographers notes, "a milestone in the great Hesychast Movement which swept through the monastic world, triumphed in the mid-fourteenth century . . . and launched among the Slavonic and other non-Greek Churches dependent on it a broad and beneficial wave of spirituality and reform, of which the effects lasted for centuries and can even be felt today". (David Balfour, "Discourse on the Transfiguration", p. 65).

Immediately, Saint Gregory left Crete and landed on Mount Athos, where he searched wide and far for hesychasts who could continue and further the education of his mind and heart. Significantly, he found almost no one - none at all residing in the great ruling coenobitic monasteries - and finally settled a half-hour walk to the right of the main gate of Philotheou, in a small skete called Magoula, where three monks (Isaiah, Kornelios and Makarios) followed a way of life attending to both the familiar 'praxis' and to 'theoria' as well.

Here Saint Gregory constructed cells for his own disciples, and at some distance, a kelli for himself. Here, concentrated within himself, and using the Jesus Prayer (Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me), he began to undergo a 'good and strange transformation' as the energy of the Holy Spirit transformed the inner man. And, just as had been predicted by the monk Arsenios, his kelli was filled with 'light, the effulgence of Grace' while Gregory himself overflowed with joy, weeping tears, filled with divine love. His desire for God was overwhelming, and he himself - as well as his kelli - was filled with light.

Now Gregory's attractiveness - physical, when noted in his teen years by the Christians who came into contact with him during his captivity - becomes spiritual and monks of all kind flock to his side 'like bees to honey'. Some are already adepts, and well-known. Others - like the Bulgarian Kliment - are simple - Kliment was a humble shepherd. The mixing of ethnicities and languages at this early stage will continue as Saint Gregory lays the foundation for what a 20th century Romanian Byzantinist will call 'the hesychast international'.

One is reminded of the late Father Alexander Schmemann's remark that the history of the West is a history of 'radical discontinuities' while the history of the East is one of 'radical continuities' - much of the material in Patriarch Kallistos' biography of his Elder is practically identical to material found in the early and classic reflections of the Christian spiritual life as practised by the monastic community, such as Saint John Klimakos' 'Ladder of Divine Ascent'. This is not merely the repetition of cliches, but the manifestation of a continuum of effect in the God-man relationship. And again, turning to Father Alexander's gift for summarizing distinctions memorably - 'While secularized Christians in the West always want to hear Christ saying, "Behold, I make all new things", the fact is that Christ said, "Behold, I make all things new", and that fundamental truth informs the amazing continuity one finds within the Church.'

Patriarch Kallistos notes in his biography that the gifts found in Saint Gregory's life as he went from glory to glory could not 'safely be described to uninitiated persons . . . who believe the grace and gift of the Spirit is a mere creature' - he is referring to the westernized opponents who spoke out vehemently against hesychasm, and who were confronted by the writings in defense of the hesychasts penned by Saint Gregory Palamas (+1359). The Latin West held that grace is created; the Church knew grace as uncreated. The fierce polemics between Saint Gregory Palamas and the hesychasts, on the one side, and the partisans (who included some Byzantines) of a westernized understanding of grace and the spiritual life, racked Constantinople and what was left of the empire of the New Rome for years, and while the final vindication of the hesychast position came within Saint Gregory Palamas' lifetime, that victory was by no means assured during the heat of an intensely-fought battle. Saint Gregory of Sinai, however, seems (as far as the extant documentation indicates) to have stood apart from the polemics of the age, preferring the unhindered, undistracted pursuit of the joys of the heschast life to their public defense under the most trying conditions.

At times even the mild tasks of mentoring like-minded hesychasts under his direction proved overly-distracting and Saint Gregory would leave Magoula for a time, for remoter, uninhabited regions, where he had built cells for the purpose. However, a more serious intrusion came in the form of Moslem raiding parties which afflicted Athos during this period of the final break-down of the security of the civil life of the eastern Roman Empire.

Saint Gregory evidently decided to return to Sinai, and, taking a number of disciples (including the future Oecumenical Patriarchs Isidore and Kallistos - his biographer) with him, he journeyed to Thessaloniki, then on to Chios (intending to go on to Jerusalem, a plan abandoned when they met a monk from there who warned them against the idea) and Lesvos and Constantinople. But the idea of going on to Sinai was evidently abandoned, and the party returned to Athos, where Gregory was well-received at the Great Lavra, and was given a hermitage (hesychastirion) nearby. Moslem raids, however, only increased and finally Saint Gregory and his brothers found themselves in the Strandzha Mountains on the then-border between the Empire and the Bulgarian Kingdom. Near Paroria, above the Black Sea coast, the final monastic settlement was established, not without terrible trials, including some from envious local monks jealous of Saint Gregory's reputation and success in recruiting disciples. But Gregory was much-aided by the timely attention of the Bulgarian King, John Alexander (reigned 1331-1371), a man of piety who loved the monastic life, who provided both material resources and a force to police and secure the area, ensuring the undistracted and unhindered pursuit of the hesychast life as far as was possible in an age of upheaval and violence.

Here recruits from Slav- and Greek-speaking communities included some of the most famous spiritual leaders of the next generation, Saint Theodosios of Trnovo and Saint Romylos among them.

Many days before his repose, Saint Gregory was forewarned of his impending departure from this life. He went to an isolated cell taking with him a disciple. Here his final days on earth saw a horde of daemons descend on him, seeking to destroy him. Saint Gregory was not frightened by this daemonic invasion, although the daemons continued to attack. For three days he neither ate nor slept, and he encouraged his single companion to join him in the "hard wrestling" by "clinging to prayer and psalmody". Then, a deep spiritual composure settled on the Saint and filled him with consolation. He noticed this change and gave thanks to God saying "Thy right hand, O Lord, hath crushed our enemies, the daemons, and destroyed them utterly . . . . " He called his disciple who came and found him joyful and tender, smiling, and telling him that "some divine force has come down and driven away the evil spirits and freed us from their temptation." (Balfour, 90-91 for the full account).

And today's Gospel is the appearance on the water of our Saviour, Who invites the bold Apostle Peter to join Him in the miracle, and Peter does. And then, Peter notices the storm, and sinks.

How often does our Saviour come to us in the context of a storm, of a situation that threatens us and terrifies us. And at its heart, stands the Saviour Who is the Lord of storms at sea and of storms in our family life, our professional life, our community, our inner life. The Saviour calls to us from the eye of the storm, calling us to be with Him in the context of what is an unbelievable miracle, a miracle that turns what we know inside-out, that inverts and re-orients all our certainties.

We would prefer a Savioiur of easy days and quiet afternoons, of sunny weather, of gentle breezes, a Saviour Who allows us to apprehend Him when all is calm, within and without. But that is not always going to be the case. How well the life of Saint Gregory of Sinai illustrates this. His life is time and again torn apart, all the routine gestures of routine daily affairs broken down, and he is left like Peter, all exposed.

Christ, or the storm. How often those are the alternatives before Saint Gregory, as they were before Peter the Apostle. Saint Gregory suggests that the path of sanity and health, of personal stabilty and spiritual strength, is laid down within our heart through the discipline of ascetic struggle. And that must be the way we look at things, whether the ascetic struggle is carried out in the context of married family life or of the monastic life. Consistent, persistent, motivated by love of God and of the least of His brethren, whose serving accomplishes our salvation - these are the elements that converge today on our patronal feast as we hear the Gospel of Peter and the storm, at whose heart is Christ. We already hear the Saviour's triple question to Peter, asked after the resurrection: Peter, lovest thou Me?

The Lord grant that we hear all the lives of all the Saints who speak to us across the centuries, or from our own fleeting moment in history, who discover Christ in the midst of the day's stormy struggles and questions. And may the prayers of the uncomplaining Gregory of Sinai, driven hither and yon in a time of violent change, strengthen us in our own struggle and in our own love for the Lord of the storm.

--A word from Bishop Sergios on the feast of Saint Gregory of Sinai, August 8/21, 2005