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Gleb's Emphasis of the
“Positive” and the “Negative” in Apologetics
[Gleb] had, however, one major
objection, which was that
Thus it was that, just as Gleb
had argued with Fr. Constantine at Jordanville, so now he contended with
“Why is the whole emphasis on
the
“Well,” responded
“That's in the past,” Gleb
said. “But doesn't the
Reflecting on his “lay sermons”
years later, Eugene was to write: “I don't know who if anyone read them, and
looking back on then now I find them, despite the 'feeling' I put into them,
somewhat 'abstract,' the product of thinking that hadn't too much experience as
yet either of Orthodox literature or Orthodox life. Still, for me they served
an important function in my understanding and expression of various Orthodox
questions and even in my Orthodox 'development,' and Vladika John 'pushed'
that.” (p. 266-267)
The Influence of the
Wilderness by Living in the Wilderness
“Our attention,” Fr. Herman
writes, “gradually began to take in the life that directly surrounded us. We
began to see reality as it is and not depend on human opinion. The sound of the
wind, the changes of the weather, its influence on one's mood, the life of the
forest animals and birds – it was as if even the breathing of the plants and
trees now had significance. Peaceful ideas were sown. The eyes began to
accustom themselves to seeing not just what was external and jumped out at
them, but the essence of the matter. Although friends came with love and tried
to help, they were actually more of a burden and right from the beginning made
errors of simple judgment, worrying about the external aspect that passes and
not seeing the essence. And with what joy was the heart filled when silence
reigned again and much-speaking stillness.” (p. 444)
Contours of Christianity
In The Orthodox Word Fr.
Seraphim wrote: “Christianity in practice, and monasticism above all, is a
matter of staying in one place and struggling with all one's heart for
the
Comfort, Convenience and
Satiety
“There is a certain opinion in
the air,” Fr. Seraphim related, “that of course, when you come to church you
must be warm, because you cannot think about church services and prepare
yourself for Communion when you have to think about cold feet. People tell us
this. 'It's a great drawback,' they say. 'You cannot go and have cold feet and
expect any spirituality to come out.' This happens to be an opinion, and its
totally off. The Holy Fathers have been living throughout the centuries in all
kinds of conditions; and, though there is no deliberate plot of torturing
oneself with cold feet – still, this is something which helps to make one a
little more sober about the spiritual life, perhaps helps one to appreciate
what one has, and not just take for granted that one is going to be comfortable
and cozy and that's it.” (p. 453-454)
Acquiring the Mind of the
Fathers
This comes over years by
attentive reading of the Holy Fathers with a notebook, writing down those
passages which seem most significant to us, studying them, finding how they
apply to us, and, if need be, revising earlier views of them as we get a little
deeper into them, finding what one Father says about something, what a second
Father says about the same thing, and so on. There is no encyclopedia that will
give you that. You cannot decide you want to find all about some one subject
and begin reading the Holy Fathers. There are a few indexes in the writings of
the Fathers, but you cannot simply go to a spiritual life in that way. You have
to go at it a bit at a time, taking the teaching in as you are able to absorb
it, going back over the same texts in later years, reabsorbing them, getting
more, and gradually coming to find out how these spiritual texts apply to you.
As a person does that, he discovers that every time he reads the same Holy
Father he finds new things. He always goes deeper into it[...] (p. 457)
“The right approach [into the
mind of the Fathers],” wrote Fr. Seraphim, “is found in the heart which tries
to humble itself and simply knows that it is suffering, and that there somehow
exists a higher truth which can not only help this suffering, but can bring it
into a totally different dimension.” In the words of
“A man who does not express
desire to link himself to the latest of the saints (in time) in all love and
humility owing to a certain distrust of himself, will never be linked with the
preceding saints and will not be admitted to their succession, even though he
thinks he possesses all possible faith and love for God and for all His saints.
He will be cast out of their midst, as one who refused to take humbly the place
alloted to him by God before all time, and to link himself to that latest saint
(in time) as God had disposed.” St. Symeon the New Theologian (Writings From
the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart p. 135) quoted on p. 464
Orthodoxy is a “Living
Transmission” Not Scholarship
As Fr. Seraphim stated, Fr.
Schmemann was paving the way for a rootless Orthodoxy for new generations of
Americans who “will not even know what they have lost.” He was seeking to build
American Orthodoxy on the autonomous “theology” of modern scholars rather than
on a living transmission of spiritual wisdom from holy bearers of the
tradition. Fr. Seraphim knew from experience how vital that transmission was:
without it he would never have entered the “heart of hearts,” the deeper
dimension of Orthodox life for which it was worth giving up “all that is in the
world.” Once this transmission was lost, it could not be restored.
As a case in point, not twenty
miles from [Fr. Schmemann's] home in
An Example of “Living
Transmission” in Archbishop Averky
After Archbishop John's death,
Fr. Seraphim's own guide to the Holy Fathers had been Archbishop Averky, to
whom Archbishop John had once told the brothers to turn whenever they had questions.
“Archbishop Averky,” Fr. Seraphim wrote, “is in the genuine Patristic tradition
as few other living Orthodox fathers. A disciple of the great 20th
-century theologian and holy hierarch, Archbishop Theophan of
Orthodoxy is an Ascetic
Faith
As Archbishop Averky had said,
“Orthodoxy is an ascetic faith that calls to ascetic labor in the name
of the uprooting of sinful passions and the implanting of Christian virtue.”
And according to the teaching of St. John Climacus and other Holy Fathers, one
must conquer the passions before even attempting to theologize.
In almost every issue of The
Orthodox Word, the fathers presented the Life of an ascetic laborer, a true
knower of God. They knew that, more than anything else, it was love for
the ascetics themselves that inspired one to podvig. Fr. Seraphim
did not see this love for ascetics coming from the journals of the new
theologians. “And without love for saints,” he wrote, “one's Orthodoxy is
crippled and one's sense of direction is off – for they are the examples one
has to follow.” (p. 474)
Creation, God and Modern
Scientists
[Fr. Seraphim] showed that all
the Fathers taught that the first man Adam and likewise the first creatures
“appeared in a way different from all their descendants”: they appeared not
by natural generation but by the word of God....
“The doctrine of evolution
attempts to understand the mysteries of God's creation by means of natural
knowledge and worldly philosophy, not even allowing the possibility that there
is something in these mysteries which places them beyond its capabilities of knowing:
while the book of Genesis is an account of God's creation as seen in Divine
vision by the God-seer Moses, and this vision is confirmed also by the
experience of later Holy Fathers....
“I believe that modern science in
most cases knows more than St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, and
other Fathers about the properties of fishes and such specific facts; no one
will deny this. But who knows more about the way in which God acts:
modern science, which is not even sure that God exists, and in any case tries
to explain everything without Him; or these God-bearing Holy Fathers?”
(p. 518-519)
The Knowledge of Modern
Science and the Knowledge of Adam
“The state of Adam and the
first-created world,” Fre Seraphim wrote, “has been placed forever beyond the
knowledge of science and by the barrier of Adam's transgression, which changed
the very nature of Adam and the creation, and indeed the very nature of
knowledge itself. Modern science knows only what it observes and what may be reasonably
inferred from observation.... The true knowledge of Adam and the first-created
world – as much as is useful for us to know – is accessible only in God's
revelation and in the Divine vision of the saints.” (p. 519)
The Typicon and the Notion
of Perfection
Despite Fr. Seraphim's great love
fro the Divine Services and his consequent study of their Typicon (rule), he
never strove to become perfectly adept in Typicon “correctness.” He had seen
too many cases of people who get so caught up in the technical aspect of the services
that they forget to pray, or – even worse – totally lose their spiritual peace
during services because they see others doing it “wrong.” Fr. Herman jokingly
called such people “Typicon chewers.” (p. 576)
Where to Begin in Seeking
out the Mind of the Fathers
“To practice love, trust, and
life according to the Holy Fathers in the small circle where one is – there
seems to be no other way to solve the 'spiritual crisis' of today which
expresses itself in absence of oneness of soul and mind. If one finds the mind
of the Fathers, then one will be at one with the others who find it also.
This is much better than just following what so-and-so says, taking on faith
that he is somehow infallible. But how difficult it seems to find the mind of
the Fathers! How many disagreements there are with others equally sincere! Or
is this because we have not searched long or deeply enough?” (p. 695)
The Orthodox View of the
Non-Orthodox
A few years before he died, Fr.
Seraphim received a letter from an African-American woman who, as a catechumen
learning about Orthodoxy, was struggling to understand the uncharitable that
some Orthodox Christians showed to those outside the Church, an attitude which
reminded her of how her own people had been treated. “I am deeply troubled,”
this woman wrote, “as to how Orthodoxy views what the world would call Western
Christians, i.e., Protestants and Roman Catholics. I have read many articles by
many Orthodox writers, and a few use words like 'Papists,' etc., which I find
deeply disturbing and quite offensive. I find them offensive because as a
person of a race which has been subjected to much name-calling I despise and do
not wish to adopt the habit of name-calling myself. Even 'heretic' disturbs
me...
“Where do I stand with my friends
and relatives? They do now know about Orthodoxy or they do not understand it.
Yet they believe in and worship Christ.... Am I to treat my friends and
relatives as if they have no God, no Christ?... Or can I call them Christians,
but just ones who do not know the true Church?
“When I ask this question, I
cannot help but think of St. Innocent of
This woman's quandary was
actually fairly common to people coming into the Orthodox faith. Now nearing
the end of his short life and having thrown off his youthful bitterness, Fr.
Seraphim answered as follows:
“I was happy to receive your
letter – happy not because you are confused about the question that troubles
you, but because your attitude reveals that in the truth of Orthodoxy to which
you are drawn you wish to find room also for a loving, compassionate attitude
to those outside the Orthodox faith.
“I firmly believe that this is
indeed what Orthodoxy teaches....
“The word “heretic” (as we say in
our article on Father Dimitry Dudko) is indeed used too frequently nowadays. It
has a definite meaning and function, to distinguish new teaching from the
Orthodox teaching; but few of the non-Orthodox Christians today are consciously
'heretics,' and it really does no good to call them that.
“In the end, I think, Fr. Dimitry
Dudko's attitude is the correct one: We should view the non-Orthodox as people
to whom Orthodoxy has not yet been revealed, as people who are potentially
Orthodox (if only we ourselves would give them a better example!). There is no
reason why we cannot call them Christians and be on good terms with them,
recognize that we have at least our faith in Christ in common, and live in
peace especially with our own families. St. Innocent's attitude to the Roman
Catholics in
Simplicity – Our Salvation
“The one thing that can save us
is simplicity. It can be ours if in our hearts we pray to God to make us
simple; if we just do not think ourselves so wise; if, when it comes to a
question like, 'Can we paint an icon of God the Father?' we do not come up with
a quick answer and say, 'Oh, of course it's this way – it says so in such and
such Sobor[council], number so and so.' Either we, knowing that we are right,
have to excommunicate everyone, in which case we will go off the deep end, or
else we have to stop and think, 'Well, I guess I don't know too much.' The more
we have this second attitude, the more we will be protected from spiritual
dangers.” (p. 775)
“Accept simply the Faith you
receive from your fathers. If there is a simple-hearted priest you happen to be
in connection with, give thanks to God. Consider that, because you are so
complex, intellectual and moody, you can learn a great deal from such
simplicity. The more you 'get your own wings' in Orthodoxy by reading more,
being exposed to more and having more contact with Orthodox people, the more you
will begin to be able to 'feel your way' in the whole realm of Orthodoxy, and
begin to see that there are many wise things which in the beginning you might
have thought were not so wise. Even if the people involved in these things are
not consciously wise, nevertheless God is guiding the Church. We know that He
is with the Church until the end, and therefore there is no reason to go off
the deep end, to fall into apostasy and heresy. If we follow the simple path –
distrusting our own wisdom, doing the best we can yet realizing that our mind,
without warmth of the heart, is a very weak tool – then an Orthodox philosophy
of life will begin to be formed in us.” (p. 775)
Prayer to Saints (A
conversation of Fr. Seraphim's with a fellow traveler)
He is going to
The Toll Houses
Here Fr. Seraphim, knowing the
rationalist emphasis on the “literal” meaning of texts and the “realistic” or
this-worldly understanding of events described in Scripture and Lives of
Saints, had to speak some words of caution. Quoting from Orthodox writers both
ancient and modern, he indicated how the teaching on the “toll-houses” should
be regarded: “No one aware of Orthodox teaching would say that the toll-houses
are not 'real,' are not actually experienced by the soul after death. But we
must keep in mind that these experiences occur not in our crudely material
world; that both time and space, while obviously present, are quite different
from our earthly concepts of time and space; and that accounts of these experiences
in earthly language invariably fall short of the reality. Anyone who is at home
in the kind of Orthodox literature which describes after-death reality will
normally know how to distinguish between the spiritual realities described
there and the incidental details which may sometimes be expressed in symbolic
or imaginative language. Thus, of course, there are no visible 'houses' or
'booths' in the air where 'taxes' are collected, and where there is mention of
'scrolls' or writing implements whereby sins are recorded, or 'scales' by which
virtues are weighed, or 'gold' by which 'debts' re paid – in all such cases we
may properly understand these images to be figurative or interpretive devices
used to express the spiritual reality which the soul faces at the time.” As an
angel instructed St. Macarius of
Today Compared to the Holy
Fathers
We, the last Christians, are not
worthy of the inheritance which they (the Holy Fathers) have left us... we
quote the great Fathers but we do not have their spirit ourselves. (p. 848)
St. Symeon's Theology is
Empirical
St. Symeon was well qualified to
give the teaching on the beginning and end of all things, having been granted
such access to the Creator's Mind as to be ranked among the three Saints in the
entire history of the Church who are called by the exalted title of
“Theologian.” Indicating this in his introduction, Fr. Seraphim asked:
How does St. Symeon give us
the teaching which is authentically Christian, and not a mere result of
speculation and guessing?
St. Symeon speaks from divine
revelation. First, his basis is always scriptural – but we are astonished tosee
a depth of meaning in his use of scriptural quotations which we would never
have seen by ourselves. And this is because, second, he speaks from personal
experience. (p. 851)
The Empirical Theology of
Archbishop John Maximovitch
For Fr. Seraphim the authority
of [The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God] by Archbishop John was
similar to that of St. Symeon's homilies, since Archbishop John himself had
direct mystical contact with the Mother of God. (p. 852)
Fr. Serphim's Definition
of Theology
Theology is not primarily a
matter of arguments. Criticisms, proofs, and disproofs; it is first of all
men's word about God, in accordance with the Divinely revealed teaching
of Orthodoxy. Therefore, its first purpose is always to inspire, to warm the
heart, to lift one above the petty preoccupations of earth in order to glimpse
the Divine beginning and end of all things so as to give one
energy and encouragement to struggle towards God and our heavenly homeland.
This is certainly the meaning and spirit of the theology of Orthodoxy's three
pre-eminent “Theologians”:
Keep in Mind the Martyrs
If a man be not crowned (with
martyrdom), let him take care not to be far distant from those who are. -
Blessed Clement of
