PEACEFUL TIMES GIVE BIRTH TO FANCIERS

On the Day of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker

Cave Church of St.Nicholas, the Iveron Monastery of Orsk

22.05.2023

In peaceful and favorable times, the Church has always given birth to less saints that in the times of sorrow, hardship and deprivation. This is because peaceful times give birth to fanciers, those people who live in some dreams. Christianity is a cross. The mere word contains a cross and a cross is the symbol of Christianity. Those Christians who avoid their cross somehow are not Christians, they are dreamers who call themselves Christians.     

The times of sorrow have given more saints, favorable times less. If we speak about monasticism, only strict monasteries where there were hardships, feats and obedience, produced good monks. Meanwhile, some comfortable city monasteries with good meals, amenities, a scheduled routine, and even individual cuticle scissors and fingernail file, give less saints. If monasticism does not strive after sainthood, this is not monasticism, but this is a sad, a very sad theater. 

The worst thing is hypocrisy before God. Even if you are a sinner, a lazy person, a fornicator, you should be honest. But if you are the same sinner, lazy person and fornicator, but present yourself as a saintly person and hide your worthlessness behind holy robes, this is hypocrisy and a play before God. This is the problem. Those monks and nuns, who seek a comfortable, full-bellied and contented life, are not the monastics, but hypocrites. Read the Lives of the Saints and you will see they are all on my side. This is what I am telling you, they will all be on this side.  They will prove it not by their words but by their lives. 

Saint Nicholas is one of the saints who had never avoided his cross but said to the Lord, “I am Yours. Give me my cross, the one which is destined for me, and I will bear it.” This is why he became a saint. This is why he brings joy, not sorrow, to God.  

Many Christians make God sad and many Christians, as it is said in the Gospel, will become very much surprised on the Last Judgment when they will see themselves in a place they have never expected themselves to see. 

Saint Father Nicholas, pray to God for us!