Saturday, March 25, 2023

Christian Obedience.
St. Sophrony the Athonite

Saint Sophrony with
 Mother Mariam(Zacca)
with the book of Saint Silouan
 translated to arabic.
Obedience is the basis of monasticism, but obedience is extremely difficult to talk about, for it would seem to begin by taking crude, naive forms; but afterwards leads a man into a world which cannot be described, since no human concept is applicable to it. Obedience is a mystery which is revealed only by the Holy Spirit. And obedience is both sacrament and life in the Church. At first sight the abdication of free will and the power of reason might appear to run counter to God's design for man, whom He has endowed with a freedom like His own and whom, in virtue of that freedom, He calls to reign eternally with Him. Putting their free will and ability to reason into the hands of another, even though this other be a priest, would cause many people to feel as if the ground had gone from under their feet. Such a step would be like hurling themselves into a black abyss, losing their personalities and delivering themselves into the worst of slaveries. It would be self annihilation. But to those who by faith have followed the teaching of the Church, and have renounced themselves in the spirit of that teaching, obedience is revealed as an inexpressibly great gift from on high. The 'obedient' man may be compared to the eagle who rises on strong wings into the heavens and there serenely surveys the space which separates him from the earth, en­joying his safety and his mastery over heights inaccessible and fatally terrifying to others. With confidence, love and joy the 'novice'[1] readily submits his will and jurisdiction over himself to his spiritual father, thereby releasing himself from the heavy burden of earthly cares and arriving at something the value of which it is impossible to define - purity of the mind in God.

Monasticism above all means purity of the mind, which is unattainable without obedience. That is why there can be no monasticism without obedience, and the man who lacks obedience is not a monk in the true sense. It is possible to receive great gifts of God - even the perfection of martyr­dom - outside the monastic condition; but purity of mind is a special gift of monasticism, unknown on other paths, and the monk can only reach this state through obedience. That is why I consider obedience to be the hard core of monasti­cism and to include the other two vows as a natural corollary. St. John Climacus, for instance, speaks thus: ' ... the mother of purity is inner silence (hesychasm) and obedience. The freedom from passions acquired through inner silence does not remain unshakeable when in constant contact with the world; but when this freedom is born of obedience it remains in all circumstances tried and steadfast. ' And of voluntary poverty he says: 'Will he who has relinquished his very soul still think to acquire possessions?' Thus obedience 'by means of retreat from the world and relinquishing of self will ... like two wings of gold lightly bears one up to the sky' of freedom from passion.

Obedience is a mystery of the Church, and therefore the relationship between staretz and novice has a sacred character. We have already pointed out that this sacrament for the novice consists in learning to do the will of God in order to enter the sphere of the divine will and thereby participate in the divine life. For the staretz the sacrament means by his own prayer and life of spiritual endeavour bringing the novice to knowledge of that life, and the development in him of true freedom without which salvation is impossible.

'Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty' , and so the purpose of obedience, as of the Christian life in general, is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

A spiritual director never tries to subject a novice's will to his own human will, but in the course of everyday life it might happen that he would find himself obliged to insist on having his directions obeyed - a situation in which no obe­dient novice would place his staretz.

In virtue of his high responsibility before God, the as­cetic effort required of a staretz is much more onerous than that required of the novice. But this responsibility occurs only when the novice gives unqualified obedience; where this is not the case the novice bears the full weight of re­sponsibility for his actions and loses the benefits of obedi­ence. It is no part of the staretz's purpose, however, to relieve his disciple of responsibility, but to teach him the true Christian life and true Christian liberty, for which it is necessary to overcome in oneself, through the spiritual feat of obedience, the passion of self-will and love of power. Anyone who seeks to dominate his fellow-man, or even to encroach on his liberty, thereby inevitably destroys his own liberty too, since the very fact of such an infringement of another person's freedom involves a breach with the divine life of love to which man is called.

 

Reference:

Truth and Life. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). Essex 2014.


[1] Novice here refers not only to the postulant but to every monk, and to every Christian, who turns to his spiritual father for guidance.

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