Metropolitan Athanasius of Limasol. Photo: V. Yeshtokin / Pravoslavie.ru
Patient Endurance is The Fruit of Virtue, and it is Nourished By Prayer
A Conversation with Metropolitan Athanasios of Limasol about his book, The Church's Open Heart
In the book, The Church's Open Heart, (Sretensky Monastery Press, [in Russian] 2014) the memoirs of Metropolitan Athanasios about elders—contemporary ascetics with whom he studied in a spiritual school—are collected, as well as the sermons and teachings of Vladyka, who is well-known not only to the Orthodox world, but also beyond it. Thus, what examples do elders give by their life to us Christians who live in a very complicated world today? And what can and must we contrast with the troubles that come crashing down on us like an avalanche? Our correspondent from Pravoslavie.ru talks about these questions and more in an interview with the archpastor of Limasol while he was in Moscow.
"Pray Always"
We laypeople like stories about miracles very
much, and about grace-filled gifts, but we forget somewhat
about the price we have to pay for these things. Your book
opens with a conversation about the holy elder Joseph the
Hesychast. Tell us a little bit about the labors that he
and his community performed, and about what lesson we
laypeople can derive from this—without, of course,
dreaming of duplicating it all.
Elder Joseph the Hesychast lived on Mt. Athos, though I
did not manage to meet him while he was alive, as he
reposed in 1959. But I did get to meet all his disciples.
My starets—Elder Joseph from Vatopedi
Monastery—was a disciple, the first disciple of
Elder Joseph the Hesychast, and so my monastic life began
under the influence of his spiritual school.
Elder Joseph was one of the most outstanding spiritual
figures on Mt. Athos in the twentieth century. He was a
great ascetic, but also a notable hesychast.1 His life was full
of miracles and the activity of God and the Most Holy
Mother of God. In spite of the fact that he was a
hermit—that is, he did not go out
anywhere—four of his disciples subsequently
became the spiritual fathers of hundreds of monks.
Right now there are approximately a thousand of
us—monks who came from Elder Joseph the Hesychast.
Out of the twenty monasteries on Mt. Athos, six of them
were revived by spiritual children of Elder Joseph. We
consider that his prayers and his presence greatly
influenced our monastic life.
We inherited three important things from Elder Joseph the
Hesychast and his disciples: the first consists in the
value of obedience—to the Church and to one's
elder. The second, in taking part in the Divine Liturgy,
in the Eucharist, that is, in regular Communion. And the
third is the practice of mental prayer.
Our whole monastic life was and is dedicated to these
three important things. Elder Joseph the Hesychast was
occupied in unceasing mental prayer for six hours every
evening.
He would spend eight hours at night serving the all-night
vigil. Six hours were dedicated to mental prayer and
spiritual reading, and two hours to the Divine Liturgy,
which was celebrated daily. This all began at sunset. On
Athos, if eight hours pass after sunset, it is already
sunrise—especially in the summer.
And after sunrise the fathers would rest a little, then,
after a small breakfast—a cup of coffee or some kind
of dried bread—they would work very hard in order to
survive. In the afternoon they would have dinner, and
after that they would lie down to sleep. An hour before
sunset they would get up and once again perform Vespers by
prayer-rope, have a cup of tea or eat some kind of fruit,
and after sunset the all-night vigil would begin, which
would last eight hours.
His disciples lived by such a rule, and for some time we
also lived like that.
Today it is a great blessing that Elder Joseph's
teaching has spread over the whole Orthodox world. But
even Western Christians and people of other religions are
interested in the elder and translate his few works into
their own languages.
Today laypeople are so busy that in the morning
when they get into the car they turn on tapes of the
morning rule, and glory to God, that they manage to do
even this. What should laypeople do—contemporary
people who are busy at their work but who should
nevertheless pray and come to church?
Prayer is the unceasing remembrance of God. God’s
presence ought to be unceasing in our life. If we learn to
say the Jesus Prayer, this little prayer: “Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” if we
fill all our time with addressing God, if we do the Jesus
Prayer at all times—when we are taking a shower,
eating, or when we are in the car (instead of listening to
the radio), or when we’re in the subway, on a bus,
or in church, that will be more than enough. The
remembrance of God must accompany all the things that we
do in our life.
In your book, when you are telling the story about
Elder
Porphyrios, you cite this episode: A woman called him
on the telephone, after he had already died on Mt. Athos.
He answered her: “Don’t call me any
more—I’m dead.” What did he do that for,
when she could find this out by ordinary means?
(Laughs) Yes, when she asked, “May I call
you again, Elder?” he answered her, “You
don’t need to call me any more—I’m
dead” (Laughs). And the same thing happened
to a nun on Cyprus. She heard about this occurrence, and,
as she had very close ties with Elder Porphyrios, she
started to get curious, and she decided to call him on the
phone, wondering if he would answer her or not. He
answered her, “Dear, what are you
doing—experiments here?” and hung up the
phone.
Elder Paisios and the young Fr.Athanasios
Elder Paisios was your teacher. Two
stories: when Fr. Paisios was on Mt. Sinai, at St.
Catherine’s Monastery, they sent an
imam there—and as is well known,
there is a mosque on the territory of St.
Catherine’s Monastery. The father superior wanted
to complain, but Fr. Paisios said, “Wait, wait,
we’ll say a prayer right now…” They
prayed, and the imam went away and never showed up
there again. The second case—when they were
supposed to show the film The Last
Temptation of Christ in Greece, and the
elder blessed people to fight this, to protest. Where
is the line here—when should we try to influence
what is going on around us by prayer, and when must we
express our position?
Holy people such as Elder Paisios did not behave
themselves in life simply by going by some sort of rule.
Even in little life situations, before undertaking
anything, they first prayed, received a notification from
God, and behaved accordingly.
Elder Paisios never went out into the public, but in this
case he went, in order to participate in this protest
together with all of the people. I am sure that he did
this after prayer, after having prayed.
Even when some visitor would come to him, he would pray
first, and only then would he open the door to him: that
is, first he received notification from God whether to
open the door to this visitor or not.
Once I even asked him, “Elder, but they’re
knocking at the door—let’s open it!” And
the Elder answered that he didn’t have any directive
from God to open the door to this person.
That is, even in such simple things he had to receive
notice from God. And all the more so, when this had to do
with more serious situations. Therefore, we cannot
establish any rules as to how we should behave in this or
that case by some story, because the saints in each case
prayed to God before acting.
We shouldn’t think that if some protest is
organized, that we must by all means participate in it,
because Elder Paisios participated in one.
Likewise, we shouldn’t say that we won’t go,
because Elder Paisios didn’t go. We have to have
discernment and discern God’s will in each separate
case.
In your book you also tell about St. Arsenios of
Cappadocia, and there are such penetrating words there:
“He overcame the torment of the saints.” And,
telling about Elder Joseph, you talk about how he endured
eight years of the cruelest demonic warfare. “Give
blood and receive the Spirit.” What does “Give
blood” mean for a contemporary Christian? How can he
put this into practice?
When Elder Paisios returned from Australia—he had
gone there at the invitation of an Australian
archbishop—I asked him what kind of people lived in
Australia. How do they struggle, how are they saved, and
do they love God?
The Elder answered that he had met great people in
Australia, because there people are saved through pain,
through humility, patience and prayer.
I think that this relates to all people who live in the
contemporary world. Pain is present in every
person’s life—in our personal life, in the
life of our family, in the life of our country, in the
whole world, in all of society.
Wherever you look, everywhere there is pain, war, death,
and problems. It’s enough to listen to one news
bulletin and your heart is already filled with pain.
Now we have the ability to get information from the whole
world. And we must pray and display endurance in this
whole situation.
That is the way that will lead us into the Kingdom of
Heaven. Not for nothing did the Lord Jesus Christ say to
us: “In your patient endurance save your
souls.”2 He did not tell
us that it was through fasting or prayer—He said
that it was through patient endurance. Patient
endurance is the fruit of faith, and it is nourished by
prayer. And all this happens within the Church.
“No one can cause harm to John except
John himself”
Since we have already begun to speak about patient
endurance, I will ask you about the family—a good
number of pages are dedicated to it in your book. Here, a
great many people are only first-generation church-goers,
and they do not have the experience of a Christian
family—their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers.
Where can they learn about the Christian understanding of
the family?
The Christian life is not complicated and not hard. The
Christian life is simple. The Lord did not teach us things
that are hard to put into practice. We have to fulfil
God’s commandments with simplicity, live with the
Sacraments of the Church, teach our children God’s
Word and not worry, not get upset about what tomorrow will
bring.
The Lord told us that, first of all, we must seek the
Kingdom of God, and He will give us everything else.
Let’s take the first Christians—they
didn’t even have a Gospel that they could read,
because it hadn’t yet been written. But Christ was
for them their Guide and Teacher.
We people on Cyprus were in slavery for 800
years—about 400 under the Franks and 400 years under
the Turks. They didn’t allow Greeks to get an
education—all Greeks were uneducated. Priests
learned the Divine Liturgy by heart. My grandmother
didn’t even know how to write her name.
Nevertheless, in the course of 800 years the people
preserved the Orthodox Faith, and preserved their
families, because they lived within the Church.
And in the course of 70 years what preserved Russia?
Absolutely, the Divine Liturgy preserved Russia and the
whole world. And this little leaven was enough for all of
Russia.
In your book it tells the following story: a son
complains about his father, that he drinks and is going
out with another woman. And they tell him, “Look at
this from another point of view. He is suffering and
therefore he is acting like this.” How can we learn
to put up with our close ones who, in our opinion, are
behaving badly in some way?
One day a young man came to Elder Paisios and said,
“Elder, my relatives, my brother and sister—no
one understands me. I am suffering a great deal because of
this.” The Elder answered him, “My dear! If
they do not understand you, then you try to understand
them! First, understand right away that they are not able
to understand you—what do you want them to
understand you for, when they aren’t able to
understand you? Understand that their weaknesses, their
problems keep them as it were to themselves. Look at them
with understanding and love. Don’t expect anything
from people, so as not to suffer. Better to expect
something from God.”
Then this person thought: “If I understand them,
then I won’t suffer from the fact that they
don’t understand me.” I also say this to
people who complain about similar things. “My
husband doesn’t understand me.” At that I tell
her, “Understand him, and then your problem will be
solved.” It seems to me that this works.
Vladyka, you often talk about the upbringing of
children. There is this problem: often children at 12, 13,
or 14 years of age go out of church or don’t want to
come to the services. What do you advise parents to do in
such situations?
If a parent concerns himself over his child’s
upbringing from the moment of his conception—that
is, when the child is still an embryo, because
contemporary elders say that the upbringing of children
begins even before they are born, even before they are
conceived—if even then we begin bringing them up,
then before they are 12 we can do a great deal.
And when a child gets to be 12, 13 or 14 and he reaches
adolescence and is going to “rebel” and
“revolt,” then outwardly, doubtless, we will
not be able to do much—but perhaps this isn’t
even necessary, because we have already done everything
before this. And in this case we must simply pray very
hard.
Elder Porphyrios the Kapsokalivite
St. Elder Porphyrios told one woman who was complaining to him that she talked to her son about God, but he didn’t listen, “Don’t worry. Just change the way you act. Talk to God about your child, instead, and God will want to listen to you. Then the Lord Himself will have a talk with your child.”
The Lord doesn’t worry, the way we start to worry.
And He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t have any
situations where He doesn’t know what to do. The
Lord leaves a person his freedom, then He embraces him and
leads him back to Himself.
Once a young man who had disavowed everything came to
Elder Paisios. He said to the Elder, “I have done
everything possible and have left God.” The Elder
embraced him, kissed him, and said, “Here you have
run and run and run and have run right to the doors that
lead to God.”
In one of your conversations you say that we have
to show respect for each person, for his faith and
culture, without detriment to his faith or culture. How
was it possible to realize this under the conditions, for
example, when Cyprus was enslaved for 800 years?
Undoubtedly, those who enslave other people do not respect
them. However, they can enslave our body, they can destroy
our house, they can kill all the people around us, but
they cannot take our soul.
One great saint of the times of the Turkish domination in
Greece, St. Cosmas of Aetolia, used to say to the enslaved
Greeks, “If the Turks want your money, give it to
them. If they need your houses, give them your houses. If
they want your cattle or your fields, give them all of
this. Give them everything that they want. Only do not
give them your soul.”
Do not give anyone your soul. People can enslave
everything they please, except our souls. Only sin can
enslave our soul. The holy fathers feared sin, but not any
kind of outward event. But even sin cannot enslave us if
we do not consent to it. There is a story about St. John
Chrysostom, who rebuked and reproved Empress Eudoxia. She
was very angry and wanted to send him into exile. She was
a very bad person. Then the Patriarch’s deacons and
subdeacons came to him and said, “The Empress is
looking for you, in order to send you into exile
somewhere. She wants to cause you harm.” St. John
Chrysostom began to laugh and answered, “Don’t
fear—no one can cause me harm, except me, myself. No
one can cause harm to John except John himself.”
“The Body and Blood of Christ unites the
Church”
Church”
Metropolitan Athanasios of Limasol The
Church's Open Heart / Translated from the modern Greek by A. Volgina
and A. Saminskaya. Moscow. Sretensky Monastery Press, 2014. 320 pages,
illustrated.
In your book there is a chapter dedicated to the goal of the Church and of our Christian life. Many of us come to church with requests: Lord, help my son to enter the Institute; help me to recover my health… This is all very important, too, but what is the goal of our Christian life?
The goal of the Christian life is Christ. Christ is not
simply some kind of idea, He is not a philosophy, Christ
is not Someone Who is far away in heaven. Christ is the
greatest experience that a person can have in his life. He
is the greatest reality of all the realities of life. The
ancient Greeks used to say, “There is nothing new
under the sun.” One great saint replied,
“There is nothing new under the sun, except Jesus
Christ.” He is our goal. Vigil, prayer, fasting,
chastity, virginity—all this we do in order to
attain one goal: Christ.
Vladyka, here in Russia people love Elder Paisios
very much, as you probably know. Very, very much. Why do
you think it is him in particular?
(Smiles.) The Lord gave him the gift even during
his lifetime of loving people, of loving people very much
and of praying for all people, for the whole world.
It is my personal opinion, but when I saw him praying in
church, then I thought: if there is some person who holds
the helm of the whole world, it isn’t the president
of America (then Russia was not as strong), it isn’t
a communist, it isn’t any person of this
world—it’s Elder Paisios. He is able to steer
the rudder of the whole world. I don’t know how this
goes in Russian, but in Greek in the troparion dedicated
to St. Anthony, we sing: “He supported the whole
inhabited earth by his prayers.”3
And I believe that Elder Paisios had this gift from
God—to support the whole world by his prayers.
Everybody knows about Elder Paisios today, although he was
a simple, humble man somewhere in the forests of the Holy
Mountain, illiterate, who avoided people: if he saw a
gathering of people he would avoid it. How did the world
find out about him? On Cyprus sometimes I visit schools
and talk with the pupils. They may not know about Christ
or the Mother of God, but if I say “Fr.
Paisios” everyone understands.
Vladyka, today much separates people, including
politics. How can we remember that we are all Christians
of the various Local Churches—one Body of
Christ?
Orthodox Christians, we are all the Body of Christ,
because we perform one and the same Divine Liturgy and
communicate of the Body and Blood of the Lord. At every
Divine Liturgy the whole Orthodox Church is
present—all the patriarchs, archbishops,
metropolitans, bishops—the whole world. We are all
the Body of Christ.
I arrived in Russia and communed of the Holy
Sacrament4 of Christ. I
didn’t understand anything during the Divine
Liturgy, because I don’t know Russian. Only
(he says in Russian) “Gospodi,
pomiluy”5 and
“Axios,” too—I heard that yesterday,
but this isn’t important. What is important is
that it is the one and the same Body and Blood of
Christ. And you, when you travel to Greece, will not
understand anything during the Divine Liturgy, perhaps,
but you can receive Communion. The same thing applies
to our Orthodox brethren, the Arabs in Syria, and our
brethren in Africa, and in the whole world. The Body
and Blood of Christ unites the Church. We love all
people, whoever they may be. But our brothers according
to the spirit are members of the Orthodox Church. Our
brothers according to the flesh are the whole world;
but according to the spirit, only Orthodox Christians.
29 / 12 / 2014
1 Hesychast — a person who prays while keeping silence.
2 cf. Luke 21:19. The Greek or Church Slavonic word for “patience” really means more than just “waiting”—it means patient endurance, bearing something difficult, painful, or unpleasant right through to the end.
3 “Thou didst support the world by thy prayers.”
4 “Mysteries”
5 “Lord, have mercy”
2 cf. Luke 21:19. The Greek or Church Slavonic word for “patience” really means more than just “waiting”—it means patient endurance, bearing something difficult, painful, or unpleasant right through to the end.
3 “Thou didst support the world by thy prayers.”
4 “Mysteries”
5 “Lord, have mercy”
Source- http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/76192.htm
