Delivered in Christ the Savior Church on 11/4/2012
Category: Sermons
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Congratulations, Brothers and Sisters, on the feast of All Saints of Russia, on which we commemorate all those saints who have shone forth in the Russian land.
We know from sacred history that Russia was not always a land united in its love for God and for the Holy Orthodox Church. Ancient Russia was a pagan land, devoid of the light of the Gospel. It was a land in which war between the various princedoms was common as there was no common faith, no sense of unity among the people. Lamenting this situation, St. Vladimir, the prince of Kiev, understood that the people of Kievan Rus’ were in need of a faith to unite them first to God and, thus, to one another as well.
As we have no doubt heard, St. Vladimir sent his emissaries out from Kiev to find the true faith, the faith that would unite Russia. The emissaries of St. Vladimir examined the faith of the Muslims, of the Jews… they came also to Germany and learned of the Latin faith. Finally, they came to the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople were they encountered Holy Orthodoxy. So moved were the emissaries that, upon their return, they recounted the following to St. Vladimir:
“When we journeyed among the Bulgars, we beheld how they worship in their temple, called a mosque, while they stand ungirt. The Bulgarian bows, sits down, looks hither and thither like one possessed, and there is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and a dreadful stench. Their religion is not good. Then we went among the Germans, and saw them performing many ceremonies in their temples; but we beheld no glory there. Then we went on to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. Every man, after tasting something sweet, is afterward unwilling to accept that which is bitter, and therefore we can no longer dwell here.”
-From the “Primary Chronicle”
The envoy’s impression of Orthodox Christianity was so profound that they not only advised St. Vladimir to adopt Orthodoxy as the faith of Russia, they announced that, having fulfilled their mission, they would now return to Constantinople to live where God dwells with men.
At this report, we understand that Prince Vladimir eventually decided to accept Orthodox Christianity himself and requested that priests and bishops be sent from Byzantium to baptize his people. This event was truly a turning point, a new beginning for Kievan Rus’, a new beginning that led to such a flowering of holiness that to now recount all the saints of Russia is not at all an easy task.
Referring to the first flowering of Christianity in the ancient Roman empire, the Church father Tertullian famously said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, and what was true in Ancient Rome turned out to be equally true in Russia. Beginning with the martyrdom of Sts. Boris and Gleb, and continuing on to the countless Russian ascetics who were martyrs of a different type, those who became dead to their passions through a life of spiritual struggle, the land of Russia became a spiritual meadow, with radiant examples of holiness appearing everywhere. As with the flowering of monasticism in ancient Egypt, the wilderness areas of the Russian North became filled with hermits and ascetics who shone as examples of holiness inspiring the faithful in their own struggles.
In turn, churches and monasteries appeared everywhere, lanterns set on the hill of Russia calling all the faithful to the life of holiness. This entire edifice was led by princes, and eventually tsars, who took the words of the Savior to heart, “if you would be great, you must become the servant of all”. Indeed, many rulers, such as the great St. Alexander Nevsky, were also great examples of piety and holiness, showing the example of Christ by sacrificing themselves for their people.
When we look back at the sacred history of Russia, it is sometimes tempting to think that there was something very different between their circumstances and ours… Of course, we can’t be expected to become holy like they did, because everything has changed, modern life is so complicated, we are all busy and preoccupied with the complexities of modern life, whereas they had simple lives with nothing to do to occupy themselves except prayer and fasting…
If we fall prey to such a manner of thinking, we are surely deceiving ourselves. Without a doubt, the saints of Russia tread the narrow path of struggle against their passions, but this narrow path is equally open to us today. There is no great mystery as to how so many people acquired holiness within the Russian Church… those who became holy were, very simply, those who acknowledged their sinfulness, turned to God in repentance and truly embraced the life of the Church, the life of struggling against the passions. The saints of Russia devoted themselves to Christ considering that the cares of this life will soon pass away, but to live in Christ is to live forever.
Has this changed? Is it not possible for us to imitate their example?
While it is true that our society is not an “Orthodox” society: there is no tsar setting the example of piety, we are not surrounded by Orthodox churches and monasteries, our culture is, in fact, clearly at odds with the principles of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, each one of us still has the opportunity to choose to struggle against our passions and to unite ourselves to Christ.
Through the prayers of all the saints of Russia, may God bring us to our senses and establish us firmly on the path of salvation. May we decide from this day to come frequently to Holy Confession and Communion, to perform good deeds for our neighbors, to struggle against sinful thoughts and to build the sure foundation of our spiritual lives by remembering God throughout the day, by praying to Him in the morning and evening and by humbly accepting whatever crosses God allows for our salvation. In this way, brothers and sisters, we truly honor the saints of Russia, not by simply remembering their feast day once a year, but by imitating their example of spiritual struggle for the sake of Christ.
Through the prayers of All the Saints of Russia, may God have mercy on us.
Amen.
Sermon by Fr Jonah Campbell
Delivered at Christ the Savior Orthodox Church, Sunday of All Saints of Russia, 2012
Source: fatheralexander.org
God is a holy Trinity. A Trinity consubstantial and indivisible. Consubstantial, that is, one essence, one nature. A Trinity indivisible: the Son has never been divided from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from the Father or the Son, and never will be divided.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods, but one God, since They have one nature. But not only because of this. People also have one nature, one essence. But with people one cannot say that two or three persons are one person, no matter how close and amicable they may be. People not only have separate bodies, but each one also has his own will, his own tastes, his own moods. No matter how similar people may be in body and character, it still never happens that everything is in common or that everything is the same.
With the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity everything is in common. The boundless love of the Father for the Son, of the Son for the Father, and the same love between them and the Holy Spirit make Their will and all of Their actions to be common. They have one will, and everything is performed by Them together. Whatever pleases the Father also pleases the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whatever displeases the Holy Spirit also displeases the Father. Whatever the Son loves, the Father and the Holy Spirit love also.
Everything is accomplished jointly by the Holy Trinity. At the creation of the world it says in the Bible: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Gen. 1:3). What does “said” mean? It means that God the Father created by His Word, by that Word of which the Gospel says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1) and which is the Only-begotten Son of God.
God the Father created everything by His Word; in other words, He accomplished everything through His Son. The Father does not create anything without the Son, just as the Son does not create anything without the Father, and the Holy Spirit always assists the Father and the Son. It is said in the Bible about the creation of the world: And the Spirit of God moved over the waters (Gen. 1:2). It “moved” over creation, but did not merely move over it—the word in the Hebrew original, which lacks an exact equivalent in Slavonic, signifies “to cover,” “to warm,” just as a brood-hen sitting on her eggs gives life to them by her warmth, and from them come forth living creatures.
By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the might of them by the Spirit of His mouth (Ps. 32:6). All that exists was created by God the Father through the Son and was brought to life by the Holy Spirit. In other words, everything the Father wanted or wants, immediately was or is fulfilled by the Son and is animated by the Holy Spirit. Thus was the world created, thus was all accomplished by the providence of God concerning the world and mankind.
In order to save man, who through sin had fallen away from God and became mortal, the Son of God, in accordance with the pre-eternal counsel of the Holy Trinity, obeying the will of the Father, came down to earth, was born of the Ever-Virgin Mary through the action of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed to the people the True God the Father and His Divine will, and taught the true worship of God. Having suffered for our sins, He descended in soul into hades, and, having freed the souls of the dead, He rose from the dead.
Even before His sufferings, Christ promised His Apostles, chosen by Him from among His disciples, to give them the power to loose and to bind—to remit people’s sins or to leave them in their sins. After His Resurrection the Lord bestowed this gift of Grace not on any of the Apostles separately, but on all of them together: He established His Church, the repository of that Grace, and united in her all those who believe in Him and love Him.
Having promised His Apostles that He would invest them with power from on high, having sent them the Holy Spirit, and having accomplished all for which He came to earth, the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven, receiving in His humanity that glory and honor which He had as the Son of God since before the creation of the world.
In descending upon the disciples of Christ, according to the promise, the Holy Spirit confirmed them in the faith of Christ and through His Grace poured out upon them the gifts of God. He strengthened them for the preaching and fulfilment in life of Christ’s teachings, for the building up of the Church established by Christ and put into action by the Holy Spirit.
The Church, standing on her foundation on earth and headed by the Son of God seated at the right hand of the Father, is mysteriously guided by the Holy Spirit. She inwardly links together all of her children and unites them with God. Through the Church, God’s gifts of Grace are poured out on those striving to follow the way of Christ; they sanctify and fortify all good in them, and cleanse them from sin and every defilement, making them able to become receptacles of the radiance of the glory and power of God.
Through the Church man is made a partaker of the Divine nature, and he enters into the closest relationship with the Holy Trinity.
Not only the soul, but also man’s body is sanctified and communes with God by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, through which he is united with the entire Holy Trinity. Through Divine Grace, with the participation of his own will and effort, man becomes a new creature, a participant in the eternal Kingdom of God.
Nature, too, is being prepared for the coming Kingdom of God, for the coming purification by fire of the consequences of man’s sin and the curse that lies on her. She receives the first fruits of sanctification through the descent of the Holy Spirit on her at Theophany in the blessing of the waters and in many other Church rites, so that she may later become a new earth and a new heaven.
This will be accomplished at the time appointed by God the Father, and the Son of God will come in glory to pronounce judgment on the world.
Then those who have loved God and have been united with Him will shine with the rays of Divine light and will eternally delight in the uncreated light of the Triune Godhead of the Consubstantial, Life-creating, and Indivisible Trinity.
To God, our Creator and Saviour, be glory, honor, and worship unto everlasting ages:
“Come, O ye people, let us worship the Godhead in Three Hypostases: the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit; for the Father timelessly begat the Son Who is Co-ever-existing and Coenthroned, and the Holy Spirit was in the Father, glorified together with the Son; One Might, One Essence, One Godhead. In worshipping Whom let us all say: O Holy God, Who madest all things by the Son, through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit; Holy Mighty, through Whom we have known the Father, and through Whom the Holy Spirit came into the world; Holy Immortal, the Comforting Spirit, Who proceedest from the Father, and restest in the Son: O Holy Trinity, glory be to Thee” (Dogmaticon of Great Vespers of Pentecost).
“It is audacious and sinful before God to be depressed in this beautiful and wondrous world, which the Lord created for us and through which He leads us to an even more beautiful and wondrous world—the Kingdom of Heaven.”
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
“I am with you, and no one can be against you,” says the Lord to everyone who believes in Him. No sorrows, no temptation, not even the most terrifying catastrophes should break the believer whose faith unites him in spirit with Christ. Here in Sretensky Monastery we have before us the relics of St. Hilarion (Troitsky); most of you here today have read in his Life how he celebrated the Paschal services in Solovki concentration camp. Bereft of basic human rights, tortured and mocked, the threat of death hanging over them at every moment, these prisoners celebrated the triumph of the power of One upon Whom they placed all their hope.
In this world, outward triumph means nothing—most important is inward triumph. Outward triumph will be given to Christ’s Church at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our example of spiritual, inner victory is the life of our Savior. Outwardly He was defeated, crucified like an evil-doer and thief. But He accomplished the main thing for which He came into the world—His triumph over death; and any other triumph is meaningless in comparison. It was a triumph over the most fearsome and unconquerable evil that exists in the world. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:5). This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith (1 Jn. 5:4). Thus proclaim the Apostles, who beheld with their physical eyes our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s ascetical labor of love for the human race.
Forty days after Pascha, on Solovki, where St. Hilarion presided over the Paschal services, the Lord’s Ascension was naturally also celebrated. Of course, the host of imprisoned priests and laymen also sang the great and beautiful words of the Ascension kontakion hymn, “I am with you, and no one can be against you.” Perhaps many of them went to their suffering and death with these words on their lips, firmly believing that the Lord Jesus Christ is with them; they are the victors, and no one can conquer them. “I am with you, and no one can be against you!” They disdained their own flesh, they disdained outward victory so highly prized in this world, for the sake of following the Truth they had found in following Christ.
This, brothers and sisters, is what I would like to say today. But how very different we are from those new martyrs and saints who overcame the world! When we stand before God to repent of our evil and sins, our confession from year to year becomes less and less like a confession and more and more like a faint-hearted cry and complaint against life. The great power of Christianity is forgotten; we have forgotten that we must be conquerors in this world—conquerors of evil. Constant complaints about our neighbors, about our life circumstances, endless depression and despair—these things are woefully conquering the Orthodox Christian today.
Faintheartedness instead of courage is becoming a major quality of the soul of modern man. In your patience possess ye your souls (Lk. 21:19). Many people, even in the Church, are forgetting about this patience and courage, forgetting that everything on this earth is sent from the Lord, even in these particular circumstances that God has called us to be in; forgetting that we must labor and force ourselves patiently and courageously. People seek a compromise, an easy path and self-justification, and as a result the Christian spirit is lost. However, a fearful Christian is not pleasing to the Lord. The spirit of God departs from such a person and leaves him one on one with his helplessness, his frailty, his terrible despondency, when instead he should be gaining at long last the wisdom to thank the Lord for all the trials He has sent; thank Him, because a true knowledge of God comes only through thanksgiving. Fallen man cannot come to know God in any other way.
Today at the beginning of Divine Liturgy we heard in the antiphonal verses the words of the Psalmist: God is known in her towers, when He cometh to help (Ps. 47:3) [in Church Slavonic, the word “tower” is expressed astyazhest, which means, burden, difficulty]. God is known in the trials and difficulties of life. After we have endured these at times long drawn-out trials that nevertheless teach us patience, God manifests His power—When He cometh to help. In this is the great mystery of the knowledge of God, the mystery of the Cross, and the meaning of human suffering. In your patience possess ye your souls, the Lord commands us.
We can endlessly despond, complain, and distort the very sacrament of confession by judging our neighbors, murmuring against God, and forgetting to judge the one who is most at fault for our problems: ourselves. Such a person becomes a barren fig tree. And it will go on this way until we begin to judge ourselves, give thanks to God for everything He sends us, understanding that every moment of life, every day for an Orthodox Christian is a step leading us to the Lord in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is these temptations, sent from God to each one of us, to our souls, with our illnesses, with our frailties that our souls need to overcome in order to ascend to immortality.
There once lived a monk in a monastery, where thirty brothers liked him but three did not, and the latter constantly insulted and hurt him. Out of faintheartedness that monk decided to leave the monastery, hoping to find a better situation. He moved into another monastery, but there he found twenty brothers who liked him, and five who treated him with contempt. Again he could not bear it and moved to another monastery. In this new monastery there were three brothers on his side, and twenty against him. And so on… When he had completely run out of strength and finally understood the peril of this fruitless cycle, he stopped at the door of the first monastery that he found on his path, took a piece of parchment and wrote on it: “Stay here in this monastery and endure everything.”
So it happened there that several brothers received him happily and peacefully, while several others, at the instigation of the devil, simply hated him. Each time he was faced with temptation from them he would take out his scroll and read it until he felt at peace, and then resolve to endure to the end everything that should come his way. The brothers who felt suspicious of him went to the father superior and said, “Abba, that new monk is a sorcerer. He has a magic spell written on a piece of parchment. We have to kick him out of the monastery.” Now, the Abba was a wise man. He came to the brother one evening while he slept, and because he was invested with authority as the father superior, he opened the scroll and read it, only to find those words encouraging patience.
The next day the father superior called the monk and the other brothers who were against him and said, “What do you have to say against this brother?” They said, “He is a sorcerer.” The Abba asked the brother, “What do you have to say about this?” “Forgive me, brothers!” said the now patient monk, bowing to their feet. “Throw him out! He has admitted it!” said his accusers. The Abba again asked the monk, “Now what do you have to say?” The monk again said, “Forgive me, fathers and brothers. As you decide, Abba, so shall it be.” Then the father superior said, “Take his scroll and read it, then do with him whatever you wish.” The brothers took the parchment and read, “Stay in this monastery, and no matter what happens, endure it all.” Then the brothers were ashamed and asked forgiveness of the Abba. The Abba said, “Why are you asking my forgiveness? Ask God for forgiveness for yourselves and for your souls, and ask it also of this brother.”
We cannot call ourselves Christians and remain fainthearted. We cannot hope to be together with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven, whence he ascended on this fortieth day of Pascha, without being, according to our strength, His co-strugglers on the way of the cross—the way of our Lord, who was incarnate, was crucified and ascended for the sake of each of our souls.
May the Lord grant that on this feast of the Ascension our souls might ascend to a joyful life in this world, to true Christian courage, to patience that triumphs over evil and despondency, and endurance of all trials and sorrows, just as the Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion endured. It is audacious and sinful before God to be depressed in this beautiful and wondrous world, which the Lord created for us and through which He leads us to an even more beautiful and wondrous world—the Kingdom of Heaven.
Amen.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
May 7/20, 1999
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is Risen!
Today is the final Sunday before Ascension, the Sunday of the Blind Man. In the Gospel today, the disciples inquire of the Saviour asking on whose account this man was born blind… was it because the man himself sinned or because his parents sinned?
The Saviour responds saying:
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.  I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
The Saviour was then moved to compassion towards the man and, as we hear in the Gospel, he made clay from the dirt of the ground and anointed the blind man’s eyes saying to him:
“…Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”
After the man returned from washing in the pool, he recovered his sight, much to the amazement of all who knew him.
The Gospel then recounts how this man, blind from birth, was questioned by the Pharisees concerning the recovery of his sight. The Pharisees said:
“How were thine eyes opened?”
The blind man recounted the details of his healing to the Pharisees who sought to convince the man who had recovered his sight that Jesus was a sinner saying:
“Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.”
The man formerly blind answers very wisely saying:
“Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
The man continues saying:
“Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Â Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. Â If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.”
The Gospel concludes with the man being cast out by the Pharisees only to be found by Jesus who says to him:
“…Dost thou believe on the Son of God?  He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?  And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.  And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.”
Thus, the Gospel concludes not only with the man blind from birth receiving his physical sight, but also receiving his spiritual sight as well, as evidenced by his saying, “Lord, I believe.”
In many ways, the account of this Gospel resembles that of the other blind man healed in the Gospel known as the Blind Man on the road to Bartimaos who attracted the Lord’s attention by calling out continually as the Lord passed by saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” As we know from the Gospel, those who stood around this man attempted to quiet him down but he called out all the more saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Jesus, again being moved to compassion, approached the blind man and asked him:
“What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?”
The blind man answered, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”
In reality, all men are born blind, like the man in today’s Gospel, though this “blindness” is a spiritual blindness rather than a physical one. Each of us finds himself unable to see clearly as a result of the fall of our first parents Adam and Eve… the Fall resulted in a distortion in the powers of man resulting in our spiritual will being made subject to our minds and bodies.
In this way, today’s Gospel truly relates to each of us, regardless of the quality of our vision… This is very well expressed in the troparion for the Sunday of the Blind Man in which we hear the following:
“Blinded in the eyes of my soul, I draw nigh unto Thee, O Christ, like the man blind from his birth, and in repentance I cry to Thee: Thou art the exceeding radiant Light of those in darkness.”
Before Holy Illumination, each of us was in darkness, unable to see our passions, unable to appreciate the extent of our fallenness. In the Holy Mysteries of the Church, however, we have all been granted the gift of spiritual sight. Just as in the example from today’s Gospel, where the Saviour used clay to heal the eyes of the man blind from birth, the Saviour has ordained the use of apparently ordinary material things to accomplish our healing within the Church: the waters of baptism, the sacred oil in Chrismation and, of course, the Bread and Wine that are transformed into the Sacred Body and Blood of Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We must ask ourselves, though… is it enough to simply receive this healing? Is it enough to receive our sight from the Saviour and then resume our passionate lives? Is it sufficient to be baptized, to become Orthodox and then continue to live as we lived before we were joined to the Holy Church?
No, we must truly bring forth the firstfruits of repentance to our Saviour, lest the second fall be greater than the first as the Saviour describes elsewhere in the Gospel. We must learn the lesson from the other blind man on the road to Bartimaos and continually call out to our Saviour from the depths of our souls saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” If we do this, and continually wash ourselves from our sins in Holy Confession, the Saviour will continually bestow his grace upon us, he will grant us the gift of His Most Holy Spirit and our spiritual blindness will be healed.
Amen.
-Sermon by Fr Jonah Campbell, Christ the Savior Orthodox Church, Sunday, May 20th, 2012