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| Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol. |
Metropolitan
Athanasios was born on February 8, 1959 in Limassol. In 1976, he was ordained a deacon by Archbishop ChrysostomosI of Paphos and then
entered the Theological Faculty of the University of Thessalonica. He was tonsured a monk.in Mont Athos In 1982, he was granted the Great
Schema and was ordained a priest In 1983,
he was ordained Confessor by Bishop Pavlos of Veroia and Naousa. In 1987, while
a resident of Vatopedi Monastery he was elected a
representative of the Holy Community of Mount Athos. For the period of
1991-1992 he held the position the Chief Overseer of Mount Athos.
In 1992, With the blessing of the Vatopedi Monastery, Fr. Athanasios returned to Cyprus and joined the brotherhood of the Priests Monastery in Paphos. On November 4,
1993, he was elected abbot of Machaira's Monastery.On February 11, 1999, after election by the clergy and people,
Fr. Athanasios was consecrated and enthroned Bishop of
Limassol on February 14, 1999.
God wants us to think of Him as a parent.
This is the healthy way of relating to God. He wants
us to relate to Him as His children. As we say in church during the Holy
Liturgy: “Make us worthy, O Holy One, to dare call You Father, the God of
Heaven. Then we recite the Lord's Prayer:
Our Father ...
Christ himself taught us how to pray and how to call
God our Father.
He did not teach us to call Him either “Master”,
“Heavenly Ruler”, “Absolute One”, or anything else. Just “Our Father”. This is
very important. God has revealed His true nature to us. He said, “Do you want
to know what to call me?. What My name is?. What I feel for you?. I am Your
Father. Therefore, you are My children.
It is by far the most mature and the healthiest
understanding of God. Whatever we do we must do it within the context of this
loving relationship. Then we will feel a certain sense of nobility. How should
I put it?. It is like a child who feels totally comfortable and at home within
a loving household. We do not feel like strangers, in our Father's home, but
members of the family. The Church, the entire universe is our home, the house
of our Father. We are neither slaves nor employees in this universe. We are the
children of this omnipotent, omniscient, and totally loving God.
I often feel so disheartened to see spiritual people,
priests, monks, and laymen, who turn their relationship with God into some kind
of a torture chamber. Old Paisios used to say to such people, “My dear!. God
is oxygen and you turned him into carbon monoxide”.
In other words!. They turned their relationship with
God into anguish, anxiety, and neurosis. When I meet people in such states,
psychologically constrained and miserable-looking, I marvel at the distortions
they manage to create in their relationship with God. How is it possible, I
would ask such religious people, that you as children of God and inheritors of
the saints have managed to reach such states of psychological misery?. How can
you present yourself as an image of God to those who come to you for spiritual
advice?.
That's the surest way to put somebody off God.
I often thought that the survival of the Church
through the ages is a standing miracle in itself. It exists in spite of the
fact that those of us who represent it, priests, bishops, theologians, are so
inadequate and unworthy of the task. Why should people want to come near the
church when those who represent it project an image of a God who is stern, punishing,
and dictatorial?. A lot of people come and tell me, “But why, Father, should I
come to church when you, the representatives of the church, are so full of
anger and intolerance?. Why should I want to be like you?” And they are right.
Many people of the church, I went on to say, prefer a
God who is like a slave master: stern and punishing. Obviously it is a
reflection of the personality of those who hold to that image. I'm afraid a
lot of people who represented the church throughout history are individuals
who seemed to be in the first stage of spiritual development.
Unfortunately it is so. I always tell the official
representatives of the Church, the priests, the monks, the theologians, the
Sunday school teachers, that they must be extremely careful to teach the true
doctrine of the Church about the nature of God-that God is our Father and not a
fearsome despot or a wealthy employer. This is a serious problem with the people
who represent the church. People come to them to hear about God and they are
taught instead about Satan and hell and the like. They present God as a
punitive tyrant. They may, for example, tell a student “go to church and God
will help you pass your exams”. What if that student does not pass his exams?.
Isn't he then going to turn against God?. Or they may visit a sick person and
tell her “Pray and God will make you well”. And when the patient does not get
well or she dies, God is to blame. These are tragic mistakes.
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What do we tell a dying person?
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Put your trust in God because God loves you, period. Love God whether
you get well or whether you don't get well. We must never waver in our love
toward God no matter what. We should not believe in God because He will make us
well.
That's the Employee's understanding of God.
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| "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven". |
We must do everything we can to help the person not
get stuck at an immature spiritual stage. I am particularly concerned with the
case of young people. I tell catechists that under no circumstances must we
deprive people of having this experiential understanding of God as total love.
So during our spiritual struggles even though we may occasionally invoke the
lower understanding of God, that of the slaves and of the employees, we must
never forget that the most authentic way of understanding God, and the one that
is expressed through the church, is that we are all children of the loving God
and that at the end everything will be good. So the notion of God as a tyrant
or God as the big boss disseminating rewards and punishments is ultimately
false.
The understanding of God through the experiences of
the saints is the perfect way of relating to God. But God is not unjust. All spiritual
stages are helpful in our ascent toward God. What is important is to advance
spiritually. When the time comes, God will reward those who have obeyed His
commandments.
Even a perfected human being can have spiritual lapses
and temporary regressions. So depending on the nature of that regression we can
employ the appropriate medicine. Even Saint Silouan, who was a perfected human
being, would cry and wail on occasion that this was his last night and that his
“miserable soul” was going straight to Hades, away from God.
It helped Silouan to remember his mortality and hell
during the time of his temporary spiritual lapse. There are times when you
marshal the fear of hell for your own spiritual good and there are other times
when you choose the image of God as an employer that rewards your hard work.
You must find within yourself what suits you at appropriate times, what helps
you advance spiritually. Does the fear of God help you?. Then use that image
during that specific situation. Does the image of God as the great Employer
help?. Then have that as your working image.
However those of us who serve as spiritual guides and
are often called to speak about the nature of God must never present a God who
is either a despot or an employer. Why?. For the simple reason that this is not
His real nature. The true image of God is that of the loving Father.
Now, we as human beings are on an evolutionary path
toward God and we often have the sense of a God who can send us to hell or who
can reward us for our good works. But we must always keep in mind that useful
as these conceptions of God may be on occasion they are also imperfect and
immature ways of understanding and relating to God. If you wish to know how to
relate to God, study the lives of saints and see how they viewed God. Do you
know what saints used to say about God?. “I am wounded by your Love”.
“God is the Great Beloved”.
This is what many Christians don't understand. The
saints were literally in love with God. Everything they wrote, everything they
said, and all the spiritual exercises they engaged in, all the hymns and chants
they composed were nothing more than the overflowing of their hearts, which
were erotically attached to God. There is no greater love than the love of God.
Nothing in the world, nothing can transcend or surpass the love of God.
Reference:
Gifts
of the Desert. Kyriacos C. Markides.(2005)