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| Archimandrite Thomas, Saint Sophrony, Mother Mariam, contemplating the icon of the Mother of God. |
Fr.
Sophrony:
As always, I come to our synaxes
without preparation. My preparation rests on the prayer which you have just
chanted: that the Spirit may come and vivify our heart and mind. And once again
I rejoice that I am living this moment of our meeting together...
We are living in an exceptionally
important time. Two or three years ago a team of theologians from Serbia
visited us. These young Serbian theologians asked me what I thought about the
future. Here in our country (England), no one knew at that time the word
"perestroika", which all the world today knows. I answered them that
I am not a prophet, but my prayer tells me that humanity is living in a tragic
tension, which surpasses the capacities of whichever State leader. Thus, if
destruction through a nuclear war does not come in the near future, there will
occur an inevitable revival of Christianity. And behold, a little while later,
we began to hear talk on "perestroika" (= reconstruction-
reformation), so that the Orthodox Church in Russia is now undergoing a period
of revival.
As Christ said that through the
Providence of our Creator and Father even the hairs of our head are numbered[1],
it is obvious that through the same Providence also Russia was preserved
throughout this entire period of seventy years. The Word of God entered total
kenosis, when He said to the Father, on the Cross : "Why have You forsaken
me?"[2]The
Apostle Paul tells us that God did not answer His Son who was dying saying,
"Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit"[3].
And precisely from that moment of His death, Christ began to be known not as a
Prophet, no matter how great He was, but as God Himself.
What the Church of Russia lived
throughout the period of the seventy years, was allowed by Divine Providence, even
though from a human point of view these years were an exceptionally tragic
period. The slaughter of Christians was allowed by the Providence of God, at a
time when the voices and innumerable prayers of the faithful remained
unanswered from the part of the Heavenly Father. Knowing very many texts of
prisoners, exiles etc., we can see there the repetition of all that occurred
during the first centuries of Christianity. Thus, was granted in our times an
exceptionally grand privilege: the privilege not only to believe in God, but
also to suffer with Him[4].
In other words, these events, which seem to us terrible and which urged in us
tearful prayer for them and for the whole of mankind, permitted a harvest of
thousands and thousands of great saints.
The entire visible system of the
Church was destroyed and now it all needs to be reconstructed and to live, as
in the period of Constantine the Great, the revival of the Church.
This revival spreads, you know, like a
great tide. It reached to influence the life even of our community: with great
joy we received new brothers and sisters. You can imagine my great joy, after
young people, having finished school, their university studies and even some
also their post-graduate ones, come here. Thus our community is nearing to
reach the number of twenty four to twenty five persons. But let us leave this
aside.
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| Saint Sophrony and Mother Mariam at the refectory. |
The
Holy Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807- 1867), said that without monasteries
the world will not be able to keep the faith. What faith? The faith that God
Himself, the Creator of the world, came down to earth, became man, spoke to us
and revealed to us His plan for us, His prior to the ages plan.
The contemporary world, following two
world wars - wars are sin par excellence-, has lost the grace of the Holy
Spirit. It is impossible, therefore, for us to understand the Divinity of
Christ without the Holy Spirit: For us to see a simple man, a real man, and for
us to believe that He is the Creator of the world, this is beyond us. To
believe, that is, that He is God Himself, who came to call us to be eternally
with Him. This is precisely what is missing in many of our contemporaries,
mainly in those who occupied themselves with science. It is a strange
phenomenon to see scientists, who make important discoveries, to suddenly
exclude God, instead of being amazed by the way the world was created; instead
of following Christ, to receive the Spirit of God Himself and to understand
that the visible world was created by Divine thought, by the will of God the
Creator...
But let us now enter the point of our
meeting: Father Issam and Mother Mariam are preparing themselves to receive the
monastic schema. Although these tonsures may not seem as such a grand act, in
reality they are. In order to fulfill this act with Orthodox faith, it is
necessary for us to re-read something of Chapter 9 of the Acts of the Apostles,
verses 10 to 16.
I will repeat the last sentences.
"Go, for he is a chosen vessel of
mine to bear my name before gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel; I will
show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake".
Now read the concerning the Apostle
Peter paragraphs from Chapter 21 of the Gospel according to St. John, verses 17
to19: "Feed my sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger,
you girded yourself and walked where you wished; when you are old, you will
stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do
not wish. This He spoke, signifying by what death he (Peter) would glorify
God".
I repeat the last sentence: "This
He spoke, signifying by what death he (Peter) would glorify God".
Let us also read from Deuteronomy
verses 22 and 23 of Chapter 21: "If a man committed a crime under the
sentence of death, and he is put to death, and you shall hang him on a tree,
his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him
that day; for he who is hanged on a tree is accursed of God; that you do not
defile the land that the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance".
You see the ways of God: Christ tasted
such a death, hung on the Cross, and after His death He received as Man the
" name which is above every name... of those in heaven, and of those on
the earth, and of those under the earth"[6].
Why am I reminding you of these things? For our brothers and sisters in
Lebanon. Indeed, what seems as a curse is at depth the call which was given to
us by the heavenly Father to make us brothers of Christ, by suffering we too
also the death which He suffered on the Cross. Now that we know of the
persecutions of Christians in Russia- especially the Orthodox- we bear in our
heart their experiences, which are at depth similar to ours. The external
circumstances, the political ones, are different; but, at depth in both
situations is revealed the same will of the Father: to make us all pass through
a death similar to Christ, in order to glorify us in eternity.
Having this in mind, I repeat: Let us
ask of God the grace to make us worthy to celebrate the service of the monastic
tonsure of Mother Mariam and our brother Father Issam.
This is the meaning of our meeting
this morning. They are amongst us in order to receive the monastic schema
according to Athonite tradition. And you see that we are ready.
Now we will ask Father Issam to tell
us a few words.
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| Father Issam(Thomas) with Saint Sophrony at the refectory. |
“It seems to me however that the Cross
was given to us not because we are adults, but because we are children. And if
we consider this well, if our behaviour was that of adults, we would never
undertake this Cross, and consequently there would never be an opportunity for
us to reach Resurrection in order to participate in it. Thus we are here as
children. We are not sure precisely of what is happening nor of what is to
happen. We feel however that it is good that we are here, that it will be good
for us to be where we will be.
“We don't think especially about the Cross. In the Lebanon, we have
been crucified since fifteen years ago. We have been on the Cross fifteen
years. I was saying to some of our friends how easy it is to speak about what
is happening in the Lebanon. But to say the truth, it is beyond tragedy. I
would even say that it is hell. Hell has opened for good in front of the world,
our world, and is trying to swallow very quickly and in an unnatural way all
those who belong to Christ, all those who belong to the truth, all the sheep
which are dragged daily to the slaughter. Yes; we have become accustomed to a
type of cross, to the Cross, our cross. We die every day and accept to die
every day. We see death with our eyes every day without there being an absolute
reason for it. In reality, nobody knows what is happening in the Lebanon.
Nobody can explain what is happening there. And unless we see this event in the
light of the Gospel, in the Light of our Lord, we will never understand
anything. And to all those who come asking for an explanation or who would like
to know if it would be better for them to stay where they are or to leave, our
answer is the following: "If you are looking towards Christ, you must
remain. You cannot descend from the cross by yourselves. It must be given to
you to descend. If however the Cross of Christ does not mean anything to you,
leave. Leave the country. You are not obliged to suffer without reason.”
"What
concerns us and for which we have come here, my father, is very simply
sanctity. Our wish is to become saints. And sanctity is not so far away. It has
been given to all the world. Perhaps you will consider us foolish or simple or
even, as children. But we want to grasp strength from you, since it is the only
remaining thing for us in the world. We no longer have anything. They speak
about the desert and monastic life. In the Lebanon everything is a desert. And
those who remained have passed through a type of compulsory ascetic practice by
the hand of God, because the will of God for this world is that the world may become
a world of saints. If, most likely, many there are at a risk of being burned by
the fire, many there as well will be purified. And it is precisely for this
reason that we are here, and for this reason that we will return to the
Lebanon."
Fr. Sophrony: Regardless of the
geographical distance, we will be one family, united in Spirit.
Fr. Issam: Amen. "Inch'
Allah" (God willing).
[1] Mt.10,30.
[2] Mt.27,46.
[3] Lk.23,46.
[4] See Php.1,29.
[5] Father Issam received the name Thomas at his monastic tonsure in
the presence of Fr. Sophrony and Fr. Kyrill.
[6] See Plp.2, 8-10.
[7] Mt. 17,4.
Reference:
BUILDING THE TEMPLE OF GOD WITHIN US AND IN OUR BRETHREN.by Archimandrite SOPHRONY (Sakharov)Vol.1.Homily 37(Delivered in French on 30 July 1990), Translation from Russian to Greek by Archimandrite Zachariah.St. John the Baptist Monastery, Essex, England, Third Edition, 2014.
Translation from Greek to English by the Holy Trinity Family. Douma. Lebanon.