| That was in 1981, just a few months before the second great miracle – when Jesus actually spoke to him, in a church in Lausanne. “Jesus,” asked despondent Klaus out loud, “do you want me to come to you or not?” – and Jesus, “as clear as you hear me now,” speaking French “in a sweet, indescribable voice”, replied: “Yes, come. I have forgiven you everything”. “And I was never touched so deeply,” he says quietly, “in my heart, in my being, as in that moment.” There’s more, of course – much more. That communion with Our Lord was preceded by not one but two exorcisms (the priest in Lausanne insisted) and followed by what he calls a “counter-attack of Satan”. And I haven’t even mentioned all the other things, the miracle in the Syrian desert circa 1971, the George McGovern story, the levitation… I look at Klaus, unsure what to say. You do realise, I ask finally, that when I write this stuff in the paper, people will read it and say – “Crazy man,” he agrees. They won’t believe you. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” So what do you say to those people? “Well, you are right not to believe it,” he replies, “because it sounds incredible. But I can not lie in the name of Christ – because I would condemn myself to Hell. And I lived in Hell. I don’t want to go back there.” Maybe that’s the crux of it, when it comes to Klaus Kenneth. Mystics will say he found God, psychologists will say he found closure, but the story’s much the same whichever way you want to tell it: the story of a man who was raised without love, coldly and abusively – who “lived in Hell,” as he puts it – wandered for years trying to find inner peace, and finally found it. After an incredible, almost unbelievable life, one man tells THEO PANAYIDES how his search for love was finally successful Klaus Kenneth is God’s gift to newspapers. His life, as he tells it, has been so full of incident and adventure that the only problem for a journalist is how to fit it all in. He was a gang leader at 12, a terrorist at 22 and a junkie at 25. He’s been a Buddhist monk, a Hindu mystic and an occultist in Central America. He’s known Andreas Baader (of Baader-Meinhof fame) and Mother Teresa. The biography on his website (www.klauskenneth.com) offers more talking-points than could ever be encompassed in a single interview. Here, for instance, is the entry for the year 1980: “Fribourg, Switzerland; Professor in Gruyeres (private school); demon attacks; destruction of all relationships; isolation accentuated; refuge in alcohol; ecstasy through dance; first letters about Jesus from Ursula.” You don’t write a Profile about Klaus; the Profile writes itself. |
| Gregory of Nyssa, “ On The Sixth Psalm, Concerning the Octave by St. Gregory of Nyssa”, trans. Casimir McCambley, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 32.1 (1987), pp.39-50 at 48 [ GNO V.189, 2]. Archived here: (Last accessed: 7 June 2012). As in the last lines of the character of the Old Man in Yeats’ late short play Purgatory: “How quickly it returns—beat—beat—!/Her mind cannot hold up that dream./Twice a murderer and all for nothing,/And she must animate that dead night/Not once but many times!/O God,/Release my mother " s soul from its dream!/Mankind can do no more. Appease/The misery of the living and the remorse of the dead” ( Purgatory in Yeats’s Poetry, Drama and Prose, A Norton Critical Edition, ed. James Pethica (NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000), pp.169-174 at 174). T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”, I, ll.6-8 in Four Quartets in The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1971), pp.117ff. Cited in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI.2 1139b10, trans. J. A. K. Thomson and Hugh Tredennick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), p.206. [ Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, ed. August Nauck (Leipzig: Teubner, 1856), fr. 5, p.593] Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection—Peri Teleiottos, trans. Casimir McCambley, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 29. 4 (1984), pp.349-79 at 379 [ GNO, 8.1, 213-214]. Thus, for example, for Shakespeare, time was “this bloody tyrant Time” (Son. 16, l. 2 in The Riverside Shakespeare in p.1752) and “Devouring Time” (Son. 19, l. 1 in The Riverside Shakespeare, pp.1752-1753). Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, trans. Paul Kachur (Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir " s Seminary Press, 1988), pp.123ff. Baptism, ed. Paul Lazor (NY: Department of Religious Education, The Orthodox Church in America, 1972), p.64. Great Vespers, ed. Igor Soroka (South Canaan, Pennsylvania: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1992), p.77. The relevant passage runs thus: “Considering that, all hatred driven hence,/The soul recovers radical innocence/And learns at last that it is self-delighting,/Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,/And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;/She can though every face should scowl/And every windy quarter howl/Or every bellows burst, be happy still” (W. B. Yeats, ‘A Prayer For My Daughter’, ll. 65-72 in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (London: MacMillan, 1987). pp.211-214 at 214). Yeats is said to have derived this idea from William Blake. In the Blakean context, critics refer to the notion as ‘organized innocence’: cf. Inscription in the manuscript of The Four Zoas ( The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David. V. Erdman, Commentary by Harold Bloom, Newly Revised Ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1982), pp.697, 838) and Jerusalem, Chapter 1, Plate 17, ll. 29-47 (ibid, p.162). |
| 63. Пер. с франц. Т. Майданович по изд.: «Les Stigmates». Messager de l’Exarchat du Patriarche Russe en Europe Occidentale. 1963, p. 192—203. Доклад 1963 г. 64. Гостия (лат. hostia, русск. облатка) — в Католической Церкви — предложенный для жертвоприношения хлеб, в таинстве Евхаристии претворенный в Тело Христово. 65. Мифомания (греч. — миф, — страсть, безумие) — патологическая лживость, разновидность истерических фантазий, при которой человек не способен отличить реальные события от вымышленных. 66. Питиатизм (истор.; греч. — убеждать, — лечение) — термин, введенный Ж. Бабинским для обозначения расстройств, возникающих в результате внушения либо самовнушения и устраняемых также внушением. 67. Особняком стоит стигматизация святого Франциска Ассизского (1224 г.), у которого без предварительных медитаций или экстазов впервые в истории появились раны на теле в точности в том виде, как они были нанесены Христу, после видения в небесах распятого серафима. 68. Беседа в лондонском приходе осенью 1990 г. Публ.: «Пути христианской жизни». Вопросы и ответы взяты из разных бесед. 69. См., напр.: «По поводу одного окружного послания». Хомяков А. С. Богословские сочинения. СПб: Наука, 1995, с. 120. 70. Русская гимназия в Париже, среднее учебное заведение, основанное группой русских педагогов в 1920 г., просуществовала до 1961 г. 71. Первый русский катехизис Православной Церкви, составленный святителем Филаретом Московским. См.: «Пространный христианский катехизис Православной Кафолической Восточной Церкви». М.: Разн. изд. 72. Радиобеседы в религиозной программе Русской службы Би-би-си «Воскресение», 1981 г. Публ.: «Беседы о вере и Церкви». 73. Тропарь Пасхи: «Христос воскресе из мертвых, смертию смерть поправ, и сущим во гробех живот (жизнь) даровав». 74. «Блажен путь, воньже идеши днесь, душе, яко уготовася тебе место упокоения». Последование погребения мирских человек. Прокимен. 75. Пер. с англ. по изд.: «God and man». London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971. Телеинтервью, вышедшее в эфир 5 и 12 июля 1970 г. Публ.: Альфа и Омега. 2000, |
| 971. Его же. О происхождении книги Екклезиаста. — ХЧ, 1887, кн. 3-4. 972. Barton G. The Book of Ecclesiast. London, 1908. 973. Cheune Т.К. Job and Solomon. London, 1887. 974. Ckook M.B. The Cruel God. Boston, 1959. 975. Dhorme P. Le Livre de Job. Paris, 1926. 976. Ginsberg H.L. Studies in Qohelet. New York, 1950. 977. Gordis R. The Book of God and Man. 1965. 978. Hessler. В.. Kohelet: the Veiled God. — The Bridge, v. I, 1955. 979. Hone R.E. (ed.). The Voice out of the Whirlwind: The Book of J.ob. San Francisco, 1960. 980. Jung C.G. Answer to Job. London, 1965: 981. Kissane E. J. The Book of Job. Dublin, 1935. 982. L " eveque J. Job et son Dieu. Paris, 1971. 983. Lindblan. La composition du livre de Job. Paris, 1975. 984. Lorento 0. Qohelet und der Alte Orien. Freiburg, 1964. 985. McKenzie R.A.F. Job. — JBC, I. 986. Me Neile A.H. An Introduction to Ecclesiastes. Cambridge, 1904. 987. Murphy R.E. Ecclesiastes (Qohelet). — JBC, I. 988. Robert A. Les attaches litteraires bibliques de Prov. I-IX. — Rev. Biblique, 1934, 989. Skehnau P. W. A Single Editor for the whole Book of Proverbs. — The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1948, 990. Steinmann S. Le livre de Job. Paris, 1955. 991. Strauge М. Job, Qohelet. Collegeville. 992. Terrien S. Job: Poet of Existence. New York, 1957. 993. Ulanov D. Job and his Comforters. — The Bridge, 1958, v. I. 994. Weber Th.H. Sirach. — JBC, I. 995. Wridgt Ch. H. The Book of Kohelet, Commonly Called Ecclesiastes, Considered in Relation to Modern Criticism and to the Doctrines of Modern Pessimism. London, 1883. 4. Неканонические книги Ветхого Завета (Книги Товит, Юдифь, Варуха и Послание Иеремии) 996. Антонин, арх. (впоследствии еп.). Книга Варуха. Репродукция. Киев, 1903. Х + 422 с. Изд. 2-е, 1920. 997. Б. H. В чем сущность еврейства (анализ книги Юдифь). — ВР, 1907, с. 319-341. 998. Варух. — ВЧ, 1854, с. 229-230. 999. Глаголев А., свящ. Книга Товита. — ТБ, т. III, с. 324-361. 1000. Дроздов H. Исторический характер книги Юдифь. — ТКДА, 1876, с. 3-91; с. 273-295. |
| 127. Федотов Г. П. «О Святом Духе в природе и в культуре». Путь. 1932, 128. Протопресвитер Александр Шмеман. «За жизнь мира». Нью-Йорк, 1983, с. 11. 129. Имеются в виду «Размышления о Божественной литургии». 130. Соловьев В. С. Стихотворения. СПб, 1900, с. 16. 131. Ср.: Диккенс Ч. «Наш общий друг». Собр. соч. в 30 т. М.: Худ. лит., 1962, т. 25, с. 327. 132. Пер. с англ. Т. Майданович. Выступление перед англиканской аудиторией 1 мая 1985 г. 133. Бубер М. «Хасидские предания». М.: Республика, 1997, с. 224—225. Хасидизм — народное духовное движение, возникшее внутри восточноевропейского иудаизма во второй четверти XVIII b., широко распространившееся в еврейском религиозном мире и существующее поныне. Многочисленные книги М. Бубера о хасидизме, и в особенности его пересказы хасидских преданий, ввели это духовное движение в современный культурный контекст. 134. Беседа на великопостном говении 24 февраля 1979 г. Публ.: «Человек перед Богом». 135. Великий канон Андрея Критского. Понедельник. Песнь 9, тропарь 3: «Закон изнеможе, празднует Евангелие, писание же все в тебе небрежено бысть, пророцы изнемогоша и все праведное слово: струпи твои, о душе, умножишася, не сущу врачу, исцеляющему тя». Русск. пер. Н. Кедрова (М., 1915 [репр. СПб: Сатисъ, 1992]): «Ослабел закон, не воздействует (бессильно) Евангелие, пренебрежено тобою все писание, пророки и всякое слово праведника — потеряли силу. Язвы твои, душа, умножились, так как не находится врача, тебя исцеляющего». 136. «Были бури, непогоды…» Баратынский Е. А. Полн. собр. стихотворений. Л.: Сов. писатель, 1989, с. 193. 137. См. сноску 26. 138. «Кораллы». Мережковский Д. С. Собр. соч. СПб: Фолио-Пресс, 2000, с. 75. 139. См.: Сэйерс Д. «Царь приходит к своему народу». Русск. пер. Н. Л. Трауберг. Мир Библии, 1998, с. 15—24. 140. Перевод с англ. по изд.: «God and man». London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971. 1-я публ.: альманах XPICTIANOC (Рига, 1998). Дополнено выдержками из ответов на вопросы по теме. 141. Поскольку в Библии «святость» — это прежде всего «отделенность», Бог «отделяет» себе во всей принадлежащей Ему вселенной еврейский народ как «удел», чтобы он исполнял заповеди и служил Ему — Единому Богу Израиля. В этом заключается смысл завета между Богом и еврейским народом, который поэтому называется народом избранным и святым (Исх 19:3—8). См. также следующее прим. |
| М. Ласки: Скажу лишь одно: если вы не правы, виновны, поступили не право, лучше уж нести это самому, чем перекладывать на других. Может быть, требуется понести собственную виновность и справиться с ней. Митр. Антоний: Я думаю, что лучше оставить в покое слово «вина» и сделать что-то… М. Ласки: Разумеется, что-то сделать, но не взваливать это на кого-то другого. Митр. Антоний: Не вижу смысла возлагать это на кого-то другого, разве что этот человек готов — по доброму к вам отношению, по дружбе, по любви — назовите как хотите, по какой-то связи с вами, разделить с вами вашу проблему, ваше затруднение, разделить не ваше чувство вины, не ваше бедственное состояние, но то, как вы выбираетесь из него. М. Ласки: Я взвалила на вас свои вопросы, и вы были очень великодушны, но я уверена, что не коснулась каких-то важных областей, которые вы хотели бы упомянуть. Я, вероятно, не дала вам достаточно возможности высказать то, что действительно имеет значение для вас… Митр. Антоний: Нет, думаю, что разговор был очень интересный. В любом случае, невозможно охватить все. Если высказаться о Боге и о религии очень кратко, в двух предложениях, то вот каковы мои чувства. Бог — не Кто-то, в Ком я нуждаюсь, чтобы заполнить пустоту. Мне пришлось Его принять, потому что мой опыт жизни указывает, что Он есть, я не могу уйти от этого факта. А второе: вытекающие из этого нравственные нормы не являются обязанностями по отношению к Богу или к людям — я не люблю слово «обязанность», — а составляют творческую радость о Боге и благодарность Ему и людям, и это порождает благоговение: благоговейное поклонение Богу, благоговейное отношение к людям, благоговение перед жизнью. Я думаю, на практике, в жизни имеет значение это чувство благоговения, и радости, и вызова, которое позволит мне вырасти в полную меру. Эта беседа вошла в книгу «Бог: да или нет? Беседы верующего с неверующим», выпущенную недавно издательством «Никея» совместно с фондом «Духовное наследие митрополита Антония Сурожского». Печатается с сокращениями. Названия глав даны редакцией. Пер. с англ. Е. Майданович по изд.: «God and man». London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971. Телеинтервью, вышедшее в эфир 5 и 12 июля 1970 г. Первая публ.: «Альфа и Омега». 2000, Ред. |
| There’s more, of course – much more. That communion with Our Lord was preceded by not one but two exorcisms (the priest in Lausanne insisted) and followed by what he calls a “counter-attack of Satan”. And I haven’t even mentioned all the other things, the miracle in the Syrian desert circa 1971, the George McGovern story, the levitation… I look at Klaus, unsure what to say. You do realise, I ask finally, that when I write this stuff in the paper, people will read it and say – “Crazy man,” he agrees. They won’t believe you. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” So what do you say to those people? “Well, you are right not to believe it,” he replies, “because it sounds incredible. But I can not lie in the name of Christ – because I would condemn myself to Hell. And I lived in Hell. I don’t want to go back there.” Maybe that’s the crux of it, when it comes to Klaus Kenneth. Mystics will say he found God, psychologists will say he found closure, but the story’s much the same whichever way you want to tell it: the story of a man who was raised without love, coldly and abusively – who “lived in Hell,” as he puts it – wandered for years trying to find inner peace, and finally found it. It’s a quest for love, as he says again and again. It’s a quest for comradeship, which is doubtless what he found with Father Sophrony. ‘Why not just accept your life?’ I ask. Why even bring religion into it? Why not just accept human nature and say ‘This is life’? “Because you feel that is not life,” he replies. “It’s a wrong life. That is what society calls life. But inside my heart, when I went to bed after my stories with alcohol, sex and whatever – I felt alone. And that is not life.” Originally published in Cyprus Mail . Used by permission. Any reproduction of this publication online or in print requires written permission from the publisher, Cyprus Mail. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Born to Lead Theo Panayides Klaus Kenneth is also God’s gift to churches – especially the Orthodox Church, which is where he turned after decades of spiritual wandering, a meeting with Father Sophrony of Essex (a man whom he describes as “Love incarnate”) leading to a full Orthodox baptism in 1986 |
| And the Particular Who invades our lives through the particularities that we encounter is never generic. For the generic is no-thing – it is nothing. There is no generic, only the comfortable imaginations born of our desire to avoid the discomforts of the particular. The more God is devoid of the particular, the more we reduce Him to a concept – even reducing Him to something like a natural resource: water, light, air, God. In such a position, God remains available (everywhere), inert and ready to be ignored or accessed, depending on our own requirements. The generic God is thus the ultimate consumer product. In a consumerist culture, there will always be pressure to move God towards the mode of “available resource,” a mere symbol for our own selfish desire for transcendence. Such a God underwrites and validates my “spirituality,” but makes no demands that might be occasioned by His own particularity. The particularity of God will be seen as an increasingly offensive reality within a consumerist culture. Such a Particularity too easily assaults the universal claims of all consumers. So-called “non-denominationalism” is simply an ecclesiological expression of a generalized God in which nearly all particularities are seen as “man-made,” and merely reflect consumer desires. Any elevation of the Particular in religious terms is easily seen as an effort to control access to a generalized God (“You’re trying to put God in a box”). Conversion to classical Christianity requires the difficult acceptance of the Particular God (and thus a particular Church). That acceptance includes the rejection of the etiquette of the generic. You will offend your friends and family – for the acceptance of the Particular casts judgment on the general whether it is uttered or not. But this difficult acceptance is a necessary thing – for the generic God is – ultimately – no God at all. It is merely a god, a cipher for a cultural notion. The generic god cannot save for it can only offer something in general. |
| " All creatures are balanced upon the creative Word of God, as if upon a bridge of diamond; above them is the abyss of divine infinitude, below them, that of their own nothingness. " So far we have examined the truth claims and methods of science and religion from the shared perspective of the great Abrahamic monotheisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We shall now look to the specific insights of Orthodox Christianity–a very different territory of enquiry with surprising discoveries in store. God is both Creator and Trinity As we have observed, it is the transcendent majesty and glory of God, this singular unexcelled and excellent being that concerns all truly monotheistic faiths. Any conceptualisation, image or formulation concerning God in his essence or being is idolatrous and to be rejected. There can be absolutely no ontological overlap between God the Creator and Uncreated One and creation. However, to say that God is utterly distinct from creation at the level of his essence is to contribute nothing to an understanding of how he can be known by humankind through his covenanted grace, his theophanies or self-manifestations and supremely by his Incarnation in the Word made flesh (John 1:14). The Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church teach that God manifests himself in creation without being absorbed by it or fused with it, which of course would be pantheism. By way of contrast, the Orthodox teaching that incorporates the reality of the Divine Presence is called panentheism and this received its classic formulation in the distinction made between the essence and energies of God in the works of St Gregory Palamas. The energies of God are sometimes referred to as his immanence in creation. God is not to be thought of, therefore, as only acting “from beyond.” He also (by His energies) acts from within. When the Jews reflected upon this immanence in the context of their own covenant experience, their sacred writings made a distinction between the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Later the Wisdom of God was added. The Word of God could be described as his powerful creative and prophetic utterance. Noteworthy in this regard is this verse from the prophecy of Isaiah:- |
| The trouble with this alienation between faith and science is that it is so deeply embedded in Western culture that it seems blind to its own myopic view of reality and the spiritual and intellectual origins of its unquestioned assumptions. In propaganda terms, atheist popularisers have a vested interest in attacking a caricature of religion as normatively fundamentalist. In the general population the level of religious literacy is so low that many simply buy the half- baked notions that seem to be continually recycled in the latest paperbacks of authors who have made a very decent living out of the whole sorry enterprise. Since many people unquestioningly assume that all Christians are the same and believe the same things, it has become almost impossible for Orthodox Christians to contribute to the debate without being written off as self-serving or idiosyncratic. I do not think, however, that we shall be able to improve on this situation until we can put some clear blue water between the caricature and the reality. Creation Explains God Firstly we need to establish some basics of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, later adopted by Islam. This monotheist infrastructure is often not well understood. Significant differences exist within the religious traditions, but there is enough common ground to establish a shared platform concerning the relationship between God and the world. So, let us start with creation and the monotheist position. Is it possible to believe in God the Creator without being a creationist? " In the beginning God made heaven and earth. " (Genesis 1:1) So begins Jewish and Christian Holy Scripture. The Jews were exceptional amongst all peoples of antiquity in their insistence that God and the natural order were neither to be confused nor fused. The creation owed its being and purpose to God. God himself was singular and unique. There was only one God and God was one. The surrounding cultures had very different ideas in their creation stories. Many supposed a pantheon of deities, only some of which had any role in creation. Others commonly believed that the creation was itself part of God, an emanation of His being. However, the Jews under the divine revelation of their covenant knew that God could not be divided without impugning His sovereignty and power; He could not be confused with creation for then He would be subject to change, violating His self-sufficiency and perfection. Such sovereign sufficiency required the belief that God created the Cosmos out of His own love, freely, so as to nurture something “not-Himself” into a dynamic and evolving relationship of communion with Himself. This applied in the first place to the physical process of creation itself, which was not instantaneous but rather an unfolding fecundity of God from the Earth itself (Genesis 1: “let the earth bring forth ...”). |
|
|
