Part 3

How wondrous, holy, captivating to the mind, heart, and will is the idea of the universal Church of Christ, headed by her very Founder—Christ God! In the Gospel and in the Liturgy, as in a mirror, is reflected all the goodness and righteousness of God, all His love, all His wisdom, all His almightiness, all the wondrous stewardship of God for the salvation of humanity, all the divine evaluation of fallen humanity created in the beginning in the image of God, all the wondrous communion of God with renewed humans, all the deification, the elevation of human nature to the heavens and its co-seating with God. How wondrous, how blessed, with what physical and spiritual labors the saints completed their earthly path, their preparatory path, and how they were glorified by God during life and after death! How they became fragrant in spirit and body and appeared alive even after death! Enter into this idea of the Church, into the idea of the Liturgy, into this preparatory part of it (the Proskomedia), as well as into the Liturgy of the Catechumens and into the Liturgy of the Faithful; regard the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ, with whom faithful Christians are united inseparably; see what interaction members have one with another, earthly and heavenly, prophets, patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, ascetics, and all the saints; see what care the Church on earth has for the realm of the dead, or for the departed. See what communion the Church on earth has with the heavenly dwellers, or the perfected members of the Church of Christ, who have received incorruptible eternal goods; see what communion we have with all the saints; we glorify them, bless them, magnify them, beseech them to help us in the struggle to overcome our passions and invisible enemies; see how we thank God that He has glorified them and made them intercessors for us, especially the All-Holy Mother of God, and to complete our amazement at God’s mercy—we partake (some daily) of the most pure Body and Blood of Christ, most sincerely communing with the very Head of the Church, as a pledge of eternal life in the heavens. O holy Church! O divine Liturgy! How divine, holy, life-giving you are! There is no idea of the Church in the Catholic faith. It has come to nothing: it has no Proskomedia in it, the most pure Blood is not given to the laity, yet it is precisely this that is necessary. “Drink from it all”, says the Lord, “for this is My blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:27-28).

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The vital element of your soul is found in the Orthodox Church and in the Orthodox temple: there is God’s throne, there the holy Gospel with the Epistles of the divinely wise apostles, there is heavenly worship, there are the images of the Lord, the Mother of God, the holy angels and saints, there is incense to the Lord, there are lamps and candles burning and signifying the burning of your spirit before the Lord. Seek shelter there, flee there, there let your soul rest.

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Traveling through Russia, you often encounter temples like the tents of Israel wandering through the wilderness, or like hospitable houses. And indeed, temples in cities or villages are tents and hospices, because we all believe and know that we are all here strangers and sojourners, not permanent inhabitants; temples are spiritual schools, infirmaries, places of enlightenment, rest stations for those traveling to heaven, charitable houses where we are shown the greatest benefactions and grace-filled helps to prepare us for dwelling in heaven.

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With the coming to earth of the very incarnate hypostatic Wisdom (the Incarnation), to receive the great mystery of faith, there were needed pure, simple souls, capable of simplicity of faith and reception of the greatest divine truths, so that they could faithfully impart them to others as well (that they might be able to teach others). These lofty instruments of truth, inheritors of the greatest grace of God, heavenly wisdom, were the apostles.

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O simplicity of heart! O faith, thinking not with guile! How precious and pleasing you are before God and how saving to humanity! Behold, God came into the world in the flesh to save the human race, and He had need of helpers for Himself from among humans. Who was worthy to be a helper to God the Word? Simple, uneducated people!

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Who was worthy of humans to be entrusted with the greatest and wisest mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God and His wondrous work of salvation of the human race? The Heart-Knower and righteous Judge of humanity found worthy to receive, proclaim, and accomplish this mystery twelve simple fishermen, and then added to them another seventy, also from the simple ranks for the most part.

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Christian holidays give us knowledge of the dogmas, or main saving truths of Christian faith: of the one God in essence, of the Trinity of Persons, of the redemption of the human race by one from the Trinity through the cross and liberation from sin, curse, and death, of the power of the cross and veneration of it, of the dogma of the resurrection of humanity, of the Last Judgment, or eternal torment of the unbelieving and unrepentant, of veneration of the saints and emulation of them, of the power of repentance and infinite mercy of God, having mercy on sinners, of the power and saving nature of mercy and almsgiving.

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Why does the holy Church each year remember and celebrate the supreme events of the Christian world—the Annunciation, the Nativity of Christ, the Baptism, the Resurrection, and others? So that we might kindle and strengthen our faith, our Christian hope, our gratitude and love for God and the Mother of God, our unashamed Intercessor before God, so that we remember and do not forget our heavenly, eternal homeland and not be attached to this merely preparatory and instructional, temporal, passing life. If there were not these Christian holidays, then Christians would forget that they are indeed Christians, called to a heavenly homeland, and would not know why they live, why they joined Christian society or the Church of God, what the goal of their life is, why they must believe in Christ and the Holy Trinity, why they must pray to God and the Mother of God and call upon the saints. But the church holidays explain all this to us and inform us regarding God’s providence toward us sinners, teach us to love and thank God, and always keep in view the future life, which has no end, and prepare for it.

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Are you interested, brothers and sisters, in the all-redemptive work of Christ, His stewardship of human salvation? Are you interested in the Church, the mysteries, the work of prayer, and repentance? To tell the truth, we are all often interested in things that are worthless, but not interested in those infinitely important things! Where is reason? Where is the goal of life? Everyone has many of their own goals—various pleasures, but not the one thing needful. And where is the soul? The soul is buried deep in passions and, like a dead thing, together with a burned-out conscience, is silent and manifests itself in nothing good because there is no soil for it and no occasion either. How can the drunkard and debauchee remember a hungry or cold neighbor, unless the thought comes to mind when he has no money for wine—then he must rob or kill his neighbor and drink again to death.

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How did people treat the very incarnate Goodness and heavenly Truth, the very Beginning and First-Life, the Lord Jesus Christ? They tempted Him in every way, acted deceitfully before Him, envied Him, set snares for Him so as to catch Him in His words and deliver Him to the Roman court, and finally, after every mockery and torture, killed Him on the cross. What did people do with the true faith which Christ brought from heaven, with all His teaching, with the mysteries divinely instituted? They corrupted them beyond recognition, and some rejected them, and in place of His teaching put their own inventions, like the scribes and Pharisees, and in our time Leo Tolstoy.

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The logic of Christianity seems neither difficult nor hard to understand, to study, and is sufficiently vital that all might love, study, and embrace it with all their heart; yet it is precisely this Christian logic that nearly everyone has forgotten—both the simple and the learned (the supposedly learned)—and none pay it any attention or study it with diligence as they do other earthly and wearisome sciences, arts, crafts, and trades. Heavenly logic and wisdom have been justified by its children such as the venerable Seraphim of Sarov, Theodosius of Chernigov, and other saints. Who among the laity now seeks this precious pearl (the soul in the image and likeness of God), this invaluable treasure so little valued?

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Lord, how boundlessly You have exalted the human race through Your incarnation and your God-man-hood and through the Mother of God who bore You, Ever-Virgin, and through Your chosen humanity, in the persons of countless saints. And how much (oh horror!) Tolstoyan heresy and all this befuddled so-called intelligentsia blaspheme You and Your Church, Your teaching, Your mysteries, and Your worship. Lord, how long shall this blasphemy continue? How long shall this madness rage? Lord, come down and crush this mountain of impiety. So be it!

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The Son of God came to earth so that through His teaching, miracles, example, suffering, and death He might restore and save the human race, enlighten it, purify it, renew it, adorn it with every virtue, and unite it with Himself forever; but Leo Tolstoy and writers like him, without number, have appeared and live on earth so as to darken, corrupt with their godlessness, unbelief, and anarchy multitudes of people who follow them and read their blasphemous writings. Lord, destroy them from the earth or turn them to faith, humble their demonic pride!

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To Christians, especially the Orthodox, who preserve and maintain their faith’s dogmas in purity as handed down from God, so much has been given by God—goods and powers to salvation, so many of God’s mysteries revealed—that believers who are attentive and strive in their faith can easily be saved and become heirs of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, “for His yoke is good and His burden is light” (Mt 11:30). The angels tremble with amazement at God’s mercy toward us, revealed in His incarnation for our sake, His dwelling with humans on earth, His personal teaching, the countless miracles He worked as testimony to His Divinity and divine mission, in His sufferings for us, death, burial and resurrection from the dead, and His ascension to the heavens with the promise of His second awesome coming to judge the living and the dead. But people for the most part remain either unbelieving or doubting, insensible, indifferent, deaf to the Gospel word, attached to the vain, hollow, and false words of humans, to hypocrisy and pretense, to all that is illusory and fleeting, to what presents a vain interest for one day, while forgetting the eternal, the one thing needful. “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 20:16).

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Do you all know—those to whom it is right to know—that all our present revolution is first and foremost the consequence of falling away from faith, from our beloved of God, holy, vital Orthodoxy, which contains in itself all the power for believers in it to order everything—our inner and external world, politics, and every family, civic, and economic life?

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The Lord has entrusted us Russians with a great saving gift—the Orthodox faith, in which many believing people have been saved. We received this gift through the apostles of Christ. This priceless gift has been trampled by many Russians, and they will answer for it to the righteous Judge. In Christ’s first coming we were entrusted with this gift (to the human race), and “throughout all the earth their voice has gone out, and to the ends of the world their words”. In His second coming the Lord will require an accounting from all of us for the use of our gifts. Both king and every subject, small and great, and every mortal will be brought to trial, and the deeds of each person will be laid bare before all, no thought will be hidden, the entire inner life of each will be revealed as if photographed, and no one will be able to deny or excuse themselves in their transgressions if they have not repented while on earth. Where are your deeds, brothers! In what did you spend your earthly life, this precious pledge given you by the Creator for preparation for the future life, for developing your powers and abilities, for using your gifts? “The queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (Mt 12:42)

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Lord, You are the true Lord of creation. What are the Finns, Poles, and Germans—who have corrupted Your Gospel and fallen from Your Church—scheming against Russia and against Your Holy Church? Lord, what are they scheming! They want to swallow us up completely and destroy Your Church, Your temples, Your worship, Your ordinances, the decrees of the holy apostles and holy fathers, the ecumenical and local councils. To what have we come!

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Lord! You see the cunning of the enemies of Orthodox faith and Your Church and their zeal to overcome it. Put an end to them, and may all their evil work die with these people!

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“Did you not sow good seed in your field” (Your Church)“? Where then did the weeds come from?” (Mt 13:27): heresies, schisms, adoption of new dogmas, all manner of vices, desire to rule, supreme authority in the Catholic Church, corruption of worship, mysteries, rites (unleavened bread)? The Lord answers: “An enemy has done this” (Mt 13:28)—human pride and malice; but the Lord permits everything to grow until the harvest, and in the age to come will judge each according to his deeds.