HOMILY FOR THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD

 

Although Apostle Peter had confessed Jesus Christ as Messiah, he and the other apostles were still far away from understanding that the promised Messiah was not only to be a King from the seed of David, but also a suffering servant Who would take upon Himself an ignominious death. For Peter such a thought was so unbearable, so incompatible with everything he knew of Christ, that he began to berate Christ for revealing it, and in response received from Christ an incredibly harsh rebuff, in which the Lord stated with complete certainty that all attempts to make Him turn aside from His service, suffering, and death come from hell and have the prince of darkness as their origin. Moreover, the Lord speaks not only of the fact that He must die, but also says that everyone who wishes to be His follower must follow the same course.

During the time of Christ’s life on earth crucifixion was a death intended for slaves, hardened criminals, and traitors. No Roman citizen could be crucified without special sanction from Caesar. The cross was a universal symbol of ignominy, torture, and death, and when Christ said that his followers must carry this instrument of execution with them through life, such words elicited horror and protest among His disciples. Speaking of the cross, Christ did not mean that all the small difficulties which we encounter in life represent such a cross. He spoke primarily of the fact that we have to die within ourselves. This is most difficult, more fearful than all suffering, and seems impossible to man. Now, as in those times, many come to Christ to have Him fulfill all their needs and desires, but the Lord turns out to be the Messiah Who requires us to die an ignominious and torturous death within ourselves, killing off our selfish interests. In order to fulfill oneself, one must reject one’s own ego and follow Christ.

And today the Lord shows us what it means to confess Him as the Messiah and to follow Him, what it means for a person to fulfill himself through self-denial. His Face dazzled, because He became transfigured in front of His three disciples. He revealed His glory, which He had had “before the world ever was,” as Apostle John the Theologian tells us. And then they saw that there was no one there except Jesus. The Lord was the Divine center from which all rays issued, and He infinitely surpassed both Moses and Elijah – the Law and the prophets, although He was united with them. It was revealed to the disciples that the commandment on love, upon which, as the Lord says, “hang the entire Law and the prophets,” was not simply the most perfect morality, but Divine life itself, without which a person cannot become a person, and for the attainment of which he joyously desires to die within himself, to become dead to the darkness contained within each sin, and to become dead to the egoism which comprises the darkness of the entirety of all sins. It is this Christ’s love which shone forth on the Mount of Tabor, because He was the first to love us even to hell and the horror of death.

The Transfiguration occurred not so much for the sake of the Lord as for the sake of His disciples: He became transfigured before them, and a voice from heaven spoke to them. Even if they did not fully understand Him then, nevertheless, this was a decisive moment in the revelation to them of the mystery of God and the mystery of man, and although they had to be silent on this subject until by means of His death on the Cross came His Resurrection, for them this always remained the foundation of their preaching of the joy that would envelop the entire world, and which they announced on the basis of “having witnessed His grandeur.”

We celebrate this feast so that our faith would not be incomplete, so that hearing the words of Apostle Peter: “Lord, how good it is for us to be here!” – we would not forget what is good and what is bad, so that seeing this extraordinary light we would always distinguish light from dark. Never yet has it been so bad in the world, never yet has it been as dark as at present. How dark it becomes all around! With each passing year we see with greater realism how the world lies in iniquity, and how darkness thickens in the world. But “the light shines in the darkness,” and no darkness can overcome it. Christ, the Sun of truth, shines as before in the darkness of our life, and sending us today the sweetness of earthly fruits, as though from the Garden of Eden, He speaks to us of the fact that the world must be transfigured by love, which none of us has within himself, but which He is offering to us. And we understand that the mount of Transfiguration is always sweeter than the daily service, sweeter than the cross. However, the mount of Transfiguration is given to us precisely to imbue us with strength for our daily service, to make us capable of following the way of the cross. This is the radiant light with which the Lord wishes to encompass the entire world. The Holy Church tells us that present suffering is incommensurate with eternal glory, and that our brief and light suffering produces eternal glory in abundance. For our present temporary suffering is worth nothing in comparison with the glory which will be revealed within us, if only we suffer with Him in order to be glorified with Him.

 

Protopriest Alexander Shargunov

 

 

DORMITION OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

 

The feast of the Dormition is the last great feast in the Church calendar year. It is preceded by a two-week fast.

The glorious lot of the ever-blessed Virgin in the work of God’s salvation of the world made Her whole life wonderful and exemplary. After the Crucifixion of Christ, the Mother of God was taken to live in the house of Her adopted son, the Apostle John. Tradition notes than even after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the Mother of God remained in Jerusalem, visiting those places where the Saviour of the world had preached, suffered, and died. She did not want to leave the country that was dear and holy to Her. When King Herod Agrippa began to persecute the Church, both the pagans and the Jews, indignant of the respect that the Mother of God was receiving from the Christians, wanted to kill Her. It was during this time that She traveled with Apostle John to Ephesus. Church tradition also has this as the time of Her visit to Cyprus to Bishop Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead after four days, and to Mount Athos. When the persecution ended, the Mother of God returned to Apostle John’s house at Zion in Jerusalem.

Once, when She went to the Mount of Olives to pray, Archangel Gabriel appeared and spoke of Her approaching departure from this world. Upon returning home, She told Apostle John all that the Archangel had said to Her, and started preparing Herself for Her final day on earth. Friends and relatives gathered, and eleven of the apostles were miraculously transported from various parts of the world to Her deathbed. They were all amazed to see each other there. When Apostle John explained that the Mother of God would soon be departing this world, they understood why God had brought them together and became sad. But She comforted them, saying: “Do not cry and darken My happiness with your sadness. I am going to My Son and your God, and you will bury My body and return each to your work.” As the time of Her death approached, the room shone with a divine light, the roof disappeared, and a wondrous sight appeared before all: the Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven surrounded by many angels. All looked upon this wondrous sight with awe and reverence, and when they approached Her bed, the holy body of the Mother of God shone radiantly, and the fragrance of incense pervaded the room.

The apostles carried the body of the Mother of God through the city to Gethsemane, to be buried at Her request in the tomb of Her family and Joseph. They buried Her body, sealed the tomb with a stone, and remained there at the site in prayer for three days. On the third day Apostle Thomas arrived and was very saddened that he did not find the Mother of God alive. To make him feel better, the other apostles rolled away the stone to let him pay his respects to the body. But on entering the tomb, they found that the body was not there – only the winding sheet. They returned home to partake of a communal meal, at which they always left a place for the Resurrected Lord. After the meal, they raised aloft the bread left for Christ and exclaimed: “Lord, Jesus Christ, help us.” And they heard a choir of angels, and when they looked up, they saw the Holy Virgin surrounded by angels. She greeted them, saying: “Rejoice, for I am with you through all the days.” Then the apostles were filled with joy, and instead of using the usual words, they exclaimed: “Most Holy Mother of God, help us.” And now they understood and believed that upon the third day after Her dormition, the Mother of God had been resurrected.

Thus, the dormition of the Mother of God is not a sad event, but a joyous one. Her death was but a short sleep, after which followed Her resurrection and ascension to heaven. From the very beginning the Church saw the Mother of God as the Intercessor for all of mankind. She is the haven of all the mothers in the world. She teaches us how to live in total faithfulness to the will of God. She, Who amid all trials preserved in Her heart the words of Divinity, is an example to us of faithfulness, love, and service.

 

 

BASIC PRECEPTS OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH

 

Transfer of the Forefathers’ Original Sin to All of Mankind,
and the Coming of the Saviour into the World

 

The need for the salvation of mankind through means chosen by God Himself is closely tied in with the Orthodox teaching on the depth of the fall of our forefathers Adam and Eve and on the transfer of their original sin to all of mankind. This is why from the times of the holy apostles Church practice established the requirement to baptize infants, who do not yet have personal sins, but are cleansed of original sin in the holy sacrament of baptism.

And thus it was that the restoration of man’s nature, which had been damaged by original sin, required the redeeming sacrifice on Golgotha of God the Son Who had come down to earth. One may well ask: why was it specifically the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and not another of the Persons, Who had to come down to earth, become incarnate, and suffer for mankind’s sins, in order to restore the original union between God and man that had been destroyed by Adam and Eve? The holy Church Fathers reply to this question thusly: (1) “The personal characteristics of the Holy Trinity are immutable. The Son is the Pre-eternal Son and not the Father. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit and not the Son or the Father, and, therefore, it is precisely the Son of God Who becomes the Son of man, in order that the personal Divine characteristic remain unchanged” (St. John Damascene, St. Gregory the Theologian); (2) “It behooved not another Person of the Holy Trinity to deliver men from the damage that had occurred, but God the Word Who had created them” (St. Athanasius the Great); (3) “The coming of the Son of God into the world for the salvation of mankind accorded with the very order of the Persons of the One-in-essence and Indivisible Trinity: just as the Father had created all through the Son in the Holy Spirit, so did the Heavenly Father restore all through the Son in the Holy Spirit” (St. John Chrysostome, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Blessed Augustine).

To all those who ask why the Omniscient God created man knowing that our forefathers would sin, the holy Church Fathers reply that even before the creation God naturally knew that our forefathers would lose their blessedly innocent and immortal existence by abusing the freedom of will they had been granted by God, and, therefore, on the basis of this prescience, it was predetermined in the pre-eternal and supreme council of the Holy Trinity to send into the world the Only-begotten Son of God, incorruptly born of the Father before all ages, immaculately incarnate from the Virgin, the Lord Christ, for the salvation of mankind from original sin, damnation, and death. The entire profoundness of this history of the wise management of the salvation of mankind is wonderfully depicted in the third and fifth hymns of the canon for Nativity. Only in the light of the Divine plan for the wise management of the salvation of man are we able to understand and correctly interpret both man’s proper place in the universe and the ultimate significance or rational purpose of man’s existence on earth. Let us not forget that the Benevolent Creator and Provider also gave us all the necessary qualities of the soul for our being able to gradually approach the greatest ideal: to be as perfect as our Heavenly Father.

Even the first people in paradise, when they were crying and lamenting over their Fall, before their expulsion from paradise were promised by the Benevolent Creator that “the seed of the Woman will bruise the serpent’s head,” i.e. into the world will come a Saviour to restore fallen mankind.

This joyous promise, given to the first people after their fall, was not implemented right away. Many, many centuries passed from the moment of the glad tidings of the coming to earth of the Saviour of the world. How many human generations went by during this time! How many of our forefathers and fathers, who lived with faith and hope in the coming of the Saviour into the world, passed into their graves without ever arriving at a joyous meeting with the Saviour. However, their faith in the promised Saviour shone amid the darkness of human fallacies like a guiding star, and like the Burning Bush it flamed, but did not burn out in the hearts of all who had partaken of the life-giving spiritual sweetness of this faith. The ancient patriarchs and prophets cherished this faith in the coming of the Saviour into the world as their greatest treasure, as their only reliable anchor of salvation, passing on before their death this light of hope in the forthcoming salvation of mankind to new chosen guardians of the forefathers’ faith, until there finally arrived the “fullness of time,” i.e. the time blessed by God for the coming of the Saviour into the world.

 

The Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God

 

The great and unfathomable miracle of the incarnation of the Son of God is one of the most amazing mysteries of the wise management of mankind’s salvation. “Great is the mystery of holiness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16) – exclaims the holy Apostle Paul.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Saviour of the world did not come down to earth for such a long time after the fall of the forefathers. It behooved mankind over the course of many centuries, say the Holy Fathers, to gradually prepare itself to the perception and possible comprehension of this mystery. A great deal of time was needed for people, after they came to a realization of this mystery, to simultaneously empirically appreciate the full depth of the harmful consequences of the forefathers’ original sin that had passed on to them. It behooved the mankind whose fallacies had led it to a terrible impasse to realize the need for the coming down to earth of a Heavenly Deliverer of mankind from sin, damnation, and death. It became imperative for the infection of sin that had penetrated deeply into the spiritual and physical nature of man to be gradually brought out into the open, in order to be completely and perfectly healed by an artful Physician.

“Would it be reasonable to lead into a brightly-lit room right way a person who had grown up in darkness and had never seen light? – asks St. Basil the Great. – Of course not. Such a person must be introduced to light gradually, made to first see the shadows of objects and to first look at the reflection of the sun in water, so that this person would not lose his sight by coming to an immediate vision of pure light. In like manner the Heavenly Caretaker of mankind gradually led it to a perception and comprehension of the mystery of deliverance by the incarnate Son of God.”

Behold, say the Holy Fathers, with what wise fatherly caution did God prepare men for the realization of this great mystery! Elaborating upon His promise, God calls the Saviour of the world either “the seed of woman that will bruise the serpent’s head” or the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in Whom would be blessed all nations in the world, and Who would become the conciliator and restorer of the disrupted union between God and man.

After such a lengthy preparation for the coming of the Saviour, says Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, “when the fullness of time was come (for fulfilling the long-awaited promise on the salvation of mankind), God sent forth His (Only-begotten) Son, born of a woman, subjected to the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Receiving the right to once again be called the sons of God, through the redeeming sacrifice of Christ the Saviour people once again received the right to call to God: “Abba, Thou art our Father!” And since out of slaves people once again became the sons of God, this means that people also became the inheritors of God.

 

Professor G.A. Znamensky

 

 

 

CHRISTIAN TEACHING

 

Ascetic of Virtue

 

On this day (July 19th) the holy Orthodox Church glorified one of its great saints – the venerable Seraphim, wonderworker of Sarov.

The ways of spiritual life are diverse and complex. Along winding paths does the human spirit return to the abandoned dwelling of the Heavenly Father, to His sanctity that was lost through sin.

And oftentimes at the very abyss of a sinful fall, at the yawning chasm of sin man feels the full horror of his rejection of God and begins to seek salvation from the eternal perdition of his immortal soul, to a realization of which he comes at the very last moment. This is the path of the eleventh-hour arrivals (the Evangelical parable of the laborers hired at different times of the day), the path of publicans, prodigal sons, adulterers, and sinners, who at some point in their unclean lives envision and aspire towards the purity and sanctity of a life genuinely established in God. In the final analysis this bitter path of sinful experience either spiritually destroys a person or, conversely, spiritually sobers him up.

But there is yet another path, the path of virtue, the path of spiritual purity, of a life preserved from beginning to end in chastity, a life revealed, marked, and augmented by continuous spiritual endeavor. This is the path of ascetics from youth, who have loved God not only outwardly, but whole-heartedly, placing their joyous hope of salvation in Him alone.

Saint Anthony the Great, hearing the Evangelical summons to discard all the cares and affairs of the world, did not take counsel with his flesh and blood, but left all and followed after Christ. Hosts of God’s saints regarded all the luxuries of this world as dust for the sake of a powerful and unshakeable striving towards the Temple of true and supreme heavenly beauty.

Such was the path of Saint Seraphim.

“From the youth didst thou love Christ, O blessed one,” – sings the Church, glorifying the great wonderworker of Sarov.

He loved from his very youth, and the Saint preserved this love until the very end, until his repose at a venerable age. His image is the integral image of genuine spiritual virtue in the fullest sense of the word, alien to vacillation, alien to deviation from the true path. In this sense Saint Seraphim is primarily an ascetic of virtue. He is the embodiment of spiritual vigor, of genuine spiritual simplicity.

And in our times the example of his life is especially instructive, his prayerful intercession is especially needed. The world has become embroiled in complexity, is drowning in contradictions, has deviated from simplicity in Christ. And with the entire endeavor of his life the great wonderworker of Sarov calls us back to the abandoned path of God. To love Christ, to turn one’s heart to Him, to serve Him and not oneself or one’s passions – such is the path of Christian life.

Brethren, how terrifying it is to realize (and how often it happens) that one loves oneself more than God. In the final analysis this is a spiritual dead end, a second death. And the only way out here is to seek simplicity, reject oneself, take up one’s cross (no matter how heavy), and follow after Christ.

 

O venerable Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!

 

Hieromonk Methody, “Before the eyes of God’s truth”)

 

(Reprinted from “Orthodox Russia, No. 17, 2007)

 

 

 

CORONATION OF TSAR NICHOLAS II

 

not only the Khodynka tragedy

 

The ceremony of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II took place on May 14, 1896 (old style). The meaning of this event is much more profound than simply a tribute to tradition. Alas, in the minds of subsequent generations it was overshadowed by the Khodynka catastrophe. But still: what is meant by anointment to reign? Is it only a rite confirming the already existing fact of a new Sovereign’s ascension to the throne? What did it mean for Tsar Nicholas II? What did the Khodynka tragedy signify within the perspective of the next, the 20th century?

The subject of anointment to reign demands a serious and thoughtful approach. This especially pertains to the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, who, as is obvious in hindsight, was at that same time anointed for his forthcoming martyrdom. But no sooner does one start thinking of the anointing of our last Tsar that the mind, apparently filled with compassion for our fallen compatriots, forces us to think of the catastrophe. Yet it is impossible to disregard a tragedy that took the lives of more than a thousand-and-a-half people. It took place on the fourth day after the coronation, was, as we shall see, the result of brief madness on the part of the crowd and, according to Abbot Seraphim (Kuznetsov), presaged a loss of consciousness that caused us, after 1917, to “trample” upon one another not only in thousands, but in millions. However, we may add, just as the revolution and civil war in the 20th century, which overshadowed the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, did not cancel out his reign, so the Khodynka catastrophe did not cancel out the coronation ceremony and its main component: the anointing of the Sovereign.

The Tsar arrived in Moscow on his birthday, May 6th (old style), and stopped at the Peter Palace, which at that time stood on the outskirts of the capital. On May 9th the Tsar ceremoniously entered Moscow. The Royal couple settled at the Alexander Palace and prepared for communion all the days remaining before the coronation. The day of May 14, 1896 arrived, and the Tsar and the Empress were met on the portico of the Dormition Cathedral by the clergy. Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow, having blessed the Tsar and the Empress, addressed the Sovereign with a speech which, traditionally, was not only welcoming, but also instructive. He said: “Thou art entering this ancient and holy temple in order to lay upon thyself a kingly crown and to accept sacred anointment … All Orthodox Christians receive anointment, but it is never repeated. If thou art due to receive a new imprint of this sacrament, then it is only because just as there is nothing higher on earth than kingly power, so is there nothing more difficult, there is no burden more difficult than kingly service. Through visible anointment may thou be granted invisible power, coming from above and illuminating thy monarchical work for the good and happiness of thy loyal subjects.”

 

 

The Tsar and the Empress kissed the cross and were sprinkled with holy water, after which they entered the Cathedral accompanied by the singing of the 101st psalm, in which is heard a ruler’s confession of the ideal of integrity: “…a froward heart shall depart from me; whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off; I will not know a wicked person.” The Tsar and the Empress then knelt before the royal doors, kissed the miraculous icons, and sat down on the thrones that were prepared for them in the middle of the Cathedral. The rite of coronation began from the moment the primate, Metropolitan Palladius of Saint Petersburg, approached the royal throne and asked the Sovereign about his profession of faith. In response the Emperor pronounced the words of the Orthodox Creed in a clear and loud voice.

One of the most important moments of the coronation is the Metropolitan’s cruciform placement of his hands on the Tsar’s head and his proffering of a prayer to the Lord “to anoint the Tsar with the chrism of joy, to vest him in strength from above, … to give the scepter of salvation into his hand, to set him on the throne of truth…”. After this prayer the Sovereign took the crown that was brought to him on a pillow by the Metropolitan and, in accordance with the rite, placed it on his head himself, then took a smaller crown and placed it on the head of the Empress, who knelt before him. Having confessed his faith and accepted the burden of rule, the Tsar knelt down and, holding the crown in his hand, offered the coronation prayer to God.

After the rite of Coronation followed the Divine liturgy. At the end of it, right before communion, the Tsar and the Empress were anointed. The repetition of this sacred action, which in principle must not be repeated, imparted a special status to the Tsar, a special charisma: the Tsar now seemed to belong to another, higher sphere of existence, and his judiciary authority now turned into charismatic authority.

According to protopriest Maxim Kozlov, “the meaning of this sacred rite lay in the fact that the Tsar was being blessed by God not only as the head of a government or civil administration, but primarily as the bearer of theocratic service, of church service, as God’s vicar on earth.” Moreover, the Tsar was responsible for the spiritual state of all his subjects. Protopriest Maxim Kozlov also reminds us of the teaching of the holy hierarch Philaret of Moscow on the subject of royal power, and on the right attitude of all Orthodox subjects towards it; he reminds us of the hierarch’s words: “A people that venerates the Tsar thereby pleases God, for the Tsar is a dispensation from God.” Protopriest Kozlov goes on to say: “According to the teaching of hierarch Philaret, the Tsar is the bearer of God’s power, the power which, as it exists on earth, is a reflection of God’s celestial, all-sovereign power. An earthly kingdom is the image and threshold of the Heavenly Kingdom and, therefore, it follows from this teaching that only that earthly society is blessed and contains within it the seed of God’s grace, spiritualizing and sanctifying this society, which has as its head the supreme bearer of power – the anointed Tsar.”

After the service in the Dormition Cathedral was over, the coronation procession began, which included the Tsar and the Empress visiting the sacred icons of the Archangels Cathedral and the Annunciation Cathedral. Finally the royal personages ascended the Red Porch and bowed thrice to the people: before them, to the right, and to the left.

 

 

Nowadays Tsar Nicholas is usually regarded as “a good man” with the addition of “but.” This “but” may be followed by his being blamed for all our 20th century woes, or perhaps not; in any case, however, the following is understood: “a good man, but an incompetent ruler.” His successes, which were acknowledged even by his enemies, are now glossed over, while there is no thought for his sense of responsibility, which is considered to be self-evident. At the same time, in terms of responsibility Tsar Nicholas II may be regarded as a model Sovereign. It was well-known that he did not make any decision without checking it against Divine law, and he never went against his conscience. According to currently emerging testimonials, even his so-called “abdication” was not real, but provoked or even fabricated. Moreover, none of his actions were a manifestation of the notorious “weakness” that is ascribed to him even to this day, but rather a demonstration of strong will.

And now let us turn to the events on the Khodynka field on May 18, 1896. From early morning and even from nighttime a huge number of people had gathered here: more than half-a-million people, waiting for the distribution of royal gifts. Up until 6:00 in the morning everything was absolutely peaceful. Around 6:00 a rumor suddenly spread that there would not be enough gifts for everyone, that the concessioners were supposedly stockpiling reserve supplies for themselves… Then, according to an eyewitness, “the crown sprang up as one man and rushed forward so precipitously, as though it were pursued by fire… The back rows pressed upon the front ones, and whoever fell was trampled upon, with people losing the ability to feel that they were treading over still living bodies as though over stones or logs. The catastrophe lasted only 10-15 minutes. When the crowd reeled back to its senses, it was already too late.”

The coronation of the Tsar Alexander III took place thirteen years before the coronation of his son, and now they prepared for the festivities on the Khodynka field just as they had then, not expecting such an influx of people. The organization of such a mass measure undoubtedly left much to be desired. But when one reads the description above, one gets the impression that no measures could have saved from such madness. Like a hundred or fifty years ago, to this day there are people who with great pathos blame the Governor-General of Moscow, the Grand Duke Serge Aleksandrovich, although officially he was in no way responsible for the organization of the festivities at Khodynka field. A.N. Bokhanov’s book Nicholas II describes in detail the intrigues that were spun in the House of the Romanovs around the name of the Grand Duke, who had many enemies among “his own,” and it was they who ordered the indicated pathos.

In the “canonical” list of accusations against Tsar Nicholas II the tragedy on the Khodynka field occupies perhaps not the most significant place, but a quite definite one. The Tsar was accused and continues to be accused of heartlessness: he supposedly did not refuse to attend a ball at the French Ambassador’s, etc. Let us again cite A.N. Bokhanov, who very clearly explains the impossibility for the Sovereign to refuse the French party’s invitation. An official individual is always a helpless hostage to etiquette and protocol. It is well-known that after May 18th ceremonious measures were curtailed; however, the calumny regarding the Tsar’s heartlessness continues to be amazingly tenacious.

The Tsar ordered 1,000 rubles (a very considerable sum in those days) to be given to each family of a person who died or was wounded on Khodynka field. Together with the Empress he visited in the Moscow hospitals those who were wounded during the tragedy. They were also visited by the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna. A.N. Bokhanov cites her letter to her son George, written during those days: “I was extremely upset at seeing in the hospital all these poor wounded and semi-crushed people, and almost each one of them had lost a family member. It was absolutely heart-wrenching. But at the same time they were so sensible and dignified in their simplicity that they caused a desire to get down on one’s knees before them. They were so moving, not blaming anyone except themselves. They said that they themselves were to blame, and that they regretted having upset the Tsar by this! They were as dignified as always, and one can take pride in realizing that one belongs to such a great and wonderful people. Other classes should follow their example, instead of devouring one another and, most of all, with their cruelty inciting people’s minds to such a state as I have never yet seen in all my 30 years in Russia.” A remarkable testimonial! Alas, the “incitement of minds” would only continue to grow and in only one direction: the depletion of the traditional for Russia love for the Tsar and the acquisition of a “right to dishonor,” in the words of Dostoyevsky.

But at the same time we already had an anointed one and, moreover, an anointed one who “would endure to the end” and would become a holy intercessor for his obdurate people before God. And thus took place his union with us – through the “nuptial ties” of martyrdom.

 

Andrey Manovtsev

 

(Reprinted from the Pravoslaviye.ru site for May 26, 2011)

 

 

 

 

 

LIVES OF THE SAINTS

 

On August 6^th (July 24^th by the old calendar) the Church commemorates the holy martyr Christina.

Saint Christina lived in the 3rd century. She was born into a rich family. Her father Urban was the ruler of the city of Tyre. At the age of eleven the young girl showed extraordinary beauty, and many young men wished to marry her. However, Christina’s father wished his daughter to become a priestess. To this end he placed her in special chambers, where he also placed a multitude of gold and silver idols, and commanded her to burn incense before them. Two female slaves were assigned to serve Christina.

In her solitude Christina began to ponder the question of who had created this beautiful world. From her room she could see and admire the starry sky, and gradually she arrived at the idea of a Sole Creator of the entire world. She became convinced that the mute and soulless idols that were standing in her rooms could not have created anything, since they themselves had been created by human hands. Tearfully she began to pray to the One God, asking Him to reveal Himself. Her soul became enflamed with love for the Unknown God, and she continuously increased her prayers, uniting them with fasting.

One time Christina was honored by the visitation of an angel, who instructed her in true faith in Christ, the Saviour of the world. The angel called her a bride of Christ and foretold her future martyric endeavor. The holy maiden then broke all the idols in her rooms into pieces and threw them out the window. Christina’s father Urban, coming to visit his daughter, asked her about the disappearance of the idols. Christina was silent. Then Urban summoned the female slaves and learned the truth from them. In great wrath the father began to slap his daughter’s face. The holy maiden first kept quiet, but afterwards revealed to her father her faith in the One True God and the fact that she had personally destroyed the idols. Then Urban ordered all the female slaves attending his daughter to be killed, while Christina he ordered to be severely beaten and thrown into prison. Hearing of this, Christina’s mother came to her daughter in tears, asking her to renounce Christ and return to her forefathers’ beliefs. Christina, however, remained intractable. The next day Urban summoned his daughter to court and began to plead with her to worship the pagan gods and ask their forgiveness for her sin, but instead met with a firm and unyielding confession of faith on her part.

The persecutors then tied her to an iron wheel, under which they lit a fire. The martyr’s body, turning upon the wheel, was burned on all sides. Afterwards she was thrown into prison.

An angel of God appeared to her during the night, healing her wounds, and gave her sustenance. In the morning, seeing her unharmed, her father ordered her to be drowned in the sea. But the angel supported the saint, the stone to which she was tied dropped to the bottom, while Christina miraculously emerged from the water and appeared before her father. The horrified persecutor ascribed this to sorcery and decided to execute her on the following morning. During the night, however, he unexpectedly died. The new ruler sent to replace him, Dion, summoned the holy martyr and likewise attempted to persuade her to denounce Christ, but seeing her unshakeable firmness, he again gave her over to cruel torture. Saint Christina languished in prison for a long time. Many people began to make their way into prison, and she converted them to true belief in Christ. In this manner about 3,000 people were converted.

A new ruler, Julian, came in Dion’s place and began to torture the saint. After five different persecutions, Julian ordered her to be thrown into a flaming furnace and shut in. After five days the furnace was opened, and the saint was found alive and unharmed. Seeing such extraordinary miracles, many came to believe in Christ the Saviour, while the persecutors slew Saint Christina with a sword.

 

 

 

THE FIRST PEOPLE ON EARTH

 

(in the light of most recent excavations)

 

LIFE ON EARTH BEFORE THE DELUGE

 

Paradise and its location

 

Paradise is the beginning and end of creation, a perfect beginning and an even more perfect end, the Garden of Eden and the eternal Heavenly Kingdom. “And He that sat upon the throne said: Behold, I make all things new. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21, 1:5).

Was the Paradise in which the immortal Adam lived really located on earth? Where is that desirable place in which man lived in bliss? Where is it – the sacred site of mankind’s origin? God’s mystery is sealed and will nevermore be revealed. Nevermore will the foot of man step on the land of Paradise. A Cherubim with a fiery sword has been placed to guard the gates of Eden, so that no mortal can ever enter it. Neither Adam, nor his descendants, nor any mortal man. God’s mystery. In vain do the Muslims point at the bend between Tigris and Euphrates to the south of Baghdad as the site of Paradise. This is a groundless fantasy meant to feed the vanity of the caliphs of Baghdad, similar to the one in which the supposed meeting site of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Paradise was somewhere near Mecca. This traditional site was even indicated on a Biblical map published in the mid-20th century. Here is what the God-seer Moses wrote down concerning the location of Paradise: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden… And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pheison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tigris): that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates” (Gen. 2:8. 10-14).

“A river went out of Eden” should be understood as “a river flowed through Eden,” for a river flowing out of Eden cannot “thence” branch into four rivers. It is clear that the ancients counted not from the source, as we do, but from the delta; thus the river which irrigated Paradise had four large tributaries or four rivers. It can be said both ways, i.e. that during the time of Paradise these were tributaries, and afterwards they were rivers, since they emptied separately into the ancient contours of the Persian Gulf.

The location of Paradise should be sought not between these rivers (as it is said in the Bible), but at the river at which all the aforementioned rivers or tributaries came together: Tigris on the territory fronting Assyria, Euphrates, Gihon (or Geon) which encompassed the land of Cush (the site of the ancient and famous city of Kish), and the fourth river Pheison, “where there is gold,” obviously the Karkheh River with its old riverbed, flowing down from the northern mountains of the land of Elam, since there are no other places in the region of Mesopotamia where gold can be found.

Now it is a left-hand tributary of the Tigris River, but back in Roman times it emptied directly into the Nar-Maratu (Persian) Gulf, just as did Tigris and Euphrates (Professor Turayev. “History of the Ancient Middle East”, p. 59).

Thus it is perfectly clear that Paradise was geographically situated at the outermost Middle East, fronting the Persian Gulf, on the shores of the confluence of four great and at that time prominent rivers.

Currently this entire region is the territory of the huge Lake Hor-al-Hammar. Extremely interesting is the topography of this region in the times of the adamites, as reconstructed by archaeologists. This entire territory was flooded by a sea gulf, which from the times of Abraham gradually began to recede, but in the 1st century B.C. all four rivers were still emptying directly into it. And only in much later times did the water recede even further into the contemporary contours of the Persian Gulf, remaining only in the abovementioned lake and a multitude of marshes.

Thus it may be assumed that after Adam’s expulsion from Paradise this entire territory descended about a dozen and a half meters, and the waters of the Persian Gulf covered the lowlands. Such are the paleographic contours of this region in the times of the adamites.

The borders of the Persian Gulf at the river’s delta are receding even now at a rate of 7 km every 100 years. According to modern geological data, this entire large territory has colossal oil lakes with hidden gases under it, which explains the aforementioned up-and-down movements of the surface of the earth. The God-seer Moses writes: “And He expelled Adam, and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden a Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the Tree of Life.” At the time of the Sumerians (the culture of the cities of Ur, Eridu, and Obeida, divided by an intermediate 3-meter layer of sediment into antediluvian and postdiluvian periods), the huge territory was flooded by water; there existed an enormous sea gulf, on whose shores stood elevated the first cities in the world: Eridu and Ur. These were the settlements of Adam and his closest 136 descendants. Paradise, Eden was flooded by water and became forever inaccessible. Even now it is impossible to search for it, since it is located at the bottom of the opaque Lake Hammar, which is white as milk from the lime salt dispersed in it. And what remains could one find on the territory of Paradise? This mystery is sealed forever. Interestingly enough, all Iranian peoples preserve the traditional knowledge of the site of Paradise being located under water, at the bottom of the sea (gulf).

However, another discovery has been made which sheds light on the life of Adam: he apparently lived at the seashore and could always look towards the East, where under the azure blue waters lay the beautiful Paradise of the sweetness of unearthly existence. Adam prayed, having deep faith in that the time would come when his Descendant would “bruise the serpent’s head” and return Paradise to mankind. The Holy Fathers interpreted God’s words, spoken to the devil in Adam’s presence, in the following manner: “It (in the translation of the 70 it is said ‘He’) – the seed of Adam’s wife – shall bruise you in the head” (Gen. 3:15).

For Adam it was not as important that the devil be punished for being the origin of the Fall as that he – Adam – be forgiven his sin.

In reconstructing the contours of the ancient shores of this gulf, paleogeography established another interesting fact: Euphrates had an old riverbed not to the left of Eridu and Ur, as it does now, but flowed between them, so that Ur stood on the left shore, where the river flowed into the gulf, while Eridu stood on the right shore, opposite Ur.

This is of great significance, which we will discuss later, when we review which of these two cities has the greater basis to be regarded as the very first city in the world, as Adam’s first place of settlement after his expulsion from Paradise.

 

The Immortal Adam

 

Adam was a man not born, but created directly by God. He was created immortal, like unto the angels, king and ruler over all the other creatures that lived in Paradise, both on land, and in the water, and in the air. Adam knew neither illness, nor death; this was the sinless Adam, whose image was shown to us by the second Adam – Christ.

After the days of creation a great static condition became established in nature, in the kingdom of living creatures, in the sea, in the air, and on land; no new creations appeared. Man was the crown of creation.

And God gave man a great mission – to reign over all creation and live in Paradise, where God had established a wondrous world order, having subjected all living beings to man. In this kingdom of grace there was an established peace, where blood did not flow in front of the immortal Adam, where there was no violent death in the animal world, “for to all in Paradise God gave all kinds of grasses and fruit,” and all animals, birds, and fish were subjected to man, and God gave Adam such great wisdom, that he could call each creature by its name.

God gave his blessing to humans to multiply, populate the earth, and be masters over it and all living creatures on it, and spread the kingdom of grace all over the world. But Adam did not fulfill this mission, through his sin death came into the world, and Adam himself became mortal.

The mystery of Adam’s immortal human nature has been carried by him into the grave and has not been preserved among his descendants. Neither did God reveal it to men through His great seer of mysteries, the Prophet Moses.

This mystery, like the mystery of Eden, has remained sealed forever. Even in the days of grace, when the Holy Spirit descended upon mankind, instructing Christ’s apostles and the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church in God’s mysteries, even then the mystery of immortality was not revealed. In what manner were Adam’s human body, flesh, and organism immortal, not subject to illness, or old age, or depletion, or death? We can only have faith in that this mystery will be revealed after the resurrection of the dead, when our bodies will arise anew and will live eternally with our immortal soul, not needing food or drink, and never growing old. Such precisely was Adam, in the opinion of the Church Fathers.

Adam possessed divine reason, since the words about Adam knowing all creatures by name should be understood in the sense that all the physical laws of the universe and the animal world, at which his descendants arrived with great difficulty and will still be arriving in the future, were originally revealed to him.

The Heavenly Kingdom is Paradise regained, and the state of righteous souls is paradisiacal bliss, which also includes perfect knowledge, for it is truly a majestic quality and is worthy even of angelic minds, which hymn in continuous glorification the wisdom of the Creator and His creations.

Adam became completely different after his expulsion from Paradise, similar in everything to us mortals, who are subject to illness, old age, death, and corruptibility, only the human age in those days was different – a thousand years.

But let us return to the originally-created Paradise. Was it simply one of many sectors of lands with common flora and fauna? The Bible says: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen 2:8). Consequently, Paradise was created by God’s special providence, with especially beautiful trees and flowers, and not all the living creatures existing then in the world became its residents, but only those chosen by God for their king – Adam.

The God-seer Moses did not tell us anything about which living creatures populated Paradise, and all our assumptions would be baseless. However, it may be said with assurance that within the confines of Paradise all creatures were subservient to Adam and Eve. This stamp of subservience has remained in the so-called domestic animals which God left to Adam after his expulsion from Paradise. Domestic animals differ biologically from similar wild ones, which remains one of the world’s mysteries. All domestic animals began to spread from the territory of the Middle East, from the place where Eden had stood – from Sumer and South Mesopotamia.

 

Protopriest Stefan Lyashevsky

 

 

PROPHET ELIAS

 

 

With bated breath he stands; his gaze pursues The fiery chariot’s extended flight. Upward as a mysterious bird it flies Along the path that lies towards the stars. The swiftly flying steeds, the fiery steeds – Their glittering hooves cannot be heard at all, But everything on earth and in the skies Is glowing with a flaming rosy dawn. And ever higher they fly, beyond the clouds, Beyond the stars, beyond all unknown heights. Far down below the human shadows live, The world lies in iniquity and dark. Elisha stands so utterly alone, His gaze fixed solely on the glittering heights. O, if to go the distance with Elias To that all-highest world where all paths meet! And from the heights to mortal eye unseen, Elias’s gift descended then to him, He’ll go into the world now all aflame, To kindle hearts with fiery word of God!   – V. Utrenev