In the book, The Church's Open Heart, (Sretensky Monastery Press, [in Russian] 2014) the memoirs of Metropolitan Athanasios about elders—contemporary ascetics with whom he studied in a spiritual school—are collected, as well as the sermons and teachings of Vladyka, who is well-known not only to the Orthodox world, but also beyond it. Thus, what examples do elders give by their life to us Christians who live in a very complicated world today? And what can and must we contrast with the troubles that come crashing down on us like an avalanche? Our correspondent from Pravoslavie.ru talks about these questions and more in an interview with the archpastor of Limasol while he was in Moscow.
"Pray Always"
We laypeople like stories
about miracles very much, and about grace-filled gifts, but we forget somewhat
about the price we have to pay for these things. Your book opens with a
conversation about the holy elder Joseph the Hesychast. Tell us a little bit about
the labors that he and his community performed, and about what lesson we
laypeople can derive from this—without, of course, dreaming of duplicating it
all.
Elder Joseph the Hesychast
lived on Mt. Athos, though I did not manage to meet him while he was alive, as
he reposed in 1959. But I did get to meet all his disciples.
My starets—Elder Joseph
from Vatopedi Monastery—was a disciple, the first disciple of Elder Joseph the
Hesychast, and so my monastic life began under the influence of his spiritual
school.
Elder Joseph was one of
the most outstanding spiritual figures on Mt. Athos in the twentieth century.
He was a great ascetic, but also a notable hesychast.1 His life was full of
miracles and the activity of God and the Most Holy Mother of God. In spite of
the fact that he was a hermit—that is, he did not go out anywhere—four of his
disciples subsequently became the spiritual fathers of hundreds of monks.
Right now there are
approximately a thousand of us—monks who came from Elder Joseph the Hesychast.
Out of the twenty monasteries on Mt. Athos, six of them were revived by
spiritual children of Elder Joseph. We consider that his prayers and his
presence greatly influenced our monastic life.
We inherited three
important things from Elder Joseph the Hesychast and his disciples: the first
consists in the value of obedience—to the Church and to one's elder. The
second, in taking part in the Divine Liturgy, in the Eucharist, that is, in
regular Communion. And the third is the practice of mental prayer.
Our whole monastic life
was and is dedicated to these three important things. Elder Joseph the
Hesychast was occupied in unceasing mental prayer for six hours every evening.
He would spend eight hours
at night serving the all-night vigil. Six hours were dedicated to mental prayer
and spiritual reading, and two hours to the Divine Liturgy, which was
celebrated daily. This all began at sunset. On Athos, if eight hours pass after
sunset, it is already sunrise—especially in the summer.
And after sunrise the
fathers would rest a little, then, after a small breakfast—a cup of coffee or
some kind of dried bread—they would work very hard in order to survive. In the
afternoon they would have dinner, and after that they would lie down to sleep.
An hour before sunset they would get up and once again perform Vespers by
prayer-rope, have a cup of tea or eat some kind of fruit, and after sunset the
all-night vigil would begin, which would last eight hours.
His disciples lived by
such a rule, and for some time we also lived like that.
Today it is a great
blessing that Elder Joseph's teaching has spread over the whole Orthodox world.
But even Western Christians and people of other religions are interested in the
elder and translate his few works into their own languages.
Today laypeople are so
busy that in the morning when they get into the car they turn on tapes of the
morning rule, and glory to God, that they manage to do even this. What should
laypeople do—contemporary people who are busy at their work but who should
nevertheless pray and come to church?
Prayer is the unceasing
remembrance of God. God’s presence ought to be unceasing in our life. If we
learn to say the Jesus Prayer, this little prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of
God, have mercy on me,” if we fill all our time with addressing God, if we do
the Jesus Prayer at all times—when we are taking a shower, eating, or when we
are in the car (instead of listening to the radio), or when we’re in the
subway, on a bus, or in church, that will be more than enough. The remembrance
of God must accompany all the things that we do in our life.
In your book, when you are
telling the story about Elder Porphyrios, you cite this episode: A woman called
him on the telephone, after he had already died on Mt. Athos. He answered her:
“Don’t call me any more—I’m dead.” What did he do that for, when she could find
this out by ordinary means?
(Laughs) Yes, when she
asked, “May I call you again, Elder?” he answered her, “You don’t need to call
me any more—I’m dead” (Laughs). And the same thing happened to a nun on Cyprus.
She heard about this occurrence, and, as she had very close ties with Elder
Porphyrios, she started to get curious, and she decided to call him on the
phone, wondering if he would answer her or not. He answered her, “Dear, what
are you doing—experiments here?” and hung up the phone.
Elder Paisios was your
teacher. Two stories: when Fr. Paisios was on Mt. Sinai, at St. Catherine’s
Monastery, they sent an imam there—and as is well known, there is a mosque on
the territory of St. Catherine’s Monastery. The father superior wanted to complain,
but Fr. Paisios said, “Wait, wait, we’ll say a prayer right now…” They prayed,
and the imam went away and never showed up there again. The second case—when
they were supposed to show the film The Last Temptation of Christ in Greece,
and the elder blessed people to fight this, to protest. Where is the line
here—when should we try to influence what is going on around us by prayer, and
when must we express our position?
Holy people such as Elder
Paisios did not behave themselves in life simply by going by some sort of rule.
Even in little life situations, before undertaking anything, they first prayed,
received a notification from God, and behaved accordingly.
Elder Paisios never went
out into the public, but in this case he went, in order to participate in this
protest together with all of the people. I am sure that he did this after
prayer, after having prayed.
Even when some visitor
would come to him, he would pray first, and only then would he open the door to
him: that is, first he received notification from God whether to open the door
to this visitor or not.
Once I even asked him,
“Elder, but they’re knocking at the door—let’s open it!” And the Elder answered
that he didn’t have any directive from God to open the door to this person.
That is, even in such
simple things he had to receive notice from God. And all the more so, when this
had to do with more serious situations. Therefore, we cannot establish any
rules as to how we should behave in this or that case by some story, because
the saints in each case prayed to God before acting.
We shouldn’t think that if
some protest is organized, that we must by all means participate in it, because
Elder Paisios participated in one.
Likewise, we shouldn’t say
that we won’t go, because Elder Paisios didn’t go. We have to have discernment
and discern God’s will in each separate case.
In your book you also tell
about St. Arsenios of Cappadocia, and there are such penetrating words there:
“He overcame the torment of the saints.” And, telling about Elder Joseph, you
talk about how he endured eight years of the cruelest demonic warfare. “Give
blood and receive the Spirit.” What does “Give blood” mean for a contemporary
Christian? How can he put this into practice?
When Elder Paisios
returned from Australia—he had gone there at the invitation of an Australian
archbishop—I asked him what kind of people lived in Australia. How do they
struggle, how are they saved, and do they love God?
The Elder answered that he
had met great people in Australia, because there people are saved through pain,
through humility, patience and prayer.
I think that this relates
to all people who live in the contemporary world. Pain is present in every
person’s life—in our personal life, in the life of our family, in the life of
our country, in the whole world, in all of society.
Wherever you look,
everywhere there is pain, war, death, and problems. It’s enough to listen to
one news bulletin and your heart is already filled with pain.
Now we have the ability to
get information from the whole world. And we must pray and display endurance in
this whole situation.
That is the way that will
lead us into the Kingdom of Heaven. Not for nothing did the Lord Jesus Christ
say to us: “In your patient endurance save your souls.”2 He did not tell us
that it was through fasting or prayer—He said that it was through patient endurance.
Patient endurance is the fruit of faith, and it is nourished by prayer. And all
this happens within the Church.
“No one can cause harm to
John except John himself”
Since we have already
begun to speak about patient endurance, I will ask you about the family—a good
number of pages are dedicated to it in your book. Here, a great many people are
only first-generation church-goers, and they do not have the experience of a
Christian family—their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers. Where can they learn
about the Christian understanding of the family?
The Christian life is not
complicated and not hard. The Christian life is simple. The Lord did not teach
us things that are hard to put into practice. We have to fulfil God’s
commandments with simplicity, live with the Sacraments of the Church, teach our
children God’s Word and not worry, not get upset about what tomorrow will
bring.
The Lord told us that,
first of all, we must seek the Kingdom of God, and He will give us everything
else.
Let’s take the first
Christians—they didn’t even have a Gospel that they could read, because it
hadn’t yet been written. But Christ was for them their Guide and Teacher.
We people on Cyprus were
in slavery for 800 years—about 400 under the Franks and 400 years under the Turks.
They didn’t allow Greeks to get an education—all Greeks were uneducated.
Priests learned the Divine Liturgy by heart. My grandmother didn’t even know
how to write her name. Nevertheless, in the course of 800 years the people
preserved the Orthodox Faith, and preserved their families, because they lived
within the Church.
And in the course of 70
years what preserved Russia? Absolutely, the Divine Liturgy preserved Russia
and the whole world. And this little leaven was enough for all of Russia.
In your book it tells the
following story: a son complains about his father, that he drinks and is going
out with another woman. And they tell him, “Look at this from another point of
view. He is suffering and therefore he is acting like this.” How can we learn to
put up with our close ones who, in our opinion, are behaving badly in some way?
One day a young man came
to Elder Paisios and said, “Elder, my relatives, my brother and sister—no one
understands me. I am suffering a great deal because of this.” The Elder answered
him, “My dear! If they do not understand you, then you try to understand them!
First, understand right away that they are not able to understand you—what do
you want them to understand you for, when they aren’t able to understand you?
Understand that their weaknesses, their problems keep them as it were to
themselves. Look at them with understanding and love. Don’t expect anything
from people, so as not to suffer. Better to expect something from God.”
Then this person thought:
“If I understand them, then I won’t suffer from the fact that they don’t
understand me.” I also say this to people who complain about similar things.
“My husband doesn’t understand me.” At that I tell her, “Understand him, and
then your problem will be solved.” It seems to me that this works.
Vladyka, you often talk
about the upbringing of children. There is this problem: often children at 12,
13, or 14 years of age go out of church or don’t want to come to the services.
What do you advise parents to do in such situations?
If a parent concerns
himself over his child’s upbringing from the moment of his conception—that is,
when the child is still an embryo, because contemporary elders say that the
upbringing of children begins even before they are born, even before they are
conceived—if even then we begin bringing them up, then before they are 12 we
can do a great deal.
And when a child gets to
be 12, 13 or 14 and he reaches adolescence and is going to “rebel” and
“revolt,” then outwardly, doubtless, we will not be able to do much—but perhaps
this isn’t even necessary, because we have already done everything before this.
And in this case we must simply pray very hard.
Elder
Porphyrios the Kapsokalivite
St. Elder Porphyrios told
one woman who was complaining to him that she talked to her son about God, but
he didn’t listen, “Don’t worry. Just change the way you act. Talk to God about
your child, instead, and God will want to listen to you. Then the Lord Himself
will have a talk with your child.”
The Lord doesn’t worry,
the way we start to worry. And He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t have any situations
where He doesn’t know what to do. The Lord leaves a person his freedom, then He
embraces him and leads him back to Himself.
Once a young man who had
disavowed everything came to Elder Paisios. He said to the Elder, “I have done
everything possible and have left God.” The Elder embraced him, kissed him, and
said, “Here you have run and run and run and have run right to the doors that
lead to God.”
In one of your
conversations you say that we have to show respect for each person, for his
faith and culture, without detriment to his faith or culture. How was it
possible to realize this under the conditions, for example, when Cyprus was
enslaved for 800 years?
Undoubtedly, those who
enslave other people do not respect them. However, they can enslave our body,
they can destroy our house, they can kill all the people around us, but they
cannot take our soul.
One great saint of the times
of the Turkish domination in Greece, St. Cosmas of Aetolia, used to say to the
enslaved Greeks, “If the Turks want your money, give it to them. If they need
your houses, give them your houses. If they want your cattle or your fields,
give them all of this. Give them everything that they want. Only do not give
them your soul.”
Do not give anyone your
soul. People can enslave everything they please, except our souls. Only sin can
enslave our soul. The holy fathers feared sin, but not any kind of outward event.
But even sin cannot enslave us if we do not consent to it. There is a story
about St. John Chrysostom, who rebuked and reproved Empress Eudoxia. She was
very angry and wanted to send him into exile. She was a very bad person. Then
the Patriarch’s deacons and subdeacons came to him and said, “The Empress is
looking for you, in order to send you into exile somewhere. She wants to cause
you harm.” St. John Chrysostom began to laugh and answered, “Don’t fear—no one
can cause me harm, except me, myself. No one can cause harm to John except John
himself.”
“The Body and Blood of
Christ unites the Church”
Metropolitan Athanasios of
Limasol The Church’s Open Heart / Translated from the modern Greek by A.
Volgina and A. Saminskaya. Moscow. Sretensky Monastery Press, 2014. 320 pages,
illustrated.Metropolitan Athanasios of Limasol The Church’s Open Heart /
Translated from the modern Greek by A. Volgina and A. Saminskaya. Moscow.
Sretensky Monastery Press, 2014. 320 pages, illustrated.
In your book there is a
chapter dedicated to the goal of the Church and of our Christian life. Many of
us come to church with requests: Lord, help my son to enter the Institute; help
me to recover my health… This is all very important, too, but what is the goal
of our Christian life?
The goal of the Christian
life is Christ. Christ is not simply some kind of idea, He is not a philosophy,
Christ is not Someone Who is far away in heaven. Christ is the greatest
experience that a person can have in his life. He is the greatest reality of all
the realities of life. The ancient Greeks used to say, “There is nothing new
under the sun.” One great saint replied, “There is nothing new under the sun,
except Jesus Christ.” He is our goal. Vigil, prayer, fasting, chastity,
virginity—all this we do in order to attain one goal: Christ.
Vladyka, here in Russia
people love Elder Paisios very much, as you probably know. Very, very much. Why
do you think it is him in particular?
(Smiles.) The Lord gave
him the gift even during his lifetime of loving people, of loving people very
much and of praying for all people, for the whole world.
It is my personal opinion,
but when I saw him praying in church, then I thought: if there is some person
who holds the helm of the whole world, it isn’t the president of America (then
Russia was not as strong), it isn’t a communist, it isn’t any person of this
world—it’s Elder Paisios. He is able to steer the rudder of the whole world. I
don’t know how this goes in Russian, but in Greek in the troparion dedicated to
St. Anthony, we sing: “He supported the whole inhabited earth by his prayers.”3
And I believe that Elder
Paisios had this gift from God—to support the whole world by his prayers.
Everybody knows about
Elder Paisios today, although he was a simple, humble man somewhere in the
forests of the Holy Mountain, illiterate, who avoided people: if he saw a
gathering of people he would avoid it. How did the world find out about him? On
Cyprus sometimes I visit schools and talk with the pupils. They may not know
about Christ or the Mother of God, but if I say “Fr. Paisios” everyone
understands.
Vladyka, today much
separates people, including politics. How can we remember that we are all
Christians of the various Local Churches—one Body of Christ?
Orthodox Christians, we
are all the Body of Christ, because we perform one and the same Divine Liturgy
and communicate of the Body and Blood of the Lord. At every Divine Liturgy the
whole Orthodox Church is present—all the patriarchs, archbishops,
metropolitans, bishops—the whole world. We are all the Body of Christ.
I arrived in Russia and
communed of the Holy Sacrament4 of Christ. I didn’t understand anything during
the Divine Liturgy, because I don’t know Russian. Only (he says in Russian)
“Gospodi, pomiluy”5 and “Axios,” too—I heard that yesterday, but this isn’t
important. What is important is that it is the one and the same Body and Blood
of Christ. And you, when you travel to Greece, will not understand anything
during the Divine Liturgy, perhaps, but you can receive Communion. The same
thing applies to our Orthodox brethren, the Arabs in Syria, and our brethren in
Africa, and in the whole world. The Body and Blood of Christ unites the Church.
We love all people, whoever they may be. But our brothers according to the
spirit are members of the Orthodox Church. Our brothers according to the flesh
are the whole world; but according to the spirit, only Orthodox Christians.
Metropolitan Athanasios of
Limasol was interviewed by Anastasia Rakhlina
Translation from the
Russian into English by Dimitra Dwelley
12/29/2014
1 Hesychast — a person who
prays while keeping silence.
2 cf. Luke 21:19. The
Greek or Church Slavonic word for “patience” really means more than just
“waiting”—it means patient endurance, bearing something difficult, painful, or
unpleasant right through to the end.
3 “Thou didst support the
world by thy prayers.”
4 “Mysteries”
5 “Lord, have mercy”
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