| Having informed the Apostles of their significance in the state of human eternity (cf. Mt. 19:28), the Lord adds, And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, (Mt. 19:29) for my sake, and the gospel’s … shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life (Mk. 10:29–30; cf. Mt. 19:29). Persecution is what earthly life is called. It is persecution because humans were cast down to the earth and subjected to a sojourn of suffering upon it for transgressing God’s commandments. It is a place and time of persecution for the followers of Christ, because the prince of this world reigns there, the reign of sin is most widespread there, sin being the enemy of Christ’s followers, cruelly persecuting and oppressing them without interruption. They are subjected to the many different torments of sin both within them and from the outside. The fallen spirits who thirst for their destruction, work against them with frenzied hatred and incredible craftiness; working against them also are the majority of people, who have willingly enslaved themselves to the fallen spirits, and who serve them as blind, unhappy instruments; working against them also are their own passions and weaknesses. The followers of Christ receive even in this temporary exile a hundred fold more than what they have forsaken for Christ’s sake and for the sake of His commandments. They tangibly receive the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. Before Divine grace brings consolation, all the joys and consolations of the world are destroyed; before spiritual riches, before spiritual glory, all the riches and glory of the world are destroyed; in the eyes of the saints, sinful and fleshly pleasures are disgusting filth, filled with deathly bitterness; the state of the rich and glorious of the world is like a whited sepulcher that is shiny on the outside, but inside full of stink and decay—those qualities inseparable from every corpse. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Miracles VERA SHEVZOV Orthodox thinkers from Late Antiquity to modern times have understood miracles as actions or events that manifest or point to the presence of God. Orthodox Christians have associated miracles not only with individual experiences, but also with experiences of entire communities and even nations. Miracles are associated with healings, historical events, visions, dreams, and foresight, and with such phenomena as inexplicable displays of myrrh or tears on icons. Throughout history, Orthodox pastors and spiritual guides have drawn on accounts of miracles for pedagogical purposes. Such accounts provided lessons concerning vices and virtues along with lessons concerning “right faith.” In addition to the realm of lived Orthodoxy, where accounts of miracles have often resulted in the special veneration of certain icons and the veneration of saints and their relics, miracles have also figured in the Orthodox theological and philosophical considerations of history, science and nature, and anthropology. Reports of miracles have also periodically begged the question of authority in the church (who in the church is it that finds and declares them miraculous?). Although miracles may be integral to its worldview, Orthodox Christianity nevertheless is deeply nuanced in its approach to them. In part, the Orthodox understanding of miracles is rooted in the complex view of miracles reflected in the New Testament. On the one hand, patristic authors such as Origen of Alexandria (d. 254) and St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) maintained that Jesus’ miracles played a significant role in the establishment of the Christian faith. Signs, acts of power, and works testified to the power of God manifested in and through Christ. Accordingly, Orthodox writers maintained, miracles accompanied his words in order to confirm his identity for those who were unable to recognize his power and authority through his words alone. In this sense, miracles were a form of divine condescension. Following the death of Jesus, in this view, the apostles performed numerous miracles in Jesus’ name as a way further to cultivate the Christian faith. As Origen wrote in his mid- 3rd century treatise Against Celsus 1.46, had it not been for miracles, people would not have been persuaded to accept the new teachings. On the other hand, patristic authors also pointed to the more negative aspects of miracles in the gospel texts. Particularly objectionable was the pursuit of, and demand for, miracles as a condition for faith ( Mt. 16.4 ; Jn. 6.30–31 ) or as a curious spectacle ( Lk. 23.8 ). Even the Devil tempted Jesus to perform a miracle ( Mt. 4.1–11 ; Lk. 4.1–13 ). Finally, according to Jesus’ testimony, not every “wondrous sign” was from God ( Mt. 24.24–25 ; Acts 8.9–13); they could even be detrimental to believers by distracting or turning them from the path to salvation. |
| Todavía San Pablo se detuvo y habló del «peso momentáneo y ligero de la tribulación que nos proporciona una cantidad inconmensurable y eterna de gloria» ( 2Cor. 4:17 ). Porque, si la cosa es pesada por naturaleza, se hace ligera por la esperanza de las cosas futuras; ésta es la razón que el mismo Pablo dijo: «porque nosotros no fijamos la mirada sobre las cosas visibles, sino sobre aquellas invisibles» ( 2Cor. 4:18 ). Discreción con los Paganos Pero pasemos a considerar lo que Cristo continúa diciendo: «No deis las cosas santas a los perros y no echéis vuestras perlas a los cerdos» ( Mt. 7:6 ). El lo ha dicho, evidentemente, dándonos una orden, pero nosotros por vanagloria y absurda ambición, hemos interpretado la prescripción tergiversando sus términos; y con ligereza, indiscriminadamente y sin previo examen, admitimos corruptores infieles, personas llenas de todo vicio, a la comunión de nuestros misterios ( 1Cor. 10:16 ). Les revelamos todos los «artículos de la fe, sin que antes hayan dado segura prueba de la propia intención y acogemos en masa en los sagrados recintos, a gente que no tendría que ver aún el vestíbulo. Por esto, algunos, así, intempestivamente iniciados, muy pronto se han retractado, dándose a toda suerte de maldad. Tal terrible precepto lo transgredimos no sólo respecto a los no cristianos, sino también entre nosotros, cuando teniendo que participar en los inmortales misterios, los realizamos muy a menudo, en estado de impureza y descaradamente. Además, nosotros desordenamos no solamente dichos preceptos, como todos pueden ver, sino también aquellos que siguen. Si Cristo, pues, ha dicho: «Todo cuanto queréis que los hombres os hagan, también vosotros hacédselo a ellos,» ( Mt. 7, 12 ), nosotros, en cambio, les hacemos lo que de ellos no queremos padecer. La Puerta Angosta Sometidos, luego, a entrar por la puerta angosta, buscamos por todos los lados, encontrar la espaciosa ( Mt. 13–14 ; Lc. 13:24); y no sorprendería si solamente los seglares la abrazan y la prefieran; pero más que ellos, la van buscando importantes personalidades que, aparentan estar crucificadas, no terminando jamás de maravillar al aparecer más bien como un enigma. |
| Все более и более к ней устремляясь, душа непрестанно растет, из себя выходит, себя превосходя, в жажде большего; так восхождение становится бесконечным, желание - неутолимым (In Cant. Cantic. 12). Обращается к образу Моисея и свт. Григорий Богослов: «Я шел вперед с тем, чтобы познать Бога. Поэтому я отделился от материи и от всего плотского, я собрался, насколько смог, в самом себе и поднялся на вершину горы. Но когда я открыл глаза, то смог увидеть задняя Божия (Исх 33. 22-23), и это было покрыто камнем (1 Кор 10. 4), т. е. человечеством Слова, воплотившегося ради нашего спасения. Я не мог созерцать всечистую Первоприроду, познаваемую только Ею Самой, т. е. Св. Троицей. Ибо я не могу созерцать то, что находится за первой завесой, сокрытое херувимами, но только то, что нисходит к нам,- Божественное великолепие, видимое в тварях» (Or. 28). Что же до Божественной Сущности, то это Святая Святых, закрываемое и от самих серафимов. Божественная природа для св. Григория Богослова есть море сущности, неопределенное и бесконечное, простирающееся за пределы всякого понятия о времени и природе. Если наш ум попытается создать слабый образ Божий, созерцая Его не в Нем Самом, но в том, что Его окружает, то этот образ ускользает от нас прежде, чем мы попытаемся его уловить, озаряя высшие способности нашего ума, как молния, ослепляющая взоры. И в «Ареопагитиках» путь апофатического богопознания уподобляется восхождению Моисея на Синай в сретение Богу. Путь «отрешений» от всего сущего, приводящий к Божественному Мраку, сравнивается здесь с искусством ваятеля, к-рый, удаляя все, что скрывает статую в глыбе материала, обнаруживает ее сокровенную красоту (MT II). Путь отрешений должен быть восхождением от низшего к высшему. Это путь аскетический. Он начинается очищением. Он есть «единовидное собирание» или сосредоточение, «вхождение в самого себя», отвлечение от всякого познания, от всех образов, чувственных и умственных. Это апофатическое незнание есть не отсутствие знания, но совершенное знание, несоизмеримое со всяким частичным познанием. Бог познается не издали, не через размышление о Нем, но через непостижимое с Ним соединение, что возможно только через исхождение за все пределы, через «исступление» (MT I 1). И это означает вступление в священный мрак, в «мрак неведения», в «мрак молчания». Это «исхождение» есть истинное познание, но познание без слов и понятий и потому несообщимое познание, доступное только тому, кто его достиг и имеет,- и даже для него самого доступное не вполне, ибо и самому себе описать его никто не может. Это область, в к-рой бездействует размышление и душа касается Бога, осязает Божество. Нужно подыматься все выше, миновать все священные вершины, покинуть все небесные звуки, и светы, и слова - и войти в «таинственный мрак незнания», где истинно обитает Тот, Кто выше и вне всего (MT I 3). |
| The Lord made him an emulator of St. Anthony of the Caves, also a native of Little Russia. And like St Anthony, who wandered and finally settled on Mt Athos, where he assumed the angelic monastic rank, and, after many years of labor there and earning great spiritual gifts, then returning to his fatherland to sow and multiply monastic life; so did St Paisius, after gaining heavenly treasures, return to his home, to Moldavia, to renew the monastic ranks, to reestablish the fallen common monastic life and plant within it thrice-blessed obedience, illuminating through his teaching the darkness of the ignorant, to grant wisdom through the correction and new translations of the Holy Fathers and theological texts from the Greek into his native tongue. " Hieromonk Tryphon went to the Holy Mountain with Fr. Platon. They arrived on Mt Athos on July 4, on the eve of the feast day of St. Athanasius of Athos, who lived as a hermit on the Holy Mountain, and then established the first coenobitic monastery. Today his monastery on the Holy Mountain is the main one, the first one among twenty other monasteries. Resting for a few days at the lavra of St. Athanasius, the travelers headed for the Monastery of the Pantocrator, near to where the Slavic monks lived. The road to Pantocrator Monastery was long and difficult. The weary travelers sat down to rest, and drank some cold water. From this they caught colds. Hieromonk Tryphon grew delirious, and died soon after arriving at Pantocrator Monastery. Platon remained to live at Pantocrator Monastery. Gradually he came to know the neighboring monasteries, visiting the local monks and hermits, seeking a spiritual father. It was difficult for him, because he lived in poverty for some four years. In 1750, Fr. Platon’s spiritual from Moldavia, Schema-monk Vasilius, came to Mt Athos and tonsured Platon to the mantle with the name Paisius. Soon Paisius was joined by his first students, Vissarion and Cesarius, and eventually their number grew to 12. |
| Apostle and Evangelist Matthew Commemorated on November 16 The Holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew, was also named Levi (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27); he was one of the Twelve Apostles (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:45; Acts 1:13), and was brother of the Apostle James Alphaeus (Mark 2:14). He was a publican, or tax-collector for Rome, in a time when the Jews were under the rule of the Roman Empire. He lived in the Galilean city of Capernaum. When Matthew heard the voice of Jesus Christ: “Come, follow Me” (Mt. 9:9), left everything and followed the Savior. Christ and His disciples did not refuse Matthew’s invitation and they visited his house, where they shared table with the publican’s friends and acquaintances. Like the host, they were also publicans and known sinners. This event disturbed the pharisees and scribes a great deal. Publicans who collected taxes from their countrymen did this with great profit for themselves. Usually greedy and cruel people, the Jews considered them pernicious betrayers of their country and religion. The word “publican” for the Jews had the connotation of “public sinner” and “idol-worshipper.” To even speak with a tax-collector was considered a sin, and to associate with one was defilement. But the Jewish teachers were not able to comprehend that the Lord had “come to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt. 9:13). Matthew, acknowledging his sinfulness, repaid fourfold anyone he had cheated, and he distributed his remaining possessions to the poor, and he followed after Christ with the other apostles. St Matthew was attentive to the instructions of the Divine Teacher, he beheld His innumerable miracles, he went together with the Twelve Apostles preaching to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 10:6). He was a witness to the suffering, death, and Resurrection of the Savior, and of His glorious Ascension into Heaven. Having received the grace of the Holy Spirit, which descended upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, St Matthew preached in Palestine for several years. At the request of the Jewish converts at Jerusalem, the holy Apostle Matthew wrote his Gospel describing the earthly life of the Savior, before leaving to preach the Gospel in faraway lands. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Judaism, Orthodoxy and EUGEN J. PENTIUC EARLY JEWISH-CHRISTIAN INTERACTION WITH SCRIPTURE In the last decades of the first century CE nascent Jewish Christianity was gradually outnumbered by the ever-growing Gentile element. From the outset, early Christianity and evolving Judaism experienced a long and intricate process of the “parting of the ways,” although there are an increasing number of scholars today who question this construct’s absolute nature, pointing to many continued interactions between the two communities of faith for many centuries. Christians have always been aware of their links with the Jewish people and interacted with them, not least through the sharing of Scripture and moral and prophetic attitudes. The Old Testament, the first part of the Christian Bible, is essentially the Jewish Scripture. The very title “Old Testament” given by Christians to the Hebrew Scripture is a phrase coined by the Apostle Paul with regard to the writings attributed to Moses ( 2Cor. 3.14–15 ) and popularized by Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century. The title “New Testament,” referring to the new collection put together by the early church, is taken from the Book of Jeremiah announcing that God will make a “new covenant” with Israel ( Jer. 31.31 ). What was the relationship between Jesus and Judaism and its Scripture? Any attempt to define this relationship should keep in mind two factors. On the one hand, Jesus places his sayings on the same level of authority as Moses’ teachings ( Jn. 5.47 ), stating that he came to fulfill the whole entirety of the law ( Mt. 5.17 ). On the other hand, Jesus relativizes several important Old Testament injunctions, among which were the Sabbath observance ( Mt. 12.8, 12 ) and ritual purity laws ( Mt. 15.11 ). This makes one think of the relation of the Old and New Testaments as being a relationship balanced between conformity and disruption: a unity under tension. The Lord Jesus stands at one and the same moment within Judaism and beyond it. Although St. Paul never removed the Jews – the heirs of biblical Israel considered as the people of God – from the salvific framework of his theology of redemption ( Rom. 9–11 ), he certainly moved them away from the center, at which axis point he located submission to Jesus, Lord of the New Covenant. |
| The Lord made him an emulator of St Anthony of the Caves, also a native of Little Russia. And like St Anthony, who wandered and finally settled on Mt Athos, where he assumed the angelic monastic rank, and, after laying down many years of labor there and earning great spiritual gifts, then returning to his fatherland to sow and multiply monastic life; so did St Paisius, gaining heavenly treasures, returned to his home, to Moldavia, to renew the monastic ranks, to reestablish the fallen common monastic life and plant within it thrice-blessed obedience, illuminating through his teaching the darkness of the ignorant, to grant wisdom through the correction and new translations from the Greek into his native tongue of the Holy Fathers and theological texts. " Hieromonk Tryphon went to the Holy Mountain with Fr Platon. They arrived on Mt Athos on July 4, on the eve of the feast day of St Athanasius of Athos, who lived as a hermit on the Holy Mountain, and then established the first coenobitic monastery. Today his monastery on the Holy Mountain is the main one, the first one among twenty other monasteries. Resting for a few days at the lavra of St Athanasius, the travelers headed for the Monastery of the Pantocrator, nearby which Slavic monks lived. The road to Pantocrator Monastery was long and difficult. The travelers, weary, sat down to rest, and drank some cold water. From this they caught colds. Hieromonk Tryphon grew delirious, and died soon after arriving at Pantocrator Monastery. Platon remained to live at Pantocrator Monastery. Gradually he came to know the neighboring monasteries, visiting the local monks and hermit, seeking a spiritual father. It was difficult for him, since he lived in poverty for some four years. In 1750, the spiritual father of Fr Platon from Moldavia, Schema-monk Vasilius, came to Mt Athos, who tonsured Platon to the mantle with the name Paisius. Soon Paisius was joined by his first students, Vissarion and Cesarius; eventually their number grew to 12. |
| In effect, the EU is censoring history to make it more pliable for its own ideological ends. On the matter of the draft constitution, Archbishop Christodoulos warned that events of the 20 th Century showed how an ideology allied with a powerful elite could lead to tragedy: " The peoples of Europe have suffered greatly at the hands of small but powerful groups that have wished to fit history and our will to their hands. " The EU’s call to turn Mt. Athos into just another tourist site was immediately rejected by Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tassos Yiannitsis, who told the Kathimerini newspaper on Sept. 5 that the EU directive " would be in direct confrontation with fundamental, 1,000-year-old traditions, our faith and the monastic spirit of the Mountain. " Mt.Athos is a self-governing district, ultimately subject to the Greek state and, on matters of faith, to the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Athos is situated on a mountainous peninsula, dotted with 20 monasteries that draw a pan-Orthodox population of monks from around the world. (In the Eastern Orthodox world, nuns also live apart in monasteries and are led by an abbess). Some of the greatest Christian art treasures are located on the Holy Mountain. The monks of Mt.Athos spend their days in worship and work, committing their lives to God in a powerful witness to a reality beyond this world. The Eastern Orthodox monastic tradition has always exercised a strong social conscience. St. Basil of Caesarea, who formulated many of the earliest rules of monasticism in the fourth century, set up his famous Basileias, an early welfare organization that functioned as an orphanage, a soup kitchen, and a school for the illiterate. Historian Ernest Barker pointed out that the monasteries acted as a check on Byzantine imperial power at crucial moments. " The monasteries and hermitages of the East, " Barker observed, " were strongholds and rocks of Orthodoxy: they were peculiarly venerated, and often endowed with relics and offerings by the laity; and they counted as a great and independent factor when any grave question divided the Church or pitted the clergy against the emperor. " |
| A question arises: Why can the Patriarch of Moscow write a letter to the president of Greece requesting Fr. Ephraim’s release, but the Patriarch of Constantinople cannot? Why can the hierarchs of the Cypriot and Greek Churches visit Fr. Ephraim in prison, but Patriarch Bartholomew, or in fact any of the hierarchs of the Constantinople Patriarchate, cannot? The only thing the Constantinople Patriarchate was able to do was to once again remind everyone of its exclusive rights and honor, which were supposedly threatened by the Moscow Patriarch’s letter. But how could a letter requesting a change in Fr. Ephraim’s punitive status damage the canonical integrity and ecclesiastical/administrative order of the Constantinople Patriarchate? Viewing a gesture to help a specific person as an attempt to take control of the Holy Mountain makes absolutely no sense and borders on the absurd. Especially if we take into consideration that even on January 5, that is, five days before the session of the Synod of Constantinople, an interview by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk was published in Greek, in which he emphasized that the Russian Orthodox Church does not place under any doubt Mt. Athos’s subordination to the Constantinople Patriarchate. In the same interview, Vladyka Hilarion noted that “Our Church always expresses its concern in general for situations where Christians anywhere are subjected to repression or discrimination. I do not consider this to be interference in others’ affairs. When, for example, Coptic Christians are killed in Egypt and the members of the Holy Synod express solidarity with them—is that considered interference? No, it is a perfectly natural expression of solidarity with persecuted Christians. When a respected Mt. Athos abbot, who is known and supported by the monks of the Holy Mountain, the monks of his own monastery, the Holy Kinotita [the governing community of Mt. Athos], and who is known and loved by many people in Russia… it evokes the perplexity and indignation of very many people, who are expressing their solidarity in ways accessible to them.” |
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