Fifth Discourse of Father John of Kronstadt on the Mystery of Holy Communion and Concerning Himself

May 6, 1907

Russia and the Church solemnly celebrate today the birth of the Tsar crowned by God to the kingdom of all Russia, and beseech the King of kings for the welfare of the realm, for victory—that is, for the long life, peace, health, and salvation of His Majesty, our earthly Tsar, and pray that the Lord would prosper and assist Him in all things, and would subdue all enemies and adversaries beneath His feet. I turn to all of you, as a member of the human family, with the question of what these two words mean: the word and commandment of the Creator to the first humans, and the false, deceptive word of the man-slayer—the devil.

Note the consequences for people of these two words. What are they by nature? One word is living, creative, life-giving; the other is flattering, fanciful, obscuring, and death-dealing. What has been and continually is the consequence of people’s obedience to the word of the enemy or of sinful man following all the suggestions of the disembodied enemies and all their passions? Is it not confusion of every kind in the world—unbelief, godlessness, anarchism, willfulness, envy, sedition, murder, theft, robbery, drunkenness, obscenity, all manner of violence, mutual enmity of nations, idolatry, countless disagreements in faiths and the most absurd delusions?

What are the consequences of a man’s obedience, who believes in God’s word, in God’s commandments, in the Gospel and in the holy Church established by Christ? Faith, all manner of righteousness, all manner of social order, meekness, obedience, temperance, wisdom, courage, goodness, mercy. Obedience to God’s word leads to peace, harmony, all manner of order in family, political and economic life; to obedience to spiritual and civil authorities.

To these two words—God’s word and the word of the disembodied enemy—we have all been obedient until now; we listen to one or the other. Having obeyed the man-slayer-enemy at the beginning and continuing to obey him until now, mankind has fallen into endless madness; it has exchanged life for death, light for darkness, beauty for ugliness, wisdom for folly, incorruptibility for corruption.

We live not in peaceful but in troubled and seditious times, times of anarchism and godlessness, times of shameless trampling of God’s laws and human laws; in a time of senseless wandering of minds, which have tasted a little of earthly wisdom and become conceited about themselves; for knowledge puffs up, according to God’s word, but love builds up (1Cor 8:1). It is evident to all that the Russian kingdom trembles, totters, and is close to falling.

Why then has so great a kingdom, which was once so firm, mighty, and glorious, now become so weakened, enfeebled, ruined, and shaken? Because it has departed from the firm and unshakeable foundation of true faith and in its majority the intelligentsia has fallen away from God, Who alone is the unshakeable eternal power of all times. By wondrous harmony heaven and earth have been sustained for so many centuries. That is why our kingdom trembles: and not alone the Russian kingdom, occupying one-sixth of the earth, trembles from godlessness and anarchy? No, all earthly kingdoms that have abandoned true faith tremble and shake; and some kingdoms and cities that existed before and after Christ have entirely departed from the stage of the world because of unbelief and lawlessness. And the longer the adulterous and sinful world exists and advances in lawlessness, the more it weakens, decays and totters, so that toward the end of the world it will become altogether a corpse and a smoking firebrand, which will completely waste away in the last terrible and universal fire: for the earth and all works in it will be burned, says the apostle, and we look for new heavens and a new earth, according to God’s promise, in which righteousness dwells (2Pet 3:10,13).

We, Russian Orthodox believers, as children of the Christian Church, having received the Mystery of Baptism, have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many angels, to the assembly and Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling (the blood of Christ), which speaks better than that of Abel. See to it, says the Apostle in the epistle to the Hebrews, that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. If (the ancient Hebrews, who were with Moses) did not escape when they refused the One who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape if we reject the One who warns from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth, and now He has promised: Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. These words, “yet once more,” indicate the removal of what is shaken, as of created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold fast the grace by which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and fear. For our God is a consuming fire (Hebr 12:22-29).

I have brought these words of Paul from the epistle to the Hebrews because they apply to us Russians too, who have fallen away from God and from the New Zion, the Church of Christ, founded on the immovable Rock—Christ, upon which whoever falls will be broken, and anyone on whom it falls will be crushed (Mt 21:44). It is certain that all who have fallen away from the faith and Church will be broken like clay pots (vessels of clay, Ps 2:9), if they do not turn and repent. But the Church will remain unshakeable even to the end of the ages, and the Monarch of Russia, if he remains faithful to the Orthodox Church, will be established upon the throne of Russia to the end of the ages.

Hold fast then, O Russia, to your faith and Church, and to your Orthodox Tsar, if you wish to be unshakeable by men of unbelief and anarchism and do not wish to lose your kingdom and Orthodox Tsar. But if you depart from your faith, as many of the intelligentsia have already done, then you will no longer be Russia or holy Rus, but a rabble of all manner of unbelievers, striving to destroy one another. Remember the words of Christ to the unbelieving Jews: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that brings forth its fruits” (Mt 21:43).

Amen.