| I received an e-mail from someone asking advice on how to find a spiritual father. I had to tell him that finding a spiritual father, in one sense, is very difficult and may take a lifetime. In fact, if by finding a spiritual father he means that he is looking for a relationship with a spiritual mentor that is like what one reads about in the Philokalia or the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, or in the Ladder of Divine Ascent, then I would have to say that it is almost impossible to find a spiritual father. On the other hand, and in another sense, it is very easy to find a spiritual father or mother. Finding a spiritual mentor in this sense has mostly to do with the seeker’s humility and willingness to be taught, and much less to do with the qualifications of the potential mentor. Let me explain: In the writings of the Holy Fathers, especially the ancient Fathers, we are given as examples to be emulated the many stories of absolute and unquestioning obedience of novices to their spiritual fathers. We are told stories of holy men who submitted unquestioningly and with profound humility to spiritual fathers and who themselves became saints because of that humble submission. We are told of clairvoyant elders, full of love for their spiritual children, who unerringly guided their spiritual children on the path to godlikeness, and we are told of spiritual children suffering harsh consequences as a result of disobeying their spiritual mentors. This tradition of discipleship under a wise and experienced spiritual guide (father or mother as the case may be) is an essential part of our Orthodox Christian tradition and a necessary aspect of our growth and transformation into godliness. However, this way of spiritual fatherhood is much misunderstood these days and consequently–even if unintentionally–sometimes results in unhealthy relationships and even spiritual abuse. In such cases, instead of helping one grow in Christ, a inappropriate or misunderstood relationship with someone whom you consider to be a spiritual father or mother (or with someone who presents themselves as a spiritual father or mother) can result in prolonged spiritual infancy, years of confusion or anger, and even in one turning away from Christ completely. |
| Growing Orthodox Presence in Timor-Leste Photo by Irene Archos Timor Leste, is a small country of 1.2 million occupying half the island of Timor. While Timor West is predominantly Muslim and has made headlines in recent years for the aggressive attacks on its Christian minority population, Timor Leste is predominantly Catholic. This is due to its history of colonization under the Portuguese. In fact, it has only recently gained independence from Portugal 1975 and even more recently 2002 from Indonesia, which still governs a large part of its borders. In the last couple of years, however, the Catholic population of Timor Leste has experienced a great awakening for Orthodoxy. Since 2017, thousands have converted to Russian Orthodoxy. Father Fotie, an ordained ROCOR priest from Jordanville who shepherds a tiny parish in upstate New York, has been instrumental in bringing many Timor Leste Catholics into the fold. He has thus far made two missionary attempts, each time chrismating a couple of hundred to the faith. This is unexpected in a country that has been historically 90% Catholic. Father Fotie attributes the conversions to the “might power of Grace in the Orthodox Church as the one true faith.” Father Kirill Shkarbul, a Russian Orthodox priest serving in Taiwan, began the Orthodox Mission in Timor Leste only three years ago. Over his several visits he was able to chrismate 160 faithful. It was he who invited Father Fotie to help with the effort. “ Our hope,” explains Father Fotie, “was that a sufficient nucleus could be gathered there to form the work into a mission under the Russian Orthodox Church.” Father Fotie’s most recent trip occurred in February of this year, just before the break of the COVID pandemic. The missionary work in Timor Leste had begun under the blessing of Metropolitan Hilarion. This opportunity arose as a result of Father Kirill Shkarbul’s initial invitation to officiate for the Blessed Nativity service on January 7 th . From February 2019, Father Kirill visited Timor-Leste a total of four times with each visit lasting on average between 14 to 20 days. When he was not there, he sent four different lay missionaries to the island for follow-up work. |
| The Church elders liken this sacrament with a second Baptism in which we are given the opportunity to be put back in our baptismal garments‚ and‚ with a clean soul and sins forgiven‚ we are made ready to re-start our life in Christ. When Fr. X speaks again on Confession‚ Nick begins to realize that Confession should be part of his regular Christian life as a divine given tool that is indispensable for his continuing spiritual growth and the strengthening of His relationship with God. Overcoming the anxiety that is common before a first Confession‚ he sets up an appointment with Fr. X. However‚ the more he thinks about it the more he realizes that he does not really know what to say or do during Confession. We have all been there and we have all struggled. Any beginning is difficult and particularly the first Confession‚ a very important step in the life of any Orthodox Christian‚ more so if one commences it at an adult age. The Church elders liken this sacrament with a second Baptism in which we are given the opportunity to be put back in our baptismal garments‚ and‚ with a clean soul and sins forgiven‚ we are made ready to re-start our life in Christ. For such an important moment advance preparation will help anyone go through it in a more timely and meaningful way. The following suggestions are meant to help in this very respect. Talk with your Father Confessor. In preparation for one’s first Confession a discussion with the chosen Father Confessor will be of great help. A more casual conversation will alleviate many of the “beginner’s” fears and will make the entire process less painful. The Father Confessor can point to prayers to be read before‚ materials that will help in preparation‚ and can explain the way he generally conducts first Confessions‚ so one will know what to expect. This conversation alone will make everything more manageable. Read the Prayers before Confession. Confession is a deep spiritual exercise that goes to the root of our spiritual failings. What better way to start our reconciliation with God but through prayer? The prayers will help one acquire a state of contrition by setting before one’s eyes the remembrance of one’s many failings. In the same time they also bring hope reminding that God can forgive any sin if there is true repentance. God does not rejoice in the death of the sinner‚ but He wants him to repent and live. (Eze 18:2’). |
| Patriarch Kirill: St. Sergius is the Embodiment of Holy Russia Holy Russia is what we call a meta-reality, that which lies beyond the boundaries of human reality. The annual celebration on July 18 of the finding of the sacred relics of St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh (1422), this year became the culmination of the feast dedicated to the 700th anniversary of this great Russian ascetic struggler. Following the Liturgy at the cathedral square of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia addressed the numerous pilgrims with the following sermon: Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru Your Eminences and Graces! Revered Father, Mother Abbesses, Brothers and Sisters! Eminent state officials! I would like to greet you all cordially on this great feast for our entire historical Fatherland and all of Rus’: the feast day of our Holy and God-Bearing Father, Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh. Sergius, the Venerable God-Pleaser, is truly a luminary through his entire life and across all of history. As the flame on a candle concentrates all of its energy, so too did the personality of St. Sergius concentrate all the light and spiritual strength of Holy Russia. When we say “Holy Russia,” what do we have in mind? Some people think that this is just a mythologema, an idea that was typical of our people in the Middle Ages. Others try to find the embodiment of Holy Russia in one historical period or another and, pointing at one or another period, say: this was Holy Russia. But neither the one nor the other is correct. Holy Russia is not a myth and Holy Russia is not an historical reality. Holy Russia is what we call a meta-reality, that which is beyond the boundaries of human reality. But if we use the word “reality,” then that which is beyond it has a bearing on our everyday life. And it becomes clear that Holy Russia is the undying spiritual and moral ideal of our people, and that the expression of this idea, its dominant, is holiness. Surprisingly, if one asks a simple question: where else was holiness the basic, principal idea of people’s lives? Then we are talking neither about monasteries, nor about closed groups of people dedicated to the service of God, but about an enormous nation. Usually people have different ideals connected with earthly life: the ideals of wealth, power, and might. But the ideal of our nation was holiness; this was the national ideal, and therefore those who attained holiness, who realized this national ideal, became heroes: heroes of the spirit, ascetic strugglers, and luminaries. This applied to princes, boyars, rulers, military leaders, simple peasants, monks, and laypeople. And of all those who embodied the idea of Holy Russia, the Holy Venerable Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, is in the first place. |
| Contextual and Pastoral An Essay on the 30th Anniversary of the Repose of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann As I consider not the details but the broad framework within which our beloved teacher, Father Alexander Schmemann lived, taught, wrote and lectured, I realize that he shared, with all the ancient Holy Fathers of the ancient Church, an approach, a vision, an experience of God, of Christ, of the Christian Faith and the life of the Church that was essentially contextual and pastoral. I hope to explore briefly these two themes in this essay which I write today in his memory. Father Alexander is often misunderstood and even maligned today as an “innovator” or “modernist” as if he were trying to change and violate the spirit of the Orthodox Tradition according to his personal tastes or prejudices. But anyone who knew him also recognized how fundamentally “conservative” he was. While his academic and theological interests were essentially historical, he saw history as providing a wider context in which to understand and address contemporary issues. History, for Father Alexander, is the continuing story, the next chapter for which we are now responsible, while remaining faithful to all that has gone before. Precisely because of the depth of his historical understanding of the Church and her many struggles, he was able to draw on two thousand years of experience to highlight whatever was pastorally appropriate to the problems of 20th century America. He did not see the liturgical practices of any one era as determinative for all times and places but sought to understand the evolution of the liturgy over the centuries so as to apply what was best and most useful from this heritage to the pastoral concerns of today. His vision and criteria were absolutely pastoral, and one might add in North America, missiological as well. With his broad knowledge of Church history and the history of liturgy, Father Alexander sought to examine and highlight those practices, authentically Orthodox, from whatever time or place, from any epoch or ethnic tradition that might help better to convey the Orthodox Tradition, the spiritual treasures of the ancient Church, to modern North Americans, both “cradle” Orthodox and potential as well as actual converts. Applying this approach to the celebration of divine services, he recommended the extensive use of English, at a time when the vast majority of immigrant communities were still worshipping in their ancestral languages–rendering Orthodox worship unintelligible to any visitors or seekers who might attend a service. If the Church is in North America for all the people of this continent, Father Alexander would argue, then it must be accessible to them. |
| How should I tell the priest about my sins? Is a feeling of repentance indispensable during confession? After confession, should one expect a feeling of spiritual relief, or lightness of soul? These beginners’ questions often remain troublesome even for very experienced parishioners. Many of us are too fainthearted to “waste a priest’s time” with such “simple and insignificant” questions. In order to fill in this gap about confession, such “simple and insignificant” questions were given by our NS correspondent Dmitry Rebrov to the highly-respected Protopriest Valerian Krechetov. How should I tell the priest about my sins? Is a feeling of repentance indispensable during confession? After confession, should one expect a feeling of spiritual relief, or lightness of soul? These beginners’ questions often remain troublesome even for very experienced parishioners. Many of us are too fainthearted to “waste a priest’s time” with such “simple and insignificant” questions. In order to fill in this gap about confession, such “simple and insignificant” questions were given by our NS correspondent Dmitry Rebrov to the highly-respected Protopriest Valerian Kr e chetov, the senior father-confessor in the Moscow Diocese and head priest of the Church of the Protection in the village of Akulovo, Moscow Province. IS REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A PRIEST AS INTERMEDIARY? – Father Valerian, how would you explain to a church-newcomer what confession is and why it is necessary? – Once a professor at a theological academy gave my father–also a priest–this question during an exam: “Tell me, young batiushka , (and my father was already in his fifties; he was 49 when he entered the seminary), what does God do when he wants to bring someone to Himself? My dad answered this way and that, and the old professor agreed. Yet towards the end, to get at the heart of the matter, he asked, “And what is the most important?” He himself answered, “He sends a person spiritual heaviness and sorrow of soul, so that the person will seek God, so that he will realize that he cannot be delivered from that condition by any earthly means.” And I think this is very true! During his life, a person constantly and inescapably runs into the consequences of his sins. |
| The story of Lazarus, which occurs before Christ’s suffering and death, specifically addresses the heart of the Church after Christ’s suffering and death. For though we rejoice in Christ’s death and resurrection, it is our dead brother (mother, father, sister, friend) who lies heavy on our hearts. St. John’s Gospel records the story of Christ’s raising Lazarus from the dead as the last action of Christ before His entry into Jerusalem. That setting has given rise to the feast of Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox Church – a small Pascha before Holy Week. The three synoptic gospels make no mention of these events, to which I draw no historical conclusions. The gospels include and exclude events for many reasons, historical considerations seeming to be of the least importance. Which stories, and in what order, primarily serve deeper theological concerns. For St. John, the story of Lazarus serves as the occasion for commentary and teaching on the resurrection of believers, much like the Feeding of the Five Thousand serves for commentary and teaching on the Eucharist. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died,” (Martha’s words) echoes the universal voice of the Church in the face of Christ’s delayed Second Coming. It is the plaintive heart of believers who wonder why God allows suffering. And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” (Joh 11:37) It is an obvious question, repeated in various forms by believers as well as scoffers through the centuries. The story of Lazarus, which occurs before Christ’s suffering and death, specifically addresses the heart of the Church after Christ’s suffering and death. For though we rejoice in Christ’s death and resurrection, it is our dead brother (mother, father, sister, friend) who lies heavy on our hearts. “Your brother will rise again.” These words of Christ, like a statement of Church doctrine, bring little comfort to someone stuck in their grief. It is Christ’s affirmation, “I am the resurrection and the life,” that sums up the encounter. The people do not understand, not even when Lazarus is raised from the dead. That Christ Himself is the resurrection and the life does not become clear until His own resurrection. |
| Forgiveness Sunday In the Orthodox Church, the last Sunday before Great Lent – the day on which, at Vespers, Lent is liturgically announced and inaugurated – is called Forgiveness Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, at the Divine Liturgy, we hear the words of Christ: " If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses... " (Mark 6:14-15) Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann 13 March 2005 In the Orthodox Church, the last Sunday before Great Lent – the day on which, at Vespers, Lent is liturgically announced and inaugurated – is called Forgiveness Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, at the Divine Liturgy, we hear the words of Christ: “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses…” (Mark 6:14-15) Then after Vespers – after hearing the announcement of Lent in the Great Prokeimenon: “Turn not away Thy face from Thy child for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily! Draw near unto my soul and deliver it!”, after making our entrance into Lenten worship, with its special memories, with the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, with its prostrations – we ask forgiveness from each other, we perform the rite of forgiveness and reconciliation. And as we approach each other with words of reconciliation, the choir intones the Paschal hymns, filling the church with the anticipation of Paschal joy. What is the meaning of this rite? Why is it that the Church wants us to begin Lenten season with forgiveness and reconciliation? These questions are in order because for too many people Lent means primarily, and almost exclusively, a change of diet, the compliance with ecclesiastical regulations concerning fasting. They understand fasting as an end in itself, as a “good deed” required by God and carrying in itself its merit and its reward. But, the Church spares no effort in revealing to us that fasting is but a means, one among many, towards a higher goal: the spiritual renewal of man, his return to God, true repentance and, therefore, true reconciliation. The Church spares no effort in warning us against a hypocritical and pharisaic fasting, against the reduction of religion to mere external obligations. As a Lenten hymn says: |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Metropolitan Hilarion’s pilgrimage to Holy Mount Athos Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR), with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, was on a visit to Holy Mount Athos from March 11 to 13, 2017. During the same days, Bishop Antoniy of Bogorodsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate office for institutions abroad, began his working visit to Mount Athos. Upon his arrival to the Holy Mountain, Metropolitan Hilarion, together with Bishop Antoniy, visited the New Phivaida hermitage, which belongs to the Russian Monastery of St. Panteleimon, to see the progress of the large-scale restoration work carried out in the skete. Then the pilgrims went to Karyes, where they were received by the Protoepistatis of the Mount Athos Holy Epistasia, Father Barnabas of the Vatopedi monastery. Having venerated the Icon of Our Lady ‘It is Meet and Right’ at the church of the Dormition, the guests went to the Iviron monastery, where Metropolitan Hilarion venerated the Ivirion Icon of Our Lady and read the acathistus in Greek. Having later that day come to the St. Panteleimon monastery, the pilgrims prayed at Small Vespers followed by All-Night Vigil, at the Holy Protomartyr Panteleimon church. On March 12, the 2 nd Sunday of Great Lent, Metropolitan Hilarion celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral church. He was assisted by Bishop Antoniy, Father Superior Archimandrite Yevlogiy, brethren and members of the pilgrims group in holy orders. After the dismissal, Metropolitan Hilarion delivered a sermon: ‘Your Grace, Very Reverend Father Yevlogiy, Dear Fathers and Brothers: I cordially greet you on behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who asked me to convey to all of you his Primatial blessing. Every day He prays for Holy Mount Athos, the monastery of the Holy Martyr and Healer Panteleimon and for all the brethren in Christ of this holy monastery. |
| My Orthodox Beginnings My Way to Orthodoxy Last Updated: Feb 8th, 2011 - 05:50:02 My Orthodox Beginnings m. S. Dec 27, 2008, 10:00 Discuss this article Printer friendly page My father was a seminarian in an Anglican School of Theology, and he later received a master’s in theology. Interestingly, even with a master’s in theology, he never had heard of the Orthodox Church. It was generally unheard of in our parts. My mother was also of strict Anglican upbringing. The theological course in this school was interesting in that Roman Catholic, Anglican and Unitarian students all studied in the same classes. Often classes would erupt in heated debates over one or another theological point. Within this melee, my father noticed that what they were teaching then in class was not what early Christians taught, as they understood it within those classes. He did historical research back to the reformation, and studied Catholicism. Again the same thing, the church’s teachings were changed. He continued going back further in history, and he began studying the schism between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. He became interested in Orthodoxy and read what he could about it. Unfortunately, his first contacts with the Orthodox Church were very unpleasant. After looking throughout the region we lived for any Orthodox Churches, he discovered that there was a small Greek parish. He went to the parish and introduced himself to a Greek gentleman that was there, who happened to be the church warden. After mentioning that he was interested in Orthodoxy, the man said, “You are a good English boy, but an English boy should go to an English church!” That did not discourage my father, and he later called up the priest of the parish. But, after introducing himself on the phone and explaining his interest in Orthodoxy, the priest said, “speak Greek!” and hung up the phone. I was about eight years old at the time this was happening. Our mother would take us every Sunday to the Anglican parish, and we would attend Sunday school. |
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