| I will conclude this short exposition with a word from the Curé d’Ars, whom you might not know. He was a French priest of the nineteenth century, a saint of the Catholic Church. One day he found an old man, an old peasant, in his church, sitting on a bench and not appearing to be doing anything; he wasn’t even praying the rosary. He asked him: “What are you doing here?” In his old French, he said: “I’m looking at Him; and He’s looking at me.” That is the mystery. Pravmir wishes to express its thanks to Subdeacon Claude Lopez-Ginisty ( of http://orthodoxologie.blogspot.com ) for his assistance in translating this talk from the French. You might also like: One Cannot Be Anything More Than a Christian: A Conversation with Fr. Gabriel (Bunge) Tweet Donate Share Code for blog The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) The following is translation into English of a talk recently given by Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) – a former Benedictine, a world-renown patristics scholar, and a hermit in the Alps – in the “kvARTira10” arts center in Moscow. The talk was given in French with Fr. Dmitry Ageev providing a ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life " s purpose, family and society. |
| Orthodoxy in the World Last Updated: Feb 8th, 2011 - 05:50:02 One Can " t Learn to Pray Sitting in a Warm Armchair By Konstantin Matsan Jan 26, 2011, 10:00 Discuss this article Printer friendly page Father Gabriel (Bunge) “Orthodoxy is the Fruit of My Whole Life as a Christian and a Monk” Source: Foma: Orthodox Christian Journal for Doubting Thomases Translated by Olga Lissenkova Edited by Yana Samuel and Isaac (Gerald) Herrin A Catholic hermit converted to Orthodoxy A well-known theologian, hieromonk Gabriel Bunge, rarely gives interviews. He leads a hermit " s life in a small skete in Switzerland, never uses the Internet, and the only means of communication with him is the telephone. The latter works as the answering machine in a distant room. If you want to talk with him, you have to leave a message with the time when you are going to phone again, and if Father Gabriel is ready to talk, he will be near the telephone at the time you specified. We were lucky not to go through this complex operation because we met Father Gabriel in Moscow. On August 27, he converted to Orthodoxy from Catholicism. In our conversation, Father Gabriel told us about the motives for his decision, about the main differences between Valaam and Switzerland, and about many other things. “We Are Like Weirdos” Q: If someone comes from one Christian tradition to another, it must mean that they feel they lack something vital in their spiritual life... A: Yes. And if this person is seventy years old, like me, this step cannot be called a hasty one, can it? Q: No, it can " t. But what did you lack, being a monk with such a great spiritual experience? A: I have to speak not of one decision, but of the whole life journey with its inner logic: at one point an event happens which was being prepared by one " s whole life. Like all young people, I was searching for my way in life, so to speak. I entered the University in Bonn and started studying philosophy and comparative theology. Not long before that, I had visited Greece and spent two months on the island of Lesbos. It was there that I saw a real Orthodox monastic elder for the first time. At that time, I was already inwardly being drawn to monasticism and had read some Orthodox literature, including Russian sources. That elder amazed me. He became the incarnation of the monastic that I had come across only in books before. Suddenly, in front of me, I saw a monastic life which from the very beginning seemed to be authentic, true, the closest to the first Christian monks " practice. Afterwords, I was in touch with that elder my whole life. So I got an ideal of monastic life. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life (Questions and Answers) Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) 25 October 2013 Below we present a selection of questions and answers that followed the recent talk given by Fr. Gabriel (Bunge) in Moscow. Why Are Prayer Books Necessary? Question : Tell us, please, whether one can pray using personal rather than canonical prayers? Why do all Prayer Books insist on canonical texts? Fr. Gabriel : The canonical prayers in the Prayer Books that we use are a school for prayer. In the beginning they didn’t exist. Thus, the first monks had a quite particular tradition of prayer, which was lost with time. They recited the Psalms and, after each Psalm, they stopped and stood up – because one can say the Psalms sitting – and raised their arms and prayed in silence. When a modern person – I’ve experimented with this often – wants to learn this way of reading and praying, he encounters difficulties. He feels lost; he doesn’t know what to say. It’s fairly easy to say the Psalms in a concentrated manner, but once one no longer has this “crutch,” many people at first are a bit lost. The canonical Prayer Books that we use are an aid in helping us to learn to pray like Christians, because the Psalms are an Old Testament text. They’re foremost Holy Scripture. To psalmodize isn’t yet to pray; one is then on one’s way to prayer. Thus, one must learn to read the Psalms in a Christian manner. This means using a Christological key; one must look for and find Christ, His Church, and the believer in these Old Testament words. Prayer Books and canonical prayers, which are all of Christian origin, help one to pray like a Christian. When one has learned this, then it becomes easier in a psalm that we have just read to pick up a phrase or expression and transform it into personal, Christian prayer. |
| —One last question. Do the local people who are not Orthodox ever wander into your monastery and ask you about it? Fr. Gabriel Bunge. Tonsure into the Great Schema. —The local population has known me for thirty years, but mine was always a very specific monastic life; and because they do not know monks, there are no monks (there were Franciscan brothers there, who are not monks), they always wondered what sort of brothers we were. We wore black, we had beards, we used to wear hoods, and looked quite old fashioned. Their own local saint from the fifth century also dressed just as we did, but they do not know this anymore. They knew that we were very close to the Christian Orient, the holy fathers, and that what I am saying today is no different from what I have always said. That is one thing that people noticed when I became Orthodox. One lady, a simple housewife with no university education, who knew that we became Orthodox, said, “I just want you to know that you will always be our Father Gabriel, and you are doing what you have always taught us to do—to go back to our roots. The Orthodox Church is just as it was in the beginning.” So, a simple person without any theological studies can catch the sense of it. They were not shocked. There was no opposition against us. It sometimes happens, as we are walking in the streets, people will say, “Father, may I ask you a question?” I say, okay. “Are you an Orthodox monk?” I say, yes. “Bravo!” They are not used to seeing monks anymore. The only monks they see are Orthodox monks. The Franciscan friars wore lay clothing, so unless you knew them personally, you would not know that they were friars. But Orthodox monks are always to be identified as such. And for these people, it isn’t a provocation. They feel strengthened. They say, fine! Bravo! I must say, I didn’t expect that reaction. When I was enthroned as abbot of my monastery (a big word for a small reality), there were several Catholics present, many of them Benedictine monks. They asked if they could come; they wanted to be there. They were present at the Orthodox Liturgy, and I presented them to the Bishop, who received them amiably. It was not perceived as a hostile act against them or against the Catholic Church, but rather as the final consequence of what I had always taught. |
| Archpriest Pavel Velikanov and Hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge) But before that, I made a small trip to Greece. It happened in 1961, when I was still studying in Bonn. One day by chance, I got in touch with the Orthodox Church very closely. On the boat I met one of the Greek metropolitans who was coming back from Palestine together with clergymen. He was like one of the fathers I read about, very honourable and with a long beard. He saw me, a young man, and asked me to come and sit with him and showed me his books. I stayed two months in Greece on Lesbos. There weren’t many tourists then and, therefore, we were lodged among local families. I lived in a family of a priest. And of course, I was going to church every Sunday. The family knew I was a Catholic, but because there wasn’t any Catholic church around, I was going to an Orthodox one. Everyone in the family was kind to me and treated me with much love. On the small entrance, they even brought me the Gospel to kiss as if I was an honourable guest. Also I have to say that before that trip I was very prejudiced against Orthodox Church; I was inclined negatively to Orthodoxy. Fr. P.: What was the reason for such a negative attitude? Fr.G.: The teachers told me to be careful with this Orthodoxy. They said that the Orthodox are schismatics. So during my trip it was as if was wearing a pair of gloves so that I wouldn " t stain my Roman purity by contact with Orthodox. And of course, I hadn’t any problems. Greeks were very friendly and kind. I was even allowed to enter the altar though it wasn’t right according to the canons. In a word, my prejudices diminished every day. At the end I went to Athens for a week and lived there in the theological seminary together with other seminarians. During one conversation with them I had an experience that turned the scale. I said to them “Well, everything is fine in your Church, but I feel sorry that you broke away from us.” And they replied: “No, you are wrong. It was you who broke away from us.” I was astonished. In Germany, we meet only Protestants and we all know that they are schismatics which means that it was they who once broke away from the Catholic Church. But here this scheme didn’t work because the question was about the Church which has its origin from the Apostles. The Apostle Paul had walked on these lands before he came to Rome. |
| In Germany theology is taught by the state, and so I received my theological education from a state university. So, I continue to study just to deepen my understanding of the reasons for the separation between East and West. Of course, you can understand quite a lot from this, but there is still one big mystery that I am still unable to understand: Why did God allow this? Fr. Gabriel Bunge in his monastery in Switzerland. You can say that it was all the mistake of the Pope, but the faithful had no choice. That is what I say to my friends now. I say, “Look, you shouldn’t criticize or condemn Catholics. They are just born on the wrong side of the street. It is not their mistake. They have no choice. They never had any choice. The whole West belonged to the Roman Patriarchate, which gradually became larger and larger; they were not part of other patriarchates. In any case, they are not today. That is their mistake—they were just born there. —This, however, brings to mind a question I always have. I myself am a Westerner, a convert to Orthodoxy, I have no Eastern Orthodox roots, and so my question is not intended to be anti-Western. However, why are we apparently so prone to earthly, secular thinking in the realm of religion—more than the Christian East? Theoretically, the same process could have happened anywhere. —Theoretically, yes, but in practice, it did not. I think it is because secularization is a very long process, and its clearest expression is Protestantism, which is an inner-Catholic phenomenon. It is an inner-Catholic phenomenon in the Western Church which occurred after its separation from the Eastern part of the Church. It could not develop before. I will tell you about a most terrible experience. I am speaking about history, but perhaps it is better to speak about my own “little history” of seventy-three years. I entered the monastery at age twenty-two in exactly the year that the Second Vatican Council was opened. With my Greek Orthodox experience and so on, I became a monk at Chevetogne, and we were really full of hope that now the Roman Church would turn back on its path, and there were many signs that this is how it would happen. |
| Joan Rue 3 ноября 2013, 09:00 I am a cradle Catholic who recently was Chrismated Orthodox. I came from a very strong Catholic family - my uncle was a Catholic priest who was the head of our family. I believe as Yvette believes, that The true church had to be the first church and an unchanging church. I attended Orthodox Liturgy for 5 years and history led me to my belief in Orthodoxy. Yvette 31 октября 2013, 23:00 I am a cradle Catholic who, only this past year, is converting to Orthodoxy. This interview and this monk are both just absolutely amazing. Yes, in America, there are too many choices, and all these churches claim to be the true faith, the true Church, and the only path to God. So I was frustrated and confused for many years, and I realized it was because I was trying to find the true Church the wrong way. We can " t let others tell us which one it is because the answer will always be different. I had to go by history alone. It was the only way. The true Church would necessarily be the FIRST Church and the UNCHANGING Church, and there is only one that fulfills both: The Orthodox Church. I wish I could meet Fr Gabriel in person. He " s an incredible, remarkable man in Christ. Rt. Rev. Economos Roman V. Russo 31 октября 2013, 20:00 Dear Father Schema-archimandrite, Please pray to the Lord God that our souls be saved. Your " little books " , as you call them, have been a great help in our daily struggle to live the life of the Gospel. I feel that I have met you through these books and that is why I ask for a remembrance in your prayers. Devotedly in Christ, Father Roman, unworthy priest and his angel Graham 24 октября 2013, 11:00 Thanks for the article. I " m sure many other Catholics feel the same way. I joined the Catholic Church 20 years ago, and since then have noticed how it is becoming more and more Protestant in its way of thinking and it way of celebrating the liturgy, and in many distressing ways, grossly secular, unlike the Church of the Fathers I had assumed it represented. Needless to say, I am currently visiting some of the Orthodox churches in my city. I hope they don " t feel " invaded " , as Fr Bunge has mentioned. |
| Fr. Gabriel baking his own bread I am old enough to remember that there were statistical calculations done in the West to indicate the date when the last monk would die. But these gentlemen did not know that in secret, in the hermitages, renewal was already underway. Because renewal did not come from the large monasteries, but from the hermitages. We can mention one name that is very well known here in Russia: Joseph the Hesychast, who reposed in the 1950s, along with many others who are not as well known. But from this small community, who lived in caves truly like the first hesychast fathers, four large monasteries were renewed from within – there was no reform or massive intervention from the outside. Then little by little, because they had become convinced, all the monasteries returned to the communal life. The idiorrhythmic life no longer existed in the end. All of this was done without intervention. And I would like to hope that the hierarchy, because it is their duty, will create favorable conditions. Fr. Gabriel baking his own bread One of these conditions, as on Athos, is the free election of abbots. This isn’t the case in Romania or Russia. Of course, this is not always possible. Sometimes a monastery is in a situation in which they have no qualified persons. Then the bishop, the hierarchy, has to intervene. In this regard, the example of the renaissance in the era of St. Paisus (Velichkovsky) is very significant. The key figure here was Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) of St. Petersburg. He was a grant court bishop, but also an ascetic – even if this wasn’t visible. His cell-attendant was the Elder Theophan, who had been a disciple of St. Paisius (Velichkovksy), who had been in Moldavia, because it was no longer possible to live like a good monk in Russia after the reforms of Peter the Great and Catherine. Monasteries had become homes for old soldiers, more or less. So when, for example, it was necessary to renew life on Valaam, the Metropolitan asked Theophan: “Whom can we send as abbot?” Because this could not have been done alone. The latter replied: “We need to send Nazarius. He is an illiterate monk, but a great monk.” And if fact this Nazarius completely renewed this great, ancient monastery. |
| Recently in Moscow on a very demanding schedule, Fr. Gabriel still took the time to talk with us. —Fr. Gabriel, although you have talked about your life in other interviews, tell us again a little about yourself. —In live in Roveredo, a tiny village of about 100 inhabitants. My monastery is above the village in the woods, in the mountains of the Lugano region, the Italian part of Switzerland. —You had been Catholic from childhood? —Yes, but not a practicing Catholic all my life. My father was Lutheran, and my mother Catholic, and I was baptized Catholic. But as it often happens in these cases, neither of my parents practiced their religions. Neither my father nor mother went to church. And so neither did I. But as young people always go their own way, I rediscovered the faith of my Baptism. At first I went to the Catholic Church, by myself. My parents did not encourage me, they only tolerated this. —Even your mother? —She was a believing Catholic, but because of her marriage to a Lutheran, she lost her practice. Only much later, when I was already a monk, she went back to church and began to practice her Catholic faith. My father grudgingly went with her, at least on Easter or Christmas, because he did not want to spend the holidays alone. —Where were you born? The Koln Cathedral during WWII. —I was born in Köln, but we left that city when I was two years old because of the war. That town, almost 2,000 years old, was almost razed to the ground. It was like Hiroshima. About eighty percent was destroyed, and the Americans even suggested that it be reconstructed elsewhere—it seemed to be useless to try and reconstruct those ashes. But people were extremely attached to their town; the great cathedral was still standing, although greatly damaged. The twelve Romanesque churches were terribly damaged also. For ten years we did not live in Köln, but in a little town in the countryside. Only in 1953 was it possible for us to return. So, I spent my youth in Köln, and went to gymnasium there. I still love that town very much. |
| “I stood with one foot in the East, the other in the West. For many years I longed to visit the Kiev Caves Lavra, and to venerate the Kiev Caves fathers, and to pray to them. Once in some antique shop I bought a cross with particles of relics of twelve Kiev Caves saints in it. Their names were written there. The cross dated back to 1791. It is a mystery how that cross ended up in the West, but the relics which it contained were of no particular value for the shop staff. Now that cross stands on my table and I pray to the Kiev Caves fathers every day. And today I am very happy and delighted to have this opportunity to visit the Kiev Caves Lavra,” he continued. Answering the question on the prospects of the reunification of the Eastern and Western Churches, Fr. Gabriel emphasized that “there is no theological sense in the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics must return back to the Church. My teacher and professor who later became Pope Benedict XVI understood many things but did nothing. The Orthodox Church has preserved the Liturgy and the monastic tradition, while the Roman Catholic Church is currently moving towards Protestantism rather than returning to Orthodoxy. The real problem of this division is not in the differences—it is in the incompatibility. The Greek and Roman cultures in the first millennium were different yet compatible with each other.” The theologian also drew the brethren’s attention to the vital topic of the place of monasticism in the modern world: “Modern people want monks to answer their spiritual questions, not national and political ones. Monks are separated from this world and they live their own lives which are different from the life in the world. Such life enables them to gain wisdom which is not of this world—and this is precisely what people are waiting for. Many come to me too and expect me to answer their questions. And I have to tell them what they need to do and what not to do.” Speaking on whether modern monasticism should take the anchoretic or cenobitic path, Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel explained: “Monasticism began not with the cenobitic tradition. The first monks were anchorites, but they always had a teacher. Both paths are good. It all depends on the calling from God in each case. The Church has a place for everybody! And the Lord saves us not individually, but all together!” |
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