Letter from Jan. 28/Feb. 10, 1976.
I’ve written and talked to L about this hothouse approach to Orthodoxy – filled with gossip, knowing “what’s going on,” having the “right answer” to everything according to what the “experts” say. I begin to think that this is really her basic problem, and not Fr. Panteleimon directly.
An example: she is horrified that T was received into the Church [from Roman Catholicism] without baptism or chrismation. “That’s wrong,” she says. But we see nothing particularly wrong with it; that is for the priest and bishop to decide, and it is not our (or even more, her) business. The rite by which he was received has long been approved by the Church out of economy, and probably in this case it was the best way, because T might have hesitated much more at being baptized. The Church’s condescension here was wise. But L would like someone “to read Vladika Anthony the decree of the Sobor” [on this subject]. My dear, he was there, composing the decree, which explicitly gives the bishop permission to use economy when he wishes! We don’t like this attitude at all, because it introduces totally unnecessary disturbance into the church atmosphere. And if she is going to tell T now that he is not “really” a member of the Orthodox Church, she could do untold harm to a soul.
28.05.2018Read more
Symbol of the Orthodox Faith. Icon of the XIX century. The State Museum of the History of Religion. St. Petersburg.
The attributes of the Church are innumerable because her attributes are actually the attributes of the Lord Christ, the God-man, and, through Him, those of the Triune Godhead. However, the holy and divinely wise fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council, guided and instructed by the Holy Spirit, reduced them in the ninth article of the Symbol of Faith to four — I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. These attributes of the Church — unity, holiness, catholicity (sobornost), and apostolicity—are derived from the very nature of the Church and of her purpose. They clearly and accurately define the character of the Orthodox Church of Christ whereby, as a theanthropic institution and community, she is distinguishable from any institution or community of the human sort.
27.05.2018Read more
Vladyka Anthony at the divine service.
Father and friend! I should have answered you long about the growing winter of faith and prayer and the means of struggle against this. But the same vanity which, as you acknowledge, disperses reverent feelings, has also deprived me of the opportunity to write to you for a month and a half. Today is the first Monday of Great Lent; I have just returned from the cathedral, where I read the Great Canon and, praying with the whole congregation, showered the reproaches of St. Andrew upon myself for my neglect of the eternal and my preference for the temporary. True, our hierarchical vanity is more involuntary than voluntary: There is the incessant reception of petitioners, clergy requesting transfer, those involved in legal cases, those applying for the front or wishing to take an examination; and papers upon papers without end. With all of this, however, I have still been able to make notes from memory for a major public lecture on a philosophical question and to write two long articles on contemporary church topics, but for that “one thing which is needful,” I have not found time until today. Our misguided education is the cause of this. I am not an enemy of what is called science, but it is personally annoying when I catch myself giving precedence to topics, even though they deal with theology, before those concerning the study of the spiritual life, which contemporary theologians view with a certain disdain, partly because very few understand these matters, but partly because these are better and more deeply spoken of by self-taught theologians, or even by those who are academic theologians, but who have, by their lives and their confession, renounced the theological “school.” There should be no such divisions and preferences; good Christians live according to the words of the Apostle, “Let each esteem others better than themselves” (Phil. 2:3), but competition and envy are particularly inappropriate where the heritage which we have received, i.e. the heritage of experience and study, is not the property of the author alone, but of all the readers as well, that is, a universal possession.
26.05.2018Read more
This article was printed in 1959 in Russian in the Canadian Orthodox Herald [Kanadskii Vestnik]. It is reproduced here, both in Russian and in English translations, as its subject matter, far from diminishing in relevance, has acquired a much more important place in our pastoral work. – Editor.
WE HAVE NOT yet fully understood the enormous consequences of the invention of television. Possessed of a truly magical power of fascination and attraction, and at the same time concealing within itself the terrible poison of corruption, it naturally wins for itself the most honored place in every home, in every family. The contemporary clergyman cannot and must not pass television by in silence, as it is surpassed by nothing and nobody in its power of influence over the human soul. The campaign against television must be our foremost task, and 1 say this without exaggeration, because of the influence it has over us, hour by hour and minute by minute, in our very homes. Our struggle against it must be based on a correct attitude to this invention of modern genius; the difficulty and complexity of this struggle is due to the fact that we have to fight, not against television itself, but against the infinitely weakened power of the human will, which simply cannot find the strength to tear itself away in time from this exceptionally deceiving and alluring pleasure. Here we can remember the words of St. Paul: "All things are lawful unto me, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any" [1 Cor., 6, 12].
25.05.2018Read more
Lectures by His Eminence, Archbishop Anthony of Volhynia, on His Holiness Nikon, Patriarch of All Russia, recorded by Fr. P. L. Originally published in Russian in: «Mirnyj trud». 1910. № 9. pp. 140-171.
I.The Rehabilitation of the Truth.
On 3 May 1910, the most Reverend Archbishop concluded the series of lectures he delivered to the Volhynia seminarians on the more important political and ecclesio-social questions. The final lecture was on His Holiness Nikon, Patriarch of All Russia. It was a historical lecture. There does not exist in literature any such formulation of the questions concerning His Holiness, Patriarch Nikon, as the most reverend lecturer presented. The Archbishop said of Patriarch Nikon what no one has ever said of him. Completely new horizons opened up before those who listened. To speak of the great man that His Holiness Patriarch Nikon was, to understand the full complexity of his richly-endowed nature, to bring into harmony and explain the diverse, apparently inexplicable and irreconcilable facts in the life and the feelings which existed within the soul of one and the same man, one also needs a great and all-embracing intellect and talent, a reverent respect for the memory of the Patriarch; and all of these gifts (were) present to an abundant degree in our dear and deeply-loved Archbishop.
24.05.2018Read more
(Based on an article in Orthodox Russia, 1936, No. 13.)
BLESSED ANTONY, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galich, came from the old noble Russian family of Khrapovitsky, from the province of Novgorod. He was born on March 17, 1863, and at Holy Baptism was named Alexis. His father and mother were highly educated and religious people. It is known that his mother often liked to pray to God for long periods of time, and herself read the Holy Gospel to her children and explained it to them. Together with her husband, she also loved visiting churches and monasteries.
Vladika more than once recalled his childhood impressions of Novgorod: “I was still a child when my parents took me from the country to ancient Novgorod. Here I came to love the Church of Christ, in which God’s glory was revealed – in the ancient churches of Novgorod, in the relics of the saints and in the grandeur of the pontifical services. Although I could not then express it in precise concepts, I sensed with my child’s soul the greatness of God and the lofty truth of our faith, revealed in the mystical sacred actions of the bishop.”
23.05.2018Read more
With this name there is a heresy that was first appeared in Russia at the start of the last century. The arrival of name-worshipping to Mount Athos created great frustation among the Russian monks. The Church condemned the Name-worshipping and characterised it as heresy. We publish below the decisions that condemned the Name-Worshipping. Among them the reader can see the fallacy that it distinguishing it and her followers. (The Greek texts below are originals).
22.05.2018Read more
"The Thyateira Confession"
by Metropolitan Philaret
Chief Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
An Appeal to the Primates of the Holy Churches of God, and their Eminences the Orthodox Hierarchs
Instructing us to preserve firmly in everything the Orthodox Faith which has been commanded us, the Holy Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:8). His disciple Timothy he taught to remain in that in which he had been instructed by him and in that which had been entrusted to him, knowing by whom he had been instructed (II Tim. 3:14). This is a pointer which every Hierarch of the Orthodox Church must follow and to which he is obligated by the oath given by him at his consecration. The Apostle writes that a Hierarch should be one holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convict the gainsayers (Titus 1:9).
21.05.2018Read more
PRESIDENT
OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
75 EAST 93rd STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10028
Telephone: LEhigh 4-1601
A SECOND SORROWFUL EPISTLE
TO THEIR HOLINESSES AND THEIR BEATITUDES,
THE PRIMATES OF THE HOLY ORTHODOX CHURCHES,
THE MOST REVEREND METROPOLITANS, ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS.
The People of the Lord residing in his Diocese are entrusted to the Bishop, and he will be required to give account of their souls according to the 39th Apostolic Canon. The 34th Apostolic Canon orders that a Bishop may do "those things only which concern his own Diocese and the territories belonging to it."
There are, however, occasions when events are of such a nature that their influence extends beyond the limits of one Diocese, or indeed those of one or more of the local Churches. Events of such a general, global nature can not be ignored by any Orthodox Bishop, who, as a successor of the Apostles, is charged with the protection of his flock from various temptations. The lightening-like speed with which ideas may be spread in our times make such care all the more imperative now.
20.05.2018Read more
PRESIDENT
OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
75 EAST 93rd STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10028
Telephone: LEhigh 4-1601
TO THEIR HOLINESSES AND THEIR BEATITUDES
THE PRIMATES OF THE HOLY ORTHODOX CHURCHES
THE MOST REVEREND METROPOLITANS, ARCHBISHOPS, AND BISHOPS:
A SORROWFUL EPISTLE
FROM
THE HUMBLE PHILARET,
METROPOLITAN OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX
CHURCH OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
The Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church have exhorted us to keep the Truth of Orthodoxy as the apple of our eye. And Our Lord Jesus Christ, teaching His Disciples to maintain every jot and title of the Divine Law intact said, "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 19). He sent His disciples to teach the doctrines He gave them to all nations in a pure and unadulterated form, and that duty then devolved upon each of us Bishops, as the successors to the Apostles. We are also taught to do this by the dogmatic definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which says: "We keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or by word of mouth." And the Holy Fathers of that Council added, in their first Canon: "The pattern for those who have received the sacerdotal dignity is found in the testimonies and instructions laid down in the canonical constitutions, which we receiving with a glad mind sing unto the Lord God in the words of the God-inspired David, saying: 'I have had as great delight in the way of Thy testimonies as in all manner of riches.' 'Thou hast commanded righteousness as Thy testimonies for ever.' 'Grant me understanding and I shall live.' Now if the word of prophecy bids us keep the testimonies of God forever and to live by them, it is evident that they must abide unshaken and without change."
19.05.2018Read more
