Author: lena

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

REPENTANCE WITHOUT CHRIST

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery of Orsk

October 1, 2023

 

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

Recently I had a conversation with one man and he told me, “Father Sergiy, you teach how to say the Jesus prayer and you talk about deification. I would like to make a remark on this subject. The main idea of the Jesus prayer and all spiritual life in general is repentance. The main and the only idea is repentance.” In the course of this conversation, I remembered some words of God, Who said, Our Lord Jesus Christ said these words, “…without Me you can do nothing.”1 And these words concern everything. Literally everything. These words are about our repentance as well. At first, I knew it as some kind of theory when I had just read these words. But when I started repenting sincerely, I learned these words as a matter of practice. God, I cannot do it without You. No matter how sincere I am, no matter how courageous I am. I cannot do it without You. I wish no one could repent and I wish that man, who told me about repentance, also could not repent without Christ.  

I mean there could be some kind of repentance, in some kind of way, without Christ. But the main idea here is not just any repentance but the one in Christ. There is a man who is in prison. He repents sincerely but he does not believe in God. Yes, he repents, he admits his sin, he regrets it. But there will be no real repentance without Christ. “…without Me you can do nothing.” Your repentance in the format of this world is like this: “Yes, forgive me, I am guilty, I will redeem” – that is it, nothing else. This kind of repentance will die together with you. May you have a nice, beautiful, flourishing, moral and virtuous life.  But that is it, nothing else. 

Pay attention that Judas Iscariot also had some kind of repentance. Did he repent? Yes, he did. He even returned money. Did he admit his sin? Yes, he did. Was he sorry about it? Yes, he was. He came and gave the money back, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”2 But he did not change and he remained the same Judas. What was the result of it?

Now many theologists may start arguing with me asking whether Judas rued or repented. Well, after all, it is just a word-play. But he tried. What made him do this? Maybe there still was some conscience. What other power was there to make him rue? Nothing but conscience. He got money, he was safe, the Pharisees would protect him, Rome would protect him. But some power did not let him have peace. There was a part of his conscience, which tormented him terribly. This torment was so horrible that it was easier to hang himself. But he did not repent. Our Church does not commemorate him as a repentant thief. Instead, it remembers him as Judas only. Even though he was sorry, admitted his sin, and gave the money back. 

You know, when this person said the following words, “The most important thing here is repentance. Deification is something like lofty matters and we do not need it.” I was confused at that time and objected to him rather gently, but now I would reply strongly, “My dear, you know, repentance is impossible without Christ. If God did not enlighten your mind, it would be impossible.” Many people live on this planet and they have no idea how much they are contaminated by sin. Each of us is poisoned by sin so much that you could easily become Judas. Forgive me but it is the truth. Everyone could do whatever, any sin. If, God forbid, some situation or weakness occurs, you may fail it. If God does not enlighten our mind, we will fail. We live like nothing happens, we are relaxed, nothing bothers us. Well, maybe there is something that bothers us, but just a little. Moreover, this “a little” is nothing to compare with that abyss of sin we do. If God does not enlighten…but how does God enlighten us? In the evening, you, fully satisfied, go to bed, you are calm, you read evening prayers, you paid taxes, your children are fed, it is all good…in the morning, something suddenly happens to you. What is that? Were you thinking about it? Did you consider it? No. God has just touched your heart, your mind and you are crying now, God.

Look at this contrast: you were all right in the evening just like everybody else. But in the morning you cannot even articulate a word because you feel this lump in the throat. Was it a result of your thinking through? Was it your repentance? Was it a result of your mental analysis? No. God touched you and your mind was opened, so you could see yourself as you really were. So you saw yourself and got terrified. In desperation, you cry, “God, what am I doing! Yesterday I was fully satisfied but today I can see what I am doing? What is happening with me?” Having a nice appearance, which I try to maintain, I hide the internal stench from myself, my close people and even from God. But God came suddenly and opened this book.

Sometimes the Holy Fathers call the Last Judgement as the Judgement of shame. Why? Because all of us will be open in front of the whole world. An envelope, which covers our inside world, will be turned inside out and we will be not just opened but turned inside out as well. The whole world will know and see not only our actions but even the shortest shameless, dirty and shabby thought. This is why the Last Judgement is called the Judgement of shame. However, only unrepentant sins can be shown there. Repentant sins, which are covered by confession, will be erased. 

There is a story in the Ancient Patericon. When angels were carrying a monk to the Kingdom of Heaven, some demons appeared and said, “He had this sin.” Angels said, “Did he repent?” “Yes, he did.” “So he does not have it then.” The mystery of confession is invaluable, we need it to not be burned in hell on the Last Judgement Day, and to not even reach it and be burned in the fire of shame. 

The essence of deification is when God saves you, God thinks for you, God is your mind, God is your heart. It is not I who saves, it is not I who thinks, it is not I who feels but God. “…and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”3 All the saints were striving for this, “…and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” He is the only Truth, He is the only Innocence, He is the only Love. Not me. Let’s stop being hypocrites. What love can I be, what innocence can I be, what truth can I be? I am filth and stench. Try to remember your confession. What love and innocence could there be? We just want to hide it all and not be ashamed.

Repentance is an important part of the Jesus prayer, but the main idea of it is Christ without Whom repentance is simply impossible. To be more exact, there will be some repentance but only in the format of this life, on earth, and it will die together with you. Repentance is possible only in Christ. This time I speak about deification. Yield your mind to Christ, to Christ’s mind; yield your heart to the heart of Christ. This way something will probably happen. You need deification. Stop saying meaningless words about repentance without Christ. The essence of Christianity is in these words of Christ, “…without Me you can do nothing” Nothing. You cannot even repent. We can find ourselves on the level of Judas. Did he admit his sin? Yes, he did. Was he upset? Yes, he was. Did he give the money back? Yes, he did. So, what was the result? That is it. The end of the rope was the next step. “…without Me you can do nothing.”

Jesus the Sweetest, save us!

1 John.15:5

2 Mat.27:4

3 Gal.2:20

ABOUT THE MAIN TASK IN SPIRITUAL LIFE

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Church of the Iveron Icon of the Holy Theotokos

 Iveron monastery of Orsk

September 17, 2023

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

Once two pilgrims were going up the Holy Mount Athos. One, two, three days passed. Suddenly, on the third day one of them said, “Why don’t we talk with each other? Why do we keep silent?” The second pilgrim answered, “We do talk. The thing is that we talk in a format of spirit. We do not use a word format, but the spiritual one.” And this way of talking is usually more precise.

It can quite often happen  when we cannot find appropriate words to describe delicate situations, which are not connected to rude, earthy things but to spiritual events. Sometimes, it is so hard for a spiritual guide to explain some delicate things to a disciple if there is no spiritual connection. In this case, a word has no power. A word is pronounced, and pronounced, and pronounced but nothing happens because your partner in conversation is not with you spiritually, he cannot understand your word. Or a worse thing may happen, they pervert your word. 

Do you remember the verse of the Gospel where disciples asked God, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”1 He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them I speak in parables.” Well, who can know and understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven? The one who is in spirit, in spirit of the Gospel, in spirit of Christ. Some people read the Gospel throughout their lives but according to their life quality they can realise that they understand nothing. They had been reading the Gospel all their lives but understood nothing in the end. Someone opened the Gospel, read it, closed it and never even approached it again. He understood nothing there. 

The task of tacit prayer life is to eschew the realm of constant thinking process and complicated reasoning. We think, and think, and think, and think. Sometimes we hear, “Look, what a smart person, he thinks a lot, he speaks    floridly, he can understand complicated things.” But sometimes those smart people cannot understand very simple things.  For example, they cannot realise that they are hurting the feelings of others right now. They speak floridly, but actions are opposite… You can differentiate smart and silly people by their quality of life, by their actions. Today in the Gospel there has been a word, everything is simple, the whole Gospel, “Love God and your neighbour.”2 So you can differ people by their actions towards God and by their actions towards neighbours, and it doesn’t matter how smart you are. 

The modern world is boasting now by its brainpower achievements: how far are we from monkeys. We have smartphones, some cutting-edge technologies. However, when we talk about our relationships, how far are we from monkeys in this case? Monkeys. They yell, they rob each other of bananas, they argue, rag, behave awfully. But each of them has a piece of high technology in a pocket and at home. Simple things humans cannot do. They cannot stop a war. But they figured out how to make a bomb, very complicated schemes! But how to negotiate about something — they do not even know. How far are we from monkeys? Monkeys are social animals and even they have some laws to survive.

I wanted to tell you that there is a division of terms: mind and intellect. Intellect is an ability of reasoning. We can encounter this ability in psychiatric hospitals as well, sometimes we can encounter exceptional abilities to reason.  Some people cannot even stop this process — reasoning. Their intellect reasons, and reasons, and reasons, so they start to experience sleep deprivation and insomnia in the end. They may even start to jitter, they may have a nervous crisis. So, the ability to reason has nothing to do with the mind. You have the mind when you can understand the essence of things. You may reason incessantly but at the same time you may not understand the essence — what God wants from you. What this situation is about and what God’s plan is here. 

Therefore, the mind can understand the essence of things, it understands it briefly and simply. Intellect can confuse the mind sometimes. It happens because there are plenty of thoughts there. Well, try to find the essence in this pile of thoughts. Psychiatry. Thus, holy people were thinking in a simple and brief way because they were enlightened by the Holy Spirit. They did not search for the truth but they were praying, and they knew this truth in a simple and concise way. 

She understands that she is happy and that’s it. Isn’t it? And I need to finish as well.

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

Glory to Thee, our Lord! Glory to Thee, our Lord! Glory to Thee, our Lord!

1 Mt. 13:10

2 Mt. 22:37-39

A SON BY THE SPIRIT

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery of Orsk

03.09.2023

 

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

In today’s Gospel we read about a master who planted a vineyard, fenced it in and hired labourers to work in the vineyard and take care of the grapes. And then, when the time comes to harvest, he sends his men to go and collect what is his. And suddenly strange things start happening to these labourers. Suddenly, instead of acting like hired servants in this vineyard, they somehow feel like the masters of it. And when the master sends for his share of the grapes, not only do they not give it to him, but they beat and insult those whom he has sent, and dismiss them with nothing. Again and again, and even then, the master of the vineyard sends his son with the words, “Perhaps they will be ashamed and cringe when they see my son” (They will respect my son. (Mat.21:37)). But something insane is going on with these labourers, they even kill the son thinking that now the heir will be killed and the vineyard will be theirs. 

The Lord spoke this proverb in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, rebuking the people of Israel, to whom the Lord had given a vineyard to cultivate, and that they should then share with the whole world this Mystery of Oneness of God. That they would share with the whole world the knowledge of the One God. But Old Testament Israel suddenly comes to embrace its God-chosenness not as a responsibility to the world, but as an honour. And that honour drives them mad. Nothing drives a person so mad like pride, like the feeling of being chosen, of being extraordinary. “I am chosen, I am different from other people, I am unique.” They go mad, their minds are corrupted because the Holy Spirit is gone from them. The Holy Spirit cannot stay where there is pride. The Holy Spirit only fills the space where there is humility. The Holy Spirit leaves them and they go mad because the Holy Spirit IS the reason. Not the ability to think, we all think, but we still do stupid things. This means that a reasonable person is not the one who thinks, but the one who understands the truth. These people think, but they lose their minds, they go mad.

And they are replaced by a new Israel, namely the Christians. But like the people of Old Testament Israel, Christians very often make the same mistake. They think that just through receiving the Sacrament of Baptism they are immediately adopted by God. By family name. But you can’t be a son by family name. You can only be a son by the spirit. It can often happen in life that you have the same family name, but you are very different people. “Is he really your son? He’s not like you, he is of a completely different spirit. We can’t even believe he’s yours”. That is, an heir, a true heir of the Spirit. You can inherit houses and land by family name. You can get a share of the estate by legally proving that you belong to the family. But you can’t get your father’s or mother’s spirit, you can’t get into that family’s spirit by any legal procedure. You can’t just do that by proving your kinship. Kinship is only proven by the spirit. Children often intuitively mimic their parents’ behaviour, sometimes even their gait. 

I have a case where a boy grew up without a father, his father left the family when he was a child. And he’s got some of his father’s manners, somewhat intuitively. That’s fine for some small things, but if you haven’t received the spirit, you’re not a child, you’re just a legal heir. How often do Christians think that they are adopted by the mere fact of their baptism, that they enter the vineyard, the Church of Christ, and have a part of their inheritance here. And it makes them so full of themselves that when unchurched people come into the church, they treat them very arrogantly. 

This is especially true of us clergy, of course. Sometimes our pride, the size of our rank, makes us think we’re the keepers of grace. “We’ll give it to this person, we won’t give it to that person. This one’s worthy, we’ll give him a little bit. And that one is not worthy.” But if you still felt like a hireling, you would be very careful about your opinions, your judgements, your actions. “Who am I, anyway? The Lord looks at his heart and I only look at his outward appearance”. But appearances can be deceiving, just as my appearance can be deceiving. I walked out onto the amvon in a beautiful garment, and I almost look like a saint. But the inside is rotten. There is no spirit, but a stench. 

Christians must be responsible for their Christianity. Not proud of their Christianity, but responsible. We should always keep in mind the possibility of offending our Christianity and our Christ. Because they judge Christianity and Christ by us. And they often judge very sadly, saying: “These Christians speak well but they live badly”. 

There is a book about a missionary in the Altai. One hieromonk was a missionary in the Altai before the Russian revolution. This is a Buddhist region, by the way. He was very eloquent, very educated, very passionate, very daring. He once asked the Buddhist lamas to gather around him so that he could tell them about Christ. These lamas gathered politely and listened to him without interruption. He spoke very passionately and boldly for about half an hour. He looked at them and felt that word by word he was setting their hearts on fire. And when his fiery sermon was over, a venerable lama came out and said: “Dear missionary, we listened to your sermon about Christ with great trepidation. It is indeed a Divine religion, it is very convincing, your faith is very convincing. But when we see the Christians who have come to Altai to work their farms here, when we look at the lives of these Christians, suddenly our faith and our reverent attitude towards Christianity crumbles. As long as there were no Christians, we didn’t lock our houses, we didn’t have murders, we didn’t have thefts, we didn’t have many other things, our people lived piously. Then you came here and we started having all these things. What you said really touches our hearts, but the way you live ruins everything, destroys everything completely”.

Do you know what the worst thing is? I have been a priest for almost 30 years and I understand very well that the sins of the priest are not a problem for the people. Because people realise that he is a human being just like them, of the same flesh and blood, with his own weaknesses, character traits, genetic background. And the people will readily forgive the priest’s shortcomings and confusions. But the hypocrisy of the priest is very hard for the people to bear. When he, who has the same sins, talks about high things, and then immediately does bad things. This is the thing that is very hard to bear.

People who do not go to church often say to me: “We can understand that a priest can be a drunkard and a money-grubber, we can understand all that. What we don’t understand is why nothing is done about it. Why has this become the norm for you? Or at least why you don’t cry about it”. Every Christian must not present his Christianity as an honour, must not walk with his head held high in pride: “Here I am, a Christian”. Every Christian must walk with his head down, because he must feel that everyone he meets can say: “Here he comes from church and he is not a good person”. This is certainly true of all of us. 

You can only become a son by the spirit. Do not delude yourself that once you are baptised you will automatically enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Person was baptised? – We’ll hold a funeral service. Not baptised? – We will not do it. It’s as simple as that. And the Lord says in the Gospel that some people will be surprised to hear Him say at the Last Judgment, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire”. And then they will cry out, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name?” But He will say to them, “I tell you I do not know you. Depart from Me”.

Being a Christian is a big commitment. The fact that we have been allowed into the vineyard, the Church of Christ, is like receiving an advance payment; through baptism we have only just entered. And you have to work really hard to become an heir. 

I recently returned from my trip to the Crimea, and as I was driving back I looked out the window and saw endless vineyards stretching to the horizon. And it dawned on me: every plant has to be pruned, tied up, earthed – and there are these plants as far as the eye can see. That’s a lot of work. Oh, it’s a lot of work! And then we stand there in the shop with a bottle in our hands and grumble: “This grape wine is a bit expensive”. And when you think about how hard it is… the sweat and the blood is in that bottle. Or the grape juice. Then you might want to pay a little more. If you fathom that person’s toil.

Likewise, the work in the spiritual vineyard, in the Church of Christ, is sweat and blood. If you stop working on it, it will dry up. And above all, I say that again, you must become a son, a son by the Spirit. So that people don’t have to ask: “Is this really your son? He is a stranger, he is so different from you. Yes, if you look at the passport, the surname is the same, but it’s a completely different person”. You should become a son, and that’s a lot of hard work.

And one more thing. We have to be very humble with unchurched people who come to church for the first time, because they are watching us very closely. Greet them very modestly, shyly, humbly, even with a sense of shame. Because they come in with an unblurred eye. We’ve got used to each other. And he, the unchurched, comes in with a clear eye and immediately sees the picture: here is a hypocrite, there is another, and another; oh, they are all like that here, and the priest is the same. To be a sinner is not so terrible, to be a hypocrite is terrible.

Lord, save us from this. Give us honesty and humility.

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

HOW NOT TO JUDGE?

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

St. John of Kronstadt Cathedral of Gai

August 20, 2023

 

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

In the Gospel God commands us not to judge. He says definitely and clearly, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”1 This commandment of non-judgmentalness seems so easy to keep. So what, what is so hard and deep there? I am going to ask a question, I am going to ask questions and, maybe, this commandment will become more complicated. God Himself was in conflict with lawyers throughout the whole Gospel. Did He not judge them? He judged. Not only did He judge them, but He was also angry with them. He was angry with lawyers, human absurdity, and people’s sins. And in the heat of the moment, He even said these words, “How long shall I bear with you?”2  

Then I want to ask one more thing. The Church was established, it was developing, and there were the Ecumenical Councils. What were the Holy Fathers doing there? They judged. They were judging heresy and heretics. If we consider it thoroughly, try to comprehend the situation, we will get some confusion. How should we understand the commandment of non-judgmentalness? So, on the one hand, He definitely says that we must not judge. On the other hand, He judges Himself. We can see that the Holy Fathers judged and were even angry. We have this confusion now. But how should we keep the commandment of non-judgmentalness? 

There is only one possibility, one reason to keep this commandment. If you know your infirmities, your depravity, what will happen to you? You will be very careful in your arguments, cautious in any estimation, accurate in actions, words you say, you will be careful even with your thoughts. The greatest wisdom or, I should say, the beginning of the greatest wisdom is when a person did self-research. Since this point, wisdom appears. People, who do self-research deeply and sincerely, cannot avoid becoming disillusioned with themselves. If you look back at the past, turn over all your mistakes, absurdities, sins and filth, you will never miss the wisdom of self-cognition. We should cognize our worthlessness and inadequacy. If you think that you mean something, you are insane then. It means that you understand nothing in this life. 

Once a woman told me, “Father Sergiy, it is so hard to go towards the truth if you do not even know where it is.” I said, “It is not that scary when you do not know where the truth is and where to go. 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.” This is an awful situation. When you do not know something, you ask the way, don’t you? When you do not know the road, you will ask, “Could you tell me, please, how I can  get there?” “Where should I go?” It is scary when you know the road, but it leads you nowhere. And you keep going and going. 

The first advice for a person lost in the woods is to stop. Stop and maybe you will be found. Do not go far away. Do not go far away because you do not know the way, you are confused, you have lost your direction, you will go and go, but what if the road is wrong. And you will go far away from help and those who are looking for you. First, you will lose the road, then you will go away so far that you will not even be able to hear voices, which call you back. Then you will reach the point of no return. 

In order to keep the commandment of non-judgmentalness in a right and wise way, you should cognize yourself. Try to remember how many times you were wrong judging something.  What if you are wrong again? I told you that the Holy Fathers judged at Ecumenical Councils. But this kind of judgement was not their personal one. It was a consensus patrum, it was the general reasoning of the Holy Fathers. They were listening to each other and then made a decision, but each one could be mistaken or could reason in a wrong way. That is why they were consulting with each other. This way they could find the right solution.

There is another extremity here — the western world is infected by it, it is an insanity of western world. They understood the commandment of non-judgmentalness perversely. They stopped judging perverted people, fornicators, libertines and murderers. They stopped judging lies. They lost the truth. They are confused. In the western world is like this now. But when you ask them, “Why do you act like this?” They would answer, “We keep the commandment of non-judgmentalness.” What is the result of it? 

In order to understand everything said by Jesus, comprehend, accept and act in the right way we need to have the mind. An insane person, who is listening to even the wisest advice, will spoil everything, this person will go the wrong way. Well, a Christian mind — have you ever noticed how a Christian mind is called — humility. Christian wisdom goes through humility. What is humility? It is not a superficial theatre with “sorry,” “forgive me,” “give me the blessing” — this is not humility. You have true humility only when you know yourself through lapsing, through your worthlessness. Real humility is very careful. You are afraid of yourself. You are afraid of your decisions, you start getting advice, you always check yourself. This kind of person needs a spiritual guide. And you find a spiritual father indeed. 

Some modern people say, “It is impossible now to find a spiritual guide.” For you — yes. Because you do not have a real need. You do not need which is not crying but yelling, “I am zero; I am not a zero but I am a minus! Everything that I do in my life is just absurdity, insanity. Give me a worse spiritual guide, let him be an alcoholic, I will be alright with that because I am even worse. I cannot do anything on my own.” St Ambrose of Optina once said nice words, “I had better be a novice of novice rather than be obedient to myself or listen to my mind.”

When we read the Gospel, we think, on the one hand, that everything is simple and clear. However, if we try to comprehend it thoroughly, we will see that the Gospel is deeper and wiser. The Gospel is closed for ignorant people and opened for humble ones. Yes — yes, no — no3, everything is simple. 

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

1 Mt. 7:1

2 Mk. 9:19

3 Mt. 5:37

TRANSFIGURATION THROUGH REPENTANCE

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery of Orsk

19.08.2023

 

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

Congratulations on the Transfiguration of our Lord!

On this day, the Lord takes three of His disciples, ascends Mount Tabor, and transfigures before them. Why does He take only three disciples when He has twelve of them? Does He give prominence to them? Does He love them more than the others? He has twelve but takes only three of them. However, we know that the Lord is unprejudiced. He cannot love one more than another. God is Perfect Love. Perfect Love cannot be less or more, it is always perfect. 

Why three disciples? The remaining nine must have had temptations, as they were humans anyway. Perhaps, there was a little envy, jealousy, or even some simple human offense. Wasn’t there any space for twelve on the mountain? There was space but He took the three. The Lord seeks the one who is able to accept. However, this does not mean, the three were perfectly able to accept.  

Once I heard the following story on Holy Mount Athos. In one skete, the Holy Fathers were serving the Transfiguration of the Lord. It was a small skete church, where a hieromonk was reading the Gospel for the Transfiguration describing how the Lord transfigured, “And Peter says, ‘Let us make three tabernacles.’”1 Tabernacles, or huts, in other words. The hieromonk read this passage and became silent for a while. At that moment, an Elder said, “Peter, Peter, what are you saying? Do you really want to hide the Glory of God into a tabernacle?” How earthly you think. Does the Glory of God need a booth? Where do you want to hide it? Let it shine for everyone.  

This proves that the Lord seeks the one who can accept. Anyway, He takes those three chosen with Him and even they are not able to encompass. Just in a few days, we see that they are not able to accept. Peter betrays. As far as the rest two of them are concerned… The Lord tells them, “I am going to be crucified.” To which they say, “Grant us that we may be, one the first and the other the second in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Look, how earthly they are. On the other hand, shame on you, the Teacher tells them He is going to be crucified and you should cry bitterly because of this but you annoy Him all the time asking, “May James sit on Your right and John on Your left in the Kingdom of Heaven?” They cannot encompass it yet. The Lord is seeking someone who is able to encompass but cannot find even among them, even among those He takes with Him to Mount Tabor and transfigures before.   Meanwhile, they experience this in an earthly way. “Let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” It might seem they should be in awe and speechless because of the event, but they think about such earthly things. 

The Lord says, “Do not cast your pearls before swine.”2 He said so not because He despises pigs nor does He give offense to people, whom He compares to swine. This is only a comparison. A pig does not understand what pearls are, it prefers lentils, it is of interest to it. People often think the same way, “Give me something, so I can feel it and put it into my pocket. What are You saying about some high things? We cannot touch or smell them, or deposit them into our account. This is all very vague and uncertain.” It cannot be accepted. Our mind cannot accept it. 

When were they able to accept? Someone will say, on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on them.  Is this all? But before Pentecost, Peter betrayed. Do you remember how Apostle Paul speaks about himself? “I am one of the Apostles and one of monsters, as I persecuted Christ’s Church.” The Lord gave him so much Grace and he wrote so many holy words. But after what did God give it to him? After this suffering feeling of his cruelty. Peter changed. “Feed My lambs,”3 – the Lord tells him. But before this, He tests Peter’s repentance, “Peter, do you love Me?” “I love You but I feel very ashamed.” He cried throughout his life. Apostle Peter always had red eyes as he cried often.  

The Lord did not simply give His Holy Spirit to the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, but He gave Him after their deep repentance. It was not for nothing, otherwise, they would not have accepted. 

Look, throughout the Old Testament, the Lord tries to give to the chosen people of Israel the promise. They cannot accept it. This is because they are damaged by pride. They are the nation chosen by God. And this drives them crazy. Believe me, they are the same way now, in Jerusalem. They cannot help being the Peculiar people. This is why they cannot acquire the Holy Spirit. As to encompass the Holy Spirit, one should squeeze oneself out of this place. This place should be vacant for the Holy Spirit. Drive yourself out of this place, and the Holy Spirit will come in. As long as you and your “I,” which is embroidered, adorned, and written with the capital letter, is there, it is impossible for the Holy Spirit to enter. We say, “Come and dwell in us.” To which He answers, “I would like to come, but there is no place for me there. I would have come. I am not proud, I am humble, I am kind, I am loving. I would have come, but there is no place for me there. You are there and do not yield to me.”  

Transfiguration of a person is possible only after repentance. Once I heard the following horrible words from my spiritual child, “My conscience does not reprove me.” You are dead, my dear. You are dead. Conscience is the gift of God to people, so they might feel pain. Conscience is a pain, which indicates your sinfulness. But if it is silent… Look, let us compare ourselves to Holy Father Seraphim. Who he is and who we are?   His conscience ached. A thousand days and a thousand nights on the rock, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” A thousand days and nights… Do you think he was standing on that rock, simply practicing asceticism, and admired himself thinking what a great ascetic he was? Not at all! All these thousand days and nights were full of sorrow and pain about himself. This is why there were those thousand days and nights.  But if he did all this for the sake of mere asceticism and admired himself thinking how he would fly up into the sky in a rocket, these thousand nights would be worth nothing. How did he pray? Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. One cannot say this commonly or theatrically. These words can be uttered only through great sorrow, when your conscience aches. If your conscience does not ache, you are dead for the Kingdom of Heaven. You see the miracle of Transfiguration but say, “Let us make three tabernacles.” Let us hide all this, let us deposit it into our bank account. Lord, have mercy. 

Everyone of us is called for the miracle of transfiguration of our own nature, which is fallen, worthless and rotten. However, this is possible only for those, who have repentance. For those who have only prayer, asceticism, and vigilance, it will not work. It works only if one has repentance above all. There is no repentance without acceptance of our own sins, without feeling horrible about ourselves, without crying over ourselves. There is no repentance in those who do not cry.   

Sweetest Jesus, forgive us.

Blessed Feast to you all.

1 Mt. 17:4, Mk. 9:5, Lk. 9:33

2 Mt. 7:6

3 Jn. 21:15

THE ONLY WAY INTO THE LIGHT IS THROUGH THE DARKNESS

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Iveron Monastery of Orsk

13.08.2023

 

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

If a person saw God, he or she would have been in such an awe, in such an extraordinary state, that if someone told him some news, he would not hear it. People would ask him what was going on in politics or economics, or even they would ask if he had eaten anything that day, he would not remember whether he had eaten or not. He would have even forgotten his last name. This is the great admiration a person would have on seeing God.  

However, there is one more state. It is when a person sees his or her fall in all its depth and feels a deep pain, to the bottom of his heart.  At this moment, if someone asks, “Have you eaten something?” he would have answered, “I do not remember. I am so sorrowful, I do not remember anything.” This is because he has an acute vision of his worthlessness, which overwhelms everything. “Let’s go for a walk,” “let’s have some rest,” “let’s have some meal,” “you know,” “you see,” nothing is important for him, as he has a great sorrow deep down in his heart. 

I am telling you about these two visions: when a person sees God and forgets about everything and when a person sees himself, in all the depth, unadorned, without hypocrisy, in the raw. In both cases, he would have forgotten anything because these are so strong feelings, just as a blow on one’s head. He forgot everything. People ask him and have no reaction from him. 

Many people who come to church become obsessed with the idea to see God. This vision is impossible without the other vision. Before a person sees his worthlessness, the vision of God will be dangerous for him. It will deprive him of eternity. This is because people are gravely sick, sick with vanity through and through, in every cell. If he suddenly sees God, his vanity will simply tear him apart, he will burst and go mad.  

We all move towards God, but without passing through this first point to the depth, to the very truth, the highest vision will be devastating for us. We all move towards God, but we should pass this point of repentance. This is how the highest will be safe for us, so no one above shows us the depth of ourselves. The deep vision of ourselves will always bring us down to earth. 

Often Christians want to skip this first point and fly up high at once. You know, the reason, among all the others, why people need a spiritual guide? To give a pull at the leg, when you fly up without having repented. Sometimes, one should pull very hard, and the person will fall and hurt himself and ask in amazement, “I wanted to fly to God and you pulled me by the leg. And you were so rude and cruel that I bumped and hurt myself.” 

I remember, when we were young priests, our spiritual guide told us, “It is better to lose your leg or hand, or, as the Lord says in Gospel, an eye, than to lose your soul through vanity, through your pride.” It is better to lose your hand or leg than your eternal life. 

You should not go to the Kingdom of Heaven by the way round. This will be a great mistake; a great and, perhaps, irrevocable mistake. Because there is nothing that will help a deluded and proud person, who has a stable self-opinion as of someone spiritual. This happens because he would not listen to anyone. There is a definition given by the Holy Fathers. They explain shortly how vanity develops. First, a person says during an obedience, “I do not care about my superior.” Then he will say, “I do not care about my spiritual guide.” And then, there will be, “I do not care about the Bishop.” And then, “I do not care about the Patriarch.” Finally he will say, “I do not care about Apostle Paul. He was a human too.” In the end, he will say, “I do not care about Christ.” That’s it. Amen. The end. There is no way back. If he reaches this point, there is no way back.   

We want to see Christ very much and we are eager to see the Uncreated Light. But the Uncreated Light is unreachable without immersion into a deep darkness. The deep darkness of our worthlessness, shame, filth, and corruption. Those who do not immerse in it will not find it possible to ascend to Christ. There is no other way. Do not try to deceive God or yourselves. Do not elude or skip it. There is no other way. 

Sweetest Jesus, save us!

Glory to Thee our Lord! Glory to Thee our Lord! Glory to Thee our Lord!

TRUTH IS OUR POWER

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

For the day of Saint Prince Vladimir, the Equal of the Apostles 

St. John of Kronstadt Cathedral of Gai

July 28, 2023

 

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

I congratulate you on the Patron Saint’s Day! Today is the Feast of Saint Prince Vladimir, the Equal of the Apostles. What is the difference between real faith and religious fanaticism? The latter always invites aggression. Fanatic people wish to prove, oppress, and convince someone that they are right. But people of true faith share their joy, the joy of faith they have obtained. This acquisition is something light and kind, indeed. That is why if you are a really faithful person and you are in the Holy Spirit, you will never invite aggression, prove your faith, or hammer your world view into the heads of other people. A real believer wants to share his delight and his small miracle of faith with other people. 

Prince Vladimir was surrounded by malicious tongues, and now he is surrounded by modern neopagans or, so called, Russian heathens. They try to convince us that Prince Vladimir Christianised Rus’ by force. So there is this question here if he was a religiously fanatic person or a man of proven faith, who just sincerely wanted to share his joy, his small miracle of faith which he had obtained.

Heathen people were not so simple. They were people of rigid rules, often even violent. Well, do you think now that it was so easy to Christianise these people? One day these heathens killed Vladimir’s grandfather, just like that, without any civil deals. And they were imposed to abjure their religion. Do you really think that these people would give up so easily? They would have never done it if they had not seen some reasonable core, some light in Christianity, at first. Second, they would have never abjured their existing views if they had not respected their Prince Vladimir and followed him willingly. 

Surely, we cannot say that all heathens followed him immediately. But evidently there was some critical number of people who could accept the sincere faith of their Prince, and follow him. In this religion, which was new to Russia and which the Great Prince brought from Greece, they saw some advantages. They saw how proven faith can be superior to fanaticism, I mean, they saw how love trumps aggression. I say it again, fanaticism invites aggression, it forces, convinces violently, stresses out, feels angry when proving something. Proven faith lives differently, it has a different nature. People of proven faith share their joy, their treasure. You cannot prove it, you cannot impose faith forcefully. It can be imposed, but when the oppressor goes away, this imposed faith will collapse. However, Christianity was instilled into the Holy Rus’, and people have been living with this faith for a thousand years. 

But at the same time, there are these frenetic people who made up the neopagan religion of their ancestors. Where did they take it from? There are no written sources which can present the beliefs of their ancestors. Suddenly they made up a new religion which provokes aggression towards Christianity. They made it up. Now they force themselves to believe it and make other people do it also. They say that Prince Vladimir made a mistake and Christianity is a religion of weak people. That is why the history of our country is a bit flawed. But how can it be? Christianity has already been in this country for one thousand years. So many saints were born here. If it is a religion of weak people then check the history. You will see how many victories there were, how many conquerors were defeated. There were so many attempts to destroy our country, subjugate and eliminate its people, but we rise up like that Russian vanka-vstanka doll. They try to destroy us but we rise up again, they try again but we rise up. And that is our power. Our power is not an aggression, our power is truth and the truth is in Christ. 

Our country and its people should be really grateful to Prince Vladimir, who turned around the way of Russian history. God gave us Orthodox Christianity through this historical figure. Our Orthodox culture gave us so many pieces of art. The Trinity of Andrei Rublev, our Dostoevsky, Pushkin – all of them were Orthodox Christians. Our scientists, our clerisy. Some people say that the Great World War was won by the atheistic USSR. But look, that was the 40’s. There were people who had been Christianized before the revolution, they were fighting. Their mothers would give them the “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High” prayer and Crosses. It was still that same Holy Rus’, which was continuing by inertia. Christ’s commandments were in our intuition even when these atheistic times took place. Atheists, when they were fighting against the Church, could not create anything new. They replaced the Trinity by three portraits, remember? They could not create anything new. Cross Processions were replaced by demonstrations. They even tried to replace relics by the dead body of Lenin. The whole institute is working there in order not to let this poor thing fall to pieces. They process it somehow, process it, embalm it. They could not create anything here as well. 

There is a story. I do not know if it is true or not but it is said that in the 20’s something happened with a drain system and the mausoleum was flooded. When people reported about it to patriarch Tikhon, he said, “The way the relics are, the way the myrrh flows.” Saint people’s relics emit myrrh which smells nice and pleasant but that body in the mausoleum emits, you know, “The way the relics are, the way the myrrh flows.” 

In Soviet times, we were brought up at schools, but if we look at it differently, we were brought up on Gospel commandments which were paraphrased a little bit. Humans cannot create anything. Something that was created by God and embedded into the sense of our lives by His Providence cannot be altered. The modern scientists, these frenetic people, quack that there is no God but they do so great discoveries. Look at this word “discover”. So you only discover God’s commandments, you only discover them. And then, you may create something inside of these commandments. Change this commandment and everything will collapse. 

Once I gave this example. Have musicians ever thought about whether musical stuff was created or discovered?  Try to change it and there will be cacophony. The laws of music, colours and shades in painting. A painter creates a piece of art inside of these laws. Let him change the laws and there will be something ugly. Scientists make their discoveries inside of these laws, but they call them “the laws of nature”, we call them like the “commandments of God”. Nevertheless, they do not create these laws, they only discover them. That is why we use this word “discovery.” Change this law and everything will collapse. 

Glory to God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen!

ABOUT SLAVES, SERVANTS AND CHILDREN

Archpriest Sergiy Baranov

Saint John of Kronstadt Cathedral of Gai 

23.07.2023

 

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

Slaves work for food and because they do not want to be beaten. If they work poorly, they are beaten. Servants work for a salary; they earn as much as they work. This relationship is different and more profitable. The philosophy of the Old Testament people made them be either slaves or servants. Their relationship with God was slave-like, “Lord, we will behave, may earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and illnesses never come to us. If we misbehave, we know punishment will follow.”  

The Old Testament people lived somewhat like servants, “Lord, I will behave, and You will not only punish me, but also give me something in this life.” Even in the Psalter King David says the following words, “I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.”1 In other words, righteousness itself presupposes some kind of prosperity.  

Christ comes and brings a new religion, a new philosophy, and, as it might seem,  His disciples should have even more. However, His very first followers have the same thing He does: a cross, crucifixion, humiliation, persecution, beating, and the most extreme of this all – death. During four centuries, the first four centuries, Christian blood flew like water only because people were Christians, only because they confessed their faith. You do not protest, do not organize any demonstration, but the mere fact of your Christianity is the cause for persecution, tortures and killing you. What kind of religion is it? One might be confused.  

What did Christ bring to us? What did He offer us? Before Him, people at least had a status of slaves: behave and you are fed and not beaten. Moreover, they had a status of servants: work properly and you earn a lot, you are rich and your family is prosperous. But suddenly Christ brings this confusing religion. Certainly, at first He heals the blind, sick and lepers. In the beginning, people respond to this and follow Christ, but suddenly His gospel ends with Cross, Golgotha, and the very shameful death. A Roman could not be crucified. Only outlaws and the most worthless people could find their death on a cross. But we have this absurdity. What did He bring to us? If He did not bring anything, it’s absurd again, then why did so many people voluntarily die for Him during those four centuries? In the Lives of Ancient Saints, we read how Christians were tortured at the Amphitheater of Athens. They were torn to pieces by lions, crucified, cut into pieces. Meanwhile, a woman was running there with her child across Rome. “Where are you running?” “There, to the place where they torture Christians. I am a Christian too.” “Mad woman! Don’t you realize they will kill you too?” “I understand this.” “But you are twice mad! You go there yourself and you bring your child with you!”   

This is not fanaticism. There should be some deep and strong reason why those people did so. On no account, some people will not do or tolerate something, much less go to death. In no way they will do this, as this is madness and nonsense. But what did saints have? Perhaps, they had something more than the Old Testament people. They did not only have a contract with God for not having earthquakes, plague or flood; or receive a remuneration in the format of this world and then not to sleep overnight thinking how not to lose this money but multiply it, scaring the inflation and considering what to do with it at all.      

One of our priests told me about a ridiculous situation. When there was instability in 2008, a director came up to and asked him, “Father, how do you keep your money?” (He thought that the priest had a lot of money.) The priest joked, “I keep them in gold bars, as they are not prone to inflation.” He joked and forgot about it, but in a month, the director came up to him again and said, “Ok, describe me the process how you recast the bars and where you hide them.” The priest said he did not even understand if the director was joking or not. He only answered, “Are you serious? I only joked. I do not have gold.” 

Those Christians might have had something. No one should live in illusion. Perhaps, it is possible for some time but then the illusion will fade away like a mist. They had something very real and dear. The Lord says in the Gospel, “A man sold all that he had and bought a pearl.”2 Only one pearl. The man can give his money for it because he knows its price. He can tell an imitation, a mere bead, from a precious thing which costs all his possessions.  

Christians understood what was their priority and the most precious thing on earth. Some people will say family is the most precious. Go to the cemetery, look at the graves of your parents – this is your family. A husband lost his wife, a wife buried her husband, or the most horrifying thing – some people have lost their children. This is the scariest thing – to outlive your children. Priests constantly stay by the coffin. Well, very often. By the coffin, all meanings and values go to pieces together with the deceased, who goes to pieces too. Some people dedicate their lives to art, science or social service. Believe me, everything goes to pieces. All this can be and should be, but this is not the major thing for a human.  

By Christ, Christians acquired the most valuable treasure – Him. After the Ascension, He remained with them with His Holy Spirit. They acquired the grace of the Holy Spirit and were ready to die for this real treasure… Fanatics have some spiritual ardency but they go to pieces. In order to test whether this is an imitation or a precious pearl, there is only a cross.  Illusions go to pieces on a cross. Everything you fancy, dream and worry about will go to pieces when you are on a cross. Only a true treasure will stand out. It is strong and unshakeable. This is why Christ brings Himself and the theme of a cross. To be with Him, one should go through a cross. Cross is His theme, it is inseparable from Him.  

Today we commemorate the Passions of Christ again. The Apostle says, “It is foolishness to the Greeks, to us it is the power of God.”3 It is foolishness to the Greek because they do not know and do not understand this. How can you understand something you do not know, what does not have any shape in the format of this world, and what is beyond the world? They do not understand.  Apostle Paul comes to the Areopagus of Athens, to the wisest people of Athens, who constantly meet to share wisdom with one another and compete in their thoughts, and tells them about Christ. To which they say, “You behave like a madman, Paul. Come next time, perhaps we might listen to you. You behave like a madman now.” These wisest people on earth, exactly on earth, cannot encompass Christ with their earthly heads. Their heads are too narrow for Him.   

Some people who come to Orthodoxy want to be either slaves or servants. You should understand Orthodoxy is not a religion of slaves or servants; it is the religion of children. A child will follow his Father wherever He goes. If a father goes to war, his child will share his fear and fate. If a father goes to cross, his child will unconsciously share it; the cross will come through his heart anyway. If we set our priorities right and realize what is primary and secondary in our life, then we will win through these hard and horrible days because we will fight for the highest Value. If we fight for something earthly, we will lose, because this war does not make sense.   

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

1 Ps. 36:25

2 Mt. 13:46

3 1Cor. 1:23-24