Month: November 2023

SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron monastery of Orsk

November 11, 2023

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

In today’s Gospel, we read how the father of a dying daughter met the Lord and asked Him to come and heal his daughter. When our Lord was on his way, the following event happened. There was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for many years. As it is written in the Gospel, she “spent all her livelihood on physicians”1 hoping to be healed. So her livelihood was spent, but she was not healed. It was her last hope. She somehow squeezed  through this crowd to touch “the hem of His garment.”2 She said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.”3 Suddenly the Lord, Who was surrounded by a crowd of people, stopped and said these words, strange for everybody, “Who touched Me?”4 The Apostle Peter said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”5 And God says, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”6 This power healed the poor woman immediately. This power could heal in an instant but doctors had not been able to for many years. She was almost desperate to find a doctor. 

Look, I want to draw your attention to the fact that this power is quite tangible and God perceived power going out from Him. The sick woman could definitely feel how this power entered her. This is Divine grace and it is not an illusion. It is very precise and tangible and you live through it not like “somehow” or “maybe” but you experience it rather definitely, precisely. Divine grace indeed. All other emotional feelings are experienced in a quite vague and complicated way, they make us think a lot, they distract our mind. When God does something, He does it precisely, shortly, simply and tangibly.  

Once, St. Gregory Palamas argued with a theological theoretic, Varlaam. It happened in Greece. Varlaam had profound knowledge but he did not have Divine grace. Knowledge without Divine grace can make you feel superior and get crazy. So this self-centred theologian came to Athos and communicated with the Athonite monks. They told him in simple words how they were living there being in Divine grace. They told him that they were living in the Uncreated Light, that they could see this light, it went through them and this light was tangible enough and real. And this—in old Slavonic language “витийствующий” cunning (old English), which can be translated to modern Russian as “мудрствующий от своего ума” “self-wise” (modern English) – theologian without any understanding of what the Athonites were talking about, started laughing at them. “What Uncreated light? What Divine grace?” Our Lord is so transcendent and inconceivable. What can you experience there, what light, what Divine grace?” Well, maybe he could have humbled himself a little before these Holy Fathers and their way of living.  Well, maybe he could have compared his life to their life at least. He lived in a capital, he was favoured by the Emperor, he was not hungry nor cold, he was in honour and had all the privileges of a man of science.  He could have compared himself to them and their way of living. All their lives are dedicated to Lord only, they refused things of this world, they put them apart. Only the Lord.  Can you imagine this? All their power is focused on God only. Nothing can distract them, they are focused on God only. And how could you argue with them, poor man. Your theory was just beating around the bush. But them, they concentrate straight on the Lord. Not only did you argue with them, but you also dared to mock them. And he started to laugh, “What Uncreated Light? Is this a vision about an atmospheric phenomenon?” Or what arguments did he make there?  

St Gregory Palamas, an Athonite monk, left Athos, silence and dedication, for Thessaloniki to have a discussion with this heretic, who was blaspheming Divine grace. There are these words in the Gospel when the Lord says, “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.”7 “Every sin will be forgiven” means that you will be forgiven after proper repentance. So, St. Palamas left Athos to overwhelm this blasphemer of Divine grace. And he managed this. He held a Church Council and proved that Athonite monks, being in Divine grace immensely, being in contemplation, could see God’s light, which the Apostles saw on Mount Tabor when the Lord’s Transfiguration happened. They were all in it, this light was not only outside but they were penetrated by it from inside as well, this light did not have any direction and everything around was immersed in this light. This way the Apostles lived through God’s Light, this way the Athonites lived through the Uncreated Light. Their sincerity, repentance and steady spiritual life of many years helped them to live this way. They were immersed in this light when contemplating. 

Well, the word “see” maybe is not a correct one to describe this light because we can see only what is in front of us. But the Uncreated Light, when it enlightens a person, shines both outside and inside. It penetrates everything around and you stop realising these terms where everything is different for you now. 

However, I want to say something else, something responsible. Divine grace is very tangible and existential. It acts not “somehow” but in a very precise way. But how can we not confuse the action of Divine grace to our emotional feelings and some thrills? We know many examples in Church history when people could not differentiate demons’ influence from the action of Divine grace. They perceived evil action as Divine one. This way they were impaired and defeated by evil. How can we differentiate Divine grace from emotional thrills, which are imposed, first, by satan and then by ourselves—we generate and imagine it on our own from the very beginning.

I believe Apostle Paul would answer this question better considering that he lived through Divine grace in some tremendous way—he was taken up to the third Heaven. The Lord, as He desired, according to His Divine Providence, took a fallen, sinful and quite material man to Heaven. This man saw tremendous things there which he could not even describe. He says, “I saw something, but I cannot even say what I saw there. I heard something but I cannot say what I heard because all of it was non-earthy, beyond our understanding.”

Well, this man acquired tremendous Divine grace, it was an incredible rise to Heaven, and look at his first reaction, feeling and impression. He says, “The Lord was seen after His Resurrection by many Apostles or one by one, or by all together and—he said here the key phrase – “Then last of all, He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”8 Not only were these words based on the fact that he was a cruel person, but he also asked the Sanhedrim to give him a paper which would allow him to go around the world and search for Christians, torture and kill them. It was not the only reason why he was saying that he was a “great monster.” All Holy Fathers who experienced special Divine grace claimed the same thing. They considered themselves to be monsters in contrast with Divine grace. If I go to some den of drug addicts, alcoholics or murderers, I will probably look nice in this place, won’t I? But if I am in Divine grace that is the purest light, in contrast to it I will be the darkest gloom. 

Therefore, this is the best tool, point or attribute to understand what you do deal with—Divine grace or your own feelings or devil. When Divine grace comes, you consider yourself a real monster in contrast with the purity and sacrality of God’s grace. You cannot feel it in a different way. The Old Testament Holy Fathers, New Testament Holy Fathers fell down on their knees and cried in tears, “Lord, to me, the monster, You came.” They could not hold their tears back from the feeling of love and shame as well.

On the contrary, if you experience another condition like, “Finally. I have been practising the Jesus prayer for half of a year. Finally, God came!” Even the Schemanun here laughs. God, deliver us from evil. If something comes to you, and you do not consider yourself monster in contrast to it, but you feel worthy of God, “Yes, I worked sincerely, I did prostrations, I prayed, I donated to charity, I did everything and it happened finally” – that is it, you are at the very bottom. Moreover, it is even worse—you are below zero, a minus. It is impossible to experience different feelings because you are just filth. Try to remember your confession. Or try to remember not just “one confession” but all of them. Every time, from one confession to another, we do the same sins, the same sins—filth, stench and lie. Well, how we should feel if Divine grace comes indeed. We should fall down and close our eyes, bury our heads in our hands as Moses and Elijah the Prophet did.

Once on Athos, there was a story. A devil, who pretended to be an angel, knocked at a monk’s door. The monk opened the door and the devil, who pretended to be an angel, said, “Father Porphyrius, your prayer reached God and He sent me to take you to Heaven.”  To which this spiritually simple man, this childish soul—childish here means mildness, simplicity but not stupidity—so, he answered immediately, he did not even get that it was devil, he answered, “Oh, sorry, but it is not me. You should go to John’s cell, he is a real holy man but you are mistaken with my cell” – he said it sincerely, from the heart; he could not even understand that it was the devil because he was very simple and pure. His purity of heart immediately realised that it was not him to whom He may come, this cell is wrong. “You need that cell which is two cells further— a holy man lives there but me, I barely did my prayer rule, Lord have mercy on me.” 

We should not blaspheme Divine grace with our imagined feelings, which were created by our ignorance and vanity. We should have a reverent and serious attitude to it and be very careful. At the same time, we should not bring Divine grace to shame when it comes. How can we do that? Cry. 

Glory to God, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages!

1Luke.8:43

2Luke.8:44

3Mat.9:21

4Luke.8:45

5Luke.8:45

6Luke.8:46

7Mat.12:31

81Cor.15:8

ABOUT A WISE PARENT

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery of Orsk

12.11.2023

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

In today’s Gospel, we heard about how the Lord healed a demon-possessed man. The man had suffered from this great sorrow for years. He was not simply a demon-possessed person but, as the Gospel says, there was a legion of demons in him and they tortured him a lot.   It is also said in the Gospel that people tried to bind him with chains and shackles, so he did not wander and hurt himself against the rocks and tear his body; they tried to put some clothes on him, but he tore everything apart. Or rather, it was not him, who tore, but the demonic power that did it. So, this man wandered about those deserted lands, naked, frozen and hungry. 

There was a touching moment there. Driving these demons out, the Lord entered into a conversation with this demonic power. The demons told him, “We are a legion.”1 Then they, the demons, begged the Lord that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. Look, what a touching moment it is. God answers the prayer of the demons. They ask Him and He answers even the prayer of demons and does not let them go into the abyss.  They say, “A herd of many swine is feeding here, permit us to enter them.” And the Lord permitted them to enter the pigs. What a touching moment! Demons pray and the Lord answers the prayer of demons. 

Every one of us standing here, who pray occasionally, from time to time, from sorrow to sorrow, from request to request, every one of us can become confused in our heart due to our spiritual inexperience and unwisely say, “The Lord hears even demons and answers their supplication. Why doesn’t the Lord answer my requests, even in emergencies? There were so many cases in my spiritual life, when I asked, ‘Lord, help me! Everything is bad. The situation is critical’ but it seems to me God was not by my side at those moments and did not answer me.” Look what happens to that request of the demons then. The Lord says, “Alright, let it be as you ask. If you want to enter the swine, you are welcome, do it.” But it changes nothing for the demons. They enter the swineherd, drive it mad and it runs violently down the steep place into the lake.  The Lord’s answer to their request and His compassion changes nothing for the demons, as they were demons, so they remained, nothing changes their damage.  

Therefore, we should apply a reciprocal change of our nature to every of Lord’s answer to our requests. We need to change our nature. “Metanoia” is a Greek word for “change,” in Russian it is “repentance.” “Metanoia” is a Greek word, which means the change of consciousness. When people’s consciousness changes, they begin to behave correctly in a spiritual way.  First, they begin to pray correctly, ask correctly, accept correctly and preserve this state correctly. If the Lord answered every one of our stupid and unwise requests (even if it seems to us that we are asking for the good) because of our imperfect mind, soul and heart, fretted with sin, this request for the good will repeat the situation in the future. The Lord says, “Well, you are asking Me. Let it be this way.” However, the result might be negative, because we do not ask for the good. As the Holy Apostle says, “You ask and do not receive.”2 Why? Because we do not ask for the good.   

What is good? It is a very relevant notion. There is good from the point of view of our earthly being. It seems to us that the good is wellbeing, stability, and peace. Meanwhile, spiritual good is often different. The Lord tells the following terrifying words to His disciples, “If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.”3 And the Gospel says after this, “From that time many people went back and walked with Him no more.”4 Because they did not see the good in the theme of the cross. They lived through the earthly mindset: it is good when everything is alright in your family, everyone is healthy, you have a job, stability, money and everyone feels good. For us, earthly people, this is good. However, the Lord always looks from the point of eternity. He sees that when our earthly being is good, our heart becomes dry.  Our heart begins to think about life. It is a mere dot, a dot on the line of life. What is our life? It flares up and blows out. Someone might think a hundred years is a lot. Ask elderly people, “Is it a lot?” They would say, “As if I was born yesterday.” This is the way life flashes by. When we try to put all the meaning into this small dot, we make a mistake. While the Lord does not look at this dot, He takes care of us considering eternity. And He understands, if we concentrate all our attention, life and values only at this point, we will make a mistake and this will cause us harm. This is why the Lord lets sorrows be, so we can realize how everything is unstable and unreliable. It seems, you have ceased stability, but sorrow comes from where you do not expect it to come. It resembles a house, which is built on the sand, or a rich man who gathered his wellness and thinks he will own it forever. He does not even suppose that someone is going to rob him at this very moment. He does not even realize that life circumstances, permitted by God, have come to meet him now when he thinks he has made provisions for everything. He calculated his stability, but does not even suspect that sorrow is coming to him at this very moment and this sorrow is a part of God’s providence and this providence saves us in the perspective, in the future.   

People, wake up! Everything is unreliable, everything is very unstable. Live considering eternity. Live looking into eternity. Do not stop your whole mind and thought here, at this point. This point will not exist tomorrow. Perhaps, this point is filled with sorrow or joy, but tomorrow there will be none of them, neither sorrow nor joy. This is why you bear your sorrow with gratitude to God. And bear your happiness remembering it is not the main thing and it does not make the whole sense. Everything passes, and this will pass too. 

Those people who know what sorrow is, become wise for eternity. While people who do not know sorrow, remain wise only in this short life. Tomorrow there will not be this life. We, Christians, work considering the perspective, we work for the future life. This is why we go to church, pray, observe the commandments, save the relationship with God, no matter if we feel bad or not, if we can pray or not, if it seems to us that the Lord abandoned us. Sometimes it seems that you are the most sorrowful person in the world, because some of your friends are well or stable. “Why are my things bad?” you think. Perhaps, God is kissing and embracing you at this very moment because He loves you considering the perspective. 

Lord Jesus Christ…

An earthly parent, who is unwise, pampers his child. He feels pity for him or her today, at this moment, and he does not think that this spoiled child will suffer from his spoiled character in the future. But the earthly parent, limited by his earthly “love,” loves him only now and does not understand that now he must be strict, come over the tears of his child, so he will be wise, hardworking, obedient and happy in the future.   

A wise parent keeps up with the immediate sorrow of his child with bleeding heart and loves considering the perspective. While an unwise one might love himself in this child. He cannot overcome the discomfort caused by the tears and immediate sorrow of his child and does not think what will happen to him next. 

Glory to our God, always, now and unto the ages of ages!

1Lk. 8:30

2Jm. 4:3

3Mt. 16:24, Mk. 8:34, Mk. 10:21, Lk. 9:23…

4Jn 6:66

Unless the LORD builds the house…1 

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

St. John of Kronstadt Cathedral of Gai

October 29, 2023

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Today the Church commemorates the holy centurion Longinus. He was one of the soldiers who crucified our Lord. They were crucifying Jesus with a sense of right and justice. They were sincere. All of a sudden, this tormentor, this soldier, this cold hearted man of war who served in the army and did it really proficiently. It is said that Roman soldiers could crucify skilfully and aptly, they could do it in an incredibly precise way. They defended their motherland not only on battlefields, but when it was an internal conflict they were devoted to their imperator until the end.

This soldier, who had been serving in the army righteously just recently, changed his attitude all at once. Immediately, when Jesus was dying on the cross, writhing with pain and agony, when Jesus was crying on the cross. He cried out these words, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”2 The Lord died and the earth trembled, nature itself showed Who had just died and what had happened. At this moment, this soldier experienced a great change, it was like everything turned upside down. One minute ago, he was a tormentor but in a moment he turned into a disciple of Christ, devoted to God until death. 

Sometimes I try to put myself in this time and place. How would I live through the coming of God? Unfortunately or maybe fortunately. Unfortunately, and I do speak sincerely, maybe I would not recognise God as well. Imagine, a man lives in a society for thirty, thirty-three years, he is among us, he looks like us, he does not really stand out. Someone knows Him personally, someone knows His family or comes across Him. And all of a sudden this man says, “I am the Son of God”. Well, try to put yourselves at this time span. What were Israelites saying, in what way did they think, how did they perceive it? “He is crazy. He is insane.” Suddenly He became superior and proclaimed Himself as the Son of God. So, they think earthly, objectively and act in this way as well. It is a great blasphemy when a man proclaims himself as the Son of God, equal to Our Heavenly Father because He says these words, “I and My Father are one.”3 Blasphemy, sacrilege. In those severe times, when there were really strict rules, you could be killed immediately for this. He blasphemes, He dishonours God, He dares to compare Himself with God, He joins Himself with God and says, “I and My Father are one.” 

Two thousand years passed and now Christianity is established in the whole world, and it is a part of world culture indeed. But back then, the Israelites had the Old Testament culture and it was a really earthy kind of culture. Look at those morals: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.4 So called human fairness. But suddenly this Man comes and proclaims Himself as the Son of God, and now their world perception is upside down. “But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”5 People cannot understand, cannot swallow it. Not only do they not understand it but feel angry about it, they rebel. They rebel to such an extent that they crucify Lord at the end. But having already crucified Him, they could not calm down, and, staying there under the cross, they were spitting at Him. This Man was writhing with pain and agony so let Him just die but even at that moment, but no…

We can understand them in an earthly way. This Man blasphemes, He calls Himself as Son of God. But how can we understand Him in a different way, if all these events were supernatural? What kind of man should there be to see the humankind in Him and that this humankind is full of God? So I can see humankind but I cannot see God. The same is now. The whole universe is filled with God, the whole universe is filled with the Wisdom of God but we cannot see it. Sometimes we cannot see His wisdom. Sometimes we say to a non-believer who cannot see spiritual at all, “Look how our universe is balanced, how it is built, how precise it is, like the most complicated watch mechanism.” Someone created this gear wheel, started it and calculated the number of gear teeth to make it move, not to cumber but to push this mechanism. Our space is an extremely complicated being. There should be an Architect, Who…

How can something be created? First, you conjure up an idea in your head. Then this idea should be implemented into a project. Then workers build the construction according to this project and follow it precisely. If they deviate from the project, there will be cracks.  Or even worse, it will be ruined. So, there is an Architect of all this world harmony. 

You say it to a non-believer but he says, “It is just nature.” I ask immediately, “But nature, is it who or what?” If nature is only “what” then “what” cannot create wisdom, it can only be created by “who.” How can we understand it? There are half of the people who are from the period of the Soviet Union. We were like insane at that time, as God said, “Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive.”6 We looked at obvious things and understood nothing at all. Israeli people looked at Christ and saw nothing. 

You know, I do not blaspheme, but as a sinful man, I understand the Israeli people. Unfortunately, if I put myself in that time span, I would see nothing as well. Or even worse, I would be among these tormentors and with a sense of righteous anger would think: how can this Man blaspheme God! I could be one of them. 

What should there be to be able to see God? What do we need now to see God?

Someone mightsay, “We need the simplicity of Apostles. Clerisy was fastuous about their knowledge, Pharisees, Sadducees, but God came to simple Apostles and their simple heart accepted the Gospel easily.” But again I doubt it. How many dumb things do we do in our life because of our simplicity? We do dumb things with this simplicity of our soul. I think it is not only simplicity that we need here. Maybe simplicity is just a small detail. It has been thirty years already that I am a priest and I’ve come to this conclusion “Unless the LORD does, no one can do nothing. You may read all religious books and even learn the Gospel by heart. You will learn the text but will not be able to understand it. Or even worse, you will distort the meaning of it and understand it as you wish. It will be your own Gospel, not God but your own god, whom you create yourself. If God does not touch your heart and mind, you will understand nothing. Or even worse, you will get it wrong. 

Once a woman told me, “Father Sergiy, it is so difficult to save your soul if you do not understand where the truth is.” I said, “It is not that scary. The scariest thing ever is when you know where the truth is and you go there as an armoured train, but the truth is not there in the end.” When you are sure where the truth is, but it is not actually there, then you are mistaken. “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.”7 However, the most important thing is not to trust yourself. Do not trust your mind and your heart. Do not trust even your sincereness.  Do not trust your repentance. All of these are distorted by sin. “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labour in vain to build it.” If God does not touch our mind, we will not understand anything. So put your mind to the background.  I do not want to say that you should switch it off at all, God gave it to us for some reason. We should understand that we use our brain for quite earthy reasons: how to calculate the family budget, work, and bring up children. But in spiritual life we face very subtle things. The wisest disciple is not the one who learns something by himself but the one who seeks a teacher. Our teacher is God. Jesus, Jesus, enlighten my mind. I think that I understand everything but in fact, after all, I can see that I understand nothing and I ruined everything again. 

What happened with centurion Longinus? Did he see something? We may say that he saw how nature trembled. But what, had no one seen this natural phenomenon at that time before? So, it was not about natural phenomenon. For some obscure reason, in this crowd of people, God chose this centurion and touched his heart. All of a sudden, his spiritual eyes were opened and he started to see. 

One of the most readable prayers in Church is “O Heavenly King” which is addressed to the Holy Spirit. O Heavenly King, – we ask, – come and dwell in us,
and cleanse us of all impurity, and save our souls, o Good One. The Holy Spirit enlightens us, He saves us. It is not us who save, it is not us who enlighten. We are enlightened not by reading or studying but by the Holy Spirit. 

Look how humbly the leper speaks in the Gospel. He comes and says these wonderful words. These words could not be made up and I am saying this for those who think that the Gospel was written intentionally. So the leper does not come to the Lord and say, “Heal me.” But how does he say it? “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”8 Look at this amazing humbleness. Not “Heal me” (Father Sergiy is shaking his fists). Very often, we come, write notes and demand from God, “Heal me, heal.” Once father George told me someone gave him a soul-paper about selling a flat. In a week this person came back, “No one even called!” You might have been sleeping all this week, father George. Look at the attitude which is completely different, “If You want, You may heal me.” Lord, if You are willing, You can solve the problem with my flat. 

We do not properly understand our going to Church. That is great! I came to church. That is great! I got faith. I started keeping to the commandments of God.  But it is not you! If not God Who touched your heart, you would go on walking about Gai and walk past church, you would not even look towards our temple. So God does something with us. When you do understand that it is not your merit but it is the mercy of the Lord that He chose you among millions of people, that is what happened to Longinus. In this case, you experience some affection, to tears, and there is no place for ignorance and vanity. “Thank you Lord, You are dragging me by the ears, You are dragging me and I am yet resisting. God, let me come next Sunday?” “But I invite you today.” “I have guests today, let me come next Sunday.” Look what He says next, “All right. Let it be next Sunday. But next Sunday we are going to have something else again. 

The allegory of God and us, insane children, is the father of a prodigal son. He is not just sitting and waiting. Look, He cannot even wait, He leaves house, they tell Him, “Look, your ragged son, who drank himself broke, is coming. Not only did he drink himself broke, but he undermined your reputation because everybody knows whose son he is. And he defames your name, humiliates it. And this… piece of crap is coming back.” The Father cannot wait and He heads toward his son. Only then the son comes to himself and says, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”9 “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”

It was a miracle what happened to Longinus. But it was not the merit of Longinus, it was the great mercy of the Lord. Each of us experienced this miracle—we wandered to church. But it was not for our merit, it was the great mercy of the Lord. We came but we behave inappropriately. But He bears, He bears and heads toward us. Glory to Him, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen!

1 Ps.126:1

2 Mk.15:34

3 Jn.10:30

4 Mt.5:38

5 Mt.5:39

6 Mt.13:14

7 Ps.145:3

8 Mt.8:2

9 Luke.15:19

SINCERE REPENTANCE

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery

October 23, 2023

 

“God, give us sincere repentance” – these are the words in our prayers to God. Sincere repentance. It is seemingly so obvious to us. Repentance is such an explicit process. I am repenting. Apparently, the Holy Fathers emphasized in their prayers that a sin penetrates into us so deeply that even repentance could be insincere. It seems that we do repent, and at the same time, we start admiring ourselves simultaneously, the way we repent. It is like a theatre all the time, which we look at and perform for people. Sometimes we even try to deceive God. We always play theatre. Repentance is a subtle process and it will be seemingly blasphemous to play a double game here or be insincere. However, we can be hypocrites even here, when repenting. When we repent with tears, groaning and hand-wringing, we manage somehow to be hypocrites again looking at ourselves from the side and assessing how we look like. It sounds horrible but sometimes we are even pleased with ourselves.

I often give you this example of avoiding insincere repentance. How can we avoid insincere repentance and hypocrisy all together in our spiritual life? Remember once I gave you an example of one brother who entered the room where all brothers were and they started to praise him. He entered in silence and went out in silence as well. One brother could not hold back, ran after him and said, “Why did not you start to argue when everybody was praising you?” He says, “If I had paid attention to it I would have interacted with vanity. And maybe I would have had a contradiction and let it go into me, and one day it could have touched my heart.”

In the Old Patericon, one Father gives advice to his disciple who asks, “What should I do to find and take a middle course so as not to stagger and sully at the end?” And the Father gives him an example with decedents on a cemetery. He says, “Today go and swear at the decedents.” Next day, “Go and praise them.” Then he asks, “When you were swearing at them, did they answer you anything?” “No.” “When you were praising them, did they answer you anything?” “No, they are decedents.” There should be no interaction at all.

So, when we try to repent sincerely, our repentance should be simple. As God says,  “But let your “Yes” be “Yes,”  and your “No,” “No.” For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”¹ The evil intervene even into our repentance and start.

Sometimes there could be a question like how I may check if my repentance is sincere or not, if my repentance is from the Holy Spirit or evil, who is making me stagger from despair repentance to the vain one. Hither and thither. Now I have a despair repentance and close to give up. Then I have a vanity repentance — ah, how repentant I am, how sincere I am, I cry about my sins. Ugh, disgusting! How to find out if our repentance is from the Holy Spirit or not, from God or evil? Evil likes to repent with us as well, it likes to pray with us, it likes to keep the commandments with us, it likes to follow spiritual life with us, it likes asceticism a lot and it always adds some vanity everywhere. How to find out if we are inspired by God or by satan?

God is perfect. He is perfect and simple. God is very simple and this is His perfection. If He were complicated, He would never be perfect. You may add something to any complexity or detract from it.  So when God comes — in prayer, in repentance — He comes with great simplicity, which is actually His essence. Then you do not feel confusion, you feel great simplicity. And repentance is very simple and short. God, I am filth and that is it. There should be nothing else. Everything is simple and short and clear consequently. If you want to explain something in a clear way, you need to think of simple and understandable word. If you want to confuse someone, speak in a complicated way.

When God comes, you feel God’s presence as something simple, so it is all clear and definite. Satan always brings complexity. And it confuses us. This is why when we do the holy action like repentance, we start to stagger from despair to vanity. Even this holy action.

The feature of satan is complexity. Complexity of thoughts, feelings and mind. God comes in a simple, clear and definite way.

God, give us sincere repentance. Because even our repentance, seemingly the holy action, holy feeling, can be filthy, bad and unpleasant if it is mixed with vanity and if we start playing the theatre. We deceive ourselves this way, we deceive others, we play this role of repentant victim, we walk and play this theatre. We even try to deceive God, Who is the Reader of the human heart, Who knows our hearts better than us. We do not know ourselves but God does.

God, forgive me.

Glory to God, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages!

¹ Mt.5:37

 

IS IT POSSIBLE TO BECOME GOD WITHOUT GOD?

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral. Iveron Monastery of Orsk

22.10.2023

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

What is the meaning of human life? Why did the Lord create such a beautiful, complicated and genius creature? What were we born for? What do we live for? 

If eternal life is not part of peoples’ life meaning, then any meanings crush against the point of death. No matter how our meanings are great, wise, and genius, they will all crush against the point of death, turn into ashes and become nothing. The greatest meaning crushes against death and becomes ashes and dust. The wind blows and nothing remains. If there is no eternal life in one’s life reason, nothing makes sense. God created a human for eternity, not for an instant moment. Even a hundred years seems like a lot to us. Look back those of you who are in your eighties. Is it a lot? Like a wink! As if there was nothing. Young people stand here. One day you will look back and say, “It feels as if I haven’t lived yet.” What is the point of this instant in eternity if it does not pass into eternity? Absolutely no point at all. All meanings fall to pieces. 

Someone says, “I live to give life to other people.” You give life to a creature who will face the same question, “What was I born for? Dying and becoming ashes?”  If there is no eternal life, no meaning is actual. They become nonsense. 

The Lord planned a human to live in perspective, to lead eternal life. This short period of time is just a prelude. But how should we inherit eternal life? 

Some time ago, when the Lord was creating us, what did we represent? Clay. The Lord took it and transformed it into a doll. What did that doll need to walk, wink, and become alive? It needed God to breathe life into it. And it suddenly became alive. Take this life from it and it will fall to pieces again. Perish. Become nothing. This clay needs the breath of God. 

Since their birth, humans bear this remnant understanding that they are created for eternity. While eternity is a prerogative of God, not a human. Only God can be eternal. Everything else is not. How should we inherit eternity? People, somewhere deep inside in their intuition, bear this eagerness to eternity, and somewhere in their intuition, they realize that only God can be eternal. Even in a person who does not know God, there is the notion: only God is eternal. And people reach out for the commandment which the Lord gave in the Gospel, “You are gods.”1  “I did not create you like animals but I wanted you to grow into gods.” 

This urge for Divinity has always been present deep inside humans, since their creation. Satan tempted people through it. Did he tempted them through an apple? No, he said, “You eat… and you will be like God.”2 This striving for being god is imbued into humans by God Himself. Adam, without understanding the point of it, became tempted by this “you will be like God” and this is why he ate it, and Eve ate it too. Not because they were hungry or because they had never tasted apples. Look, what he tempts them by. By the thing that exists in their essence: “You will be like gods,” you will be immortal.  

But Adam and Eve commit the main mistake at this moment. They do not realize that one cannot become god without God. A human becomes god only in a union with God, taking his nature, taking God inside of oneself. This is the only way to become god. No matter how he will train himself, jump, strain himself, he will never become god by himself. 

Look, what mistakes people make. The Tower of Babel. Why do people build it? Again, somewhere in their intuition, there is this urge for becoming gods. And they build this tower up to the heavens. They, being naïve and mad people, having lost God, climb there into the sky, by themselves. And they fall down from this tower. Throughout centuries after the building of the Tower of Babel, people commit the same mistake: they want to become gods without God. 

Do you remember the times of communism? How we wanted to become gods without God? Someone lays by the Kremlin wall and perishes, someone in a village cemetery. Nevertheless, everyone perishes in the same way.  They fall to pieces because it is impossible to enter this essence of Divinity without Divinity. There is no way to become god without God. The main idea and the main meaning of our deification is not in self-perfection, but in reunion with God. Only this is how a person becomes perfect. You reunite with God and you become god in the lowercase. Not because you represent something but because God dwells there, inside of you. The Lord says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”3 “And I am there too, if you did not chase Me out of it, if You invited Me, ‘O Heavenly King, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of all impurity.’” You cleanse, not we cleanse ourselves, but You do.   

The main mistake of all non-Orthodox religions, all philosophical schools, and all earthly ideas is perfection without God, outside of God. They all come to a dead end. Some go further, some stay closer, but they will surely hit their stubborn forehead against the wall and die and perish there. This resembles a small bug who crawls on a leaf.  It reaches the final point of its existence, stands motionless, dries away, and falls into pieces. The wind blows and it vanishes as if it never existed and no one remembers it. 

Our task is to enter eternity. Eternity is the realm of God, not a human. In order to enter eternity, one should become god with no capital letter. The last phrase I want to tell you is: “You cannot become gods without God!” Our Orthodox Christian faith tells us that God descended on earth to reunite with people. All other religions believe in God, in God Who is somewhere far away. Yes, He exists, He participates in our lives somehow, but He is so far away. Only the Christian religion believes in another way, it believes in deification, that God becomes flesh in order to make our flesh god. 

Glory to our God, always, now, and unto the ages of ages! 

1 Jn. 10:34

2 Gen. 3:5

3 Lk. 17:21