FIFTH WEEK OF GREAT LENT

 

Already we have reached the fifth week of 111Great Lent, dear brethren.  For the past several weeks the Church has been instructing us in the different aspects of spiritual life that we must develop within ourselves, in order for the Triumph of Orthodoxy to become an actual fact of our everyday life.  On the second Sunday of Lent the Church taught us prayer, especially inner prayer as its most perfect example, uniting us in constant communion with the Lord God.  The third Sunday was devoted to the bearing of the cross, which is necessary to each Christian who wishes to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who redeemed us and granted salvation to all of us through His sacrifice on the Cross.  On the fourth Sunday we learned how to ascend the ladder of virtues, which led us straight into paradise and eternal life.

Now we have reached the most important stage of spiritual life – repentance.  Repentance is the most important in the sense that it the very basic stage, the beginning of all spirituality.  All our prayers, virtues, and Lenten endeavors are very well in their own right, but without repentance they have little value, they are in vain.  And that is because without repentance we cannot come to a realization of our sins, of our spiritual shortcomings, and without realizing them we cannot rectify them by asking the Lord for forgiveness and receiving the remission of our sins.

We see the importance of repentance from the moment when Adam and Eve fell into sin by disobeying God’s commandment.  We see how God called upon Adam to repent while he was still in the Garden of Eden:  “Adam, where art thou?”  But instead of repenting and realizing his sin, Adam began to justify himself.  And from that time on, this self-justification continues throughout man’s entire existence on earth.

In the Orthodox Church repentance is one of the seven sacraments.  Without repentance there is no salvation.  We see this in the writings of the Holy Fathers, which were inspired by the Holy Spirit.  The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He came down to earth, said to His disciples: “I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.”  The Lord had no need to call the righteous, because their righteousness was based upon a foundation of humility, and through humility they clearly saw the sinfulness of their nature.  Even such a notable desert-dweller as Anthony the Great, who by the end of his life reached an angelic state, used to say to his disciples with great humility and weeping over his sins: “I have not even begun to do anything for my salvation.”

Such is the humility of the righteous, while sinners, following in the footsteps of the fallen Adam, engage only in self-justification.  How many times we have heard people say the following words: “While I’m still young, I’ll enjoy life to the full, and when I get old, then I shall begin to think of repentance.”  But will it turn out that way?  Are not such people deceiving themselves?  What assurance do they have that they will live until tomorrow, not to mention old age?  “As we live, so shall we die” – says popular wisdom.

And so, on this fifth Sunday of Lent, while calling us to repentance, the Church as usual offers us a supreme example of it by showing us the life of St. Mary of Egypt.  And what an extraordinary and deeply-moving example it is!  Here before us is an absolute sinner.  For seventeen years she leads an incredibly depraved life.  Suddenly she decides to go to Jerusalem, in order to continue her iniquity even there.  She follows this impulse, totally unaware that this is God’s Providence working within her, calling her to repentance.  At that moment she probably did not yet realize that her soul was yearning to free itself from the shackles of sinful life.  And so she comes to the Holy Land, where she spiritually awakens and realizes the grave error of her ways, and under the protection of the Holy Mother of God she goes away into the Jordanian desert, where she spends 47 years in incredible spiritual endeavors, repenting all the while her sinful life.

Similarly the Lord calls each one of us to repentance, dear brethren.  And we can see in our everyday life what unrepented sins lead to.  Look at the horrors we see all around us: it is no longer only adults who commit murder, robbery, violence, etc., but even children.

It is now the fifth week of Great Lent.  Have we begun to repent of our sins?  Do we come to confession, do we take communion?  Even if someone were to think that he is not yet ready, did not have time to prepare himself – do not wait, dear brethren!  Next week we will be greeting our Saviour.  With what kind of soul will we meet Him?  With what kind of heart will we glorify Him, sing “hosannah” to Him?  Perhaps someone may think that Lent is nearly over and that he will probably have no time left to repent?  No, dear brethren!  We must repent immediately, we must repent always, we must repent throughout our entire life.  While we live on this earth, it will never be too late.  The only time when it may be too late is when we die, when our soul leaves our body.  Then it will truly be too late, and we will be totally unable to do anything for ourselves.  Then, at best, perhaps someone will be left on earth who will pray for us, and at worst – we will remain in hell with our unshriven sins.

Dear brethren, it is not too late to realize our sins, to come to the Lord in penitence, to step upon the path of salvation.  Let us heed the wondrous example of St. Mary of Egypt, let us heed the example of the wise thief, who repented at the very last hour of his life, and let us say to the Lord in the words of the humble publican: “Lord, have mercy upon us, sinners!”  Amen.

                                                                          Father Rostislav Sheniloff

 

 

HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY

 

After Christ showed His absolute power over death by raising Lazarus from the dead, and after Mary anointed His body with precious myrrh, of which He spoke as of His anointment for burial, the Lord stepped upon the path of voluntary passion to His Cross, in order to fulfill the Gospel – the glad tidings of God’s love for mankind – to the very end, to show this love in deed and not only in word.

His entire life from Nativity to Baptism, from embarking upon His public service with the words “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” to today’s entry into Jerusalem – has been the blossoming of a miracle.  Beginning with the first miracle in Cana of Galilee, when at His Mother’s humble request He turned water into good wine, and ending with this last miracle, which He performed in the home of His dearest friends Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, who of all believers in Him were the firmest in their belief.

In response to the prayers of Mary, sister of Lazarus, He raises him to life and at the same time demonstrates His glory, as it was said in the Gospel of the first miracle.  However, at that time He told His Mother that His hour had not yet come.  But now, three years later, His hour has finally come.  There are no more impediments to the performance of the greatest miracle.  The Lord Himself speaks of this in the Gospel: “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified” (John 12:23).  “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (John 13:31).

The Lord always goes this way, and only for those who believe in Him does He perform miracles and manifest His glory.  Only for them.  Earlier, in His secret conversation with Nicodemus, the Lord said that man must change by being born from on high – through water and the Spirit – for a new eternal life.  And even Nicodemus, a Judaic teacher, who searched for true faith, was unable to understand this concept.

And now, having raised Lazarus from the dead, the Lord demonstrated this complete change, this prophecy of what will happen to all mankind.  However, this concept presented an insurmountable difficulty for those who had no faith in Him, and this lack of belief led them to a scheme to kill both Lazarus and Christ.  This was the scheme of Satan, the original murderer of man, and of his servants – to kill Christ.  And not only Christ, but all mankind.  Satan’s intent is to kill all mankind, while Christ wishes to give everyone life, and life in abundance, “affirming before His passion the universal resurrection.”  For this reason Christ’s passion begins immediately upon the resurrection of Lazarus.

The resurrection of Lazarus opens the doors to the death of Christ.  Christ openly reveals Himself, entering into Jerusalem as the King of Israel, as the Master of the temple, as the Lord Who, according to the prophet, “shall suddenly come to His temple, and who may abide the day of His coming?” (Mal. 3:1-2).  The high priests and the scribes, keepers of the sacred mysteries of the faith, were unable to tolerate the sight of Him.  And not because He entered into Jerusalem and into the temple with unsurpassed glory, but on the contrary, because His entry – meek and humble – deceived their expectations.

Pascha begins precisely with complete rejection, humiliation, and hate of Christ on the part of the high priests.  He was coming, meek and humble, and this was irreconcilable with their dreams of Judea’s majesty.

Christ enters into Jerusalem through narrow gates, and here begins the way of the Cross for those who love the truth.  Passion week begins with Palm Sunday.  Great praises are sung to Christ on this day, and we cry out together with the crowd: “Hosannah!  Save us on high, King of Israel!  Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!”  But the rejoicing of the people, the welcome to Christ Who is on His way to death reveal the depth of mankind’s fall, reveal the blindness of people before the light of Christ’s love.  He is delivering them from death, while they are condemning Him to death.

In greeting Christ the crowd (and even His disciples) expected to see worldly triumph.  They did not think of the fact that He was going to His death, and this in itself was condemning Him to death.  We are amazed at how easily the cries of “Hosannah!” become the cries of “Crucify Him!”  But in truth, as the Holy Fathers say, even at this moment we could hear the words of Christ said on the Cross: “Father! Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  And through all this the Lord, the Conqueror of death, continues coming.
“Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!”  Blessed is He Who comes to save mankind through the passion of the Cross!  The Lord speaks of mankind just as He does of His friend Lazarus: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4).

“Rejoice, O Zion, for the Master, Who is carried by the seraphim, Who holds all within His hand, is coming on a young ass.”  Fulfilling the prophecies of the prophets, Christ comes to the city in which the prophets were put to death, in order to be put to death Himself and save us from eternal death.  The Church knows that the rejection of Christ, the suffering to which He is subjected – humiliation, blows, spitting, the Cross – represent the mystery of our salvation.  The Lord endures everything meekly, in order for our suffering and our death to become – through Him – a gift of God.  Today, in our modern world of criminal injustice, the Church of martyrs and confessors is approaching a new time of trial.  But if we are with Christ, the more our suffering grows – the more we participate in His sacrifice on the Cross, the stronger becomes our tie with His victory over death, with His divine joy, and the more we come to know His love for us.
The Lord enters into Jerusalem, and the meaning of His unjust suffering is turned around completely: formerly it was a sign of the blind tyranny of sin over mankind in accordance with sinful law, and now it becomes the measure of the gift of His glory and resurrection.  Having formerly suffered defeat, we now greet Him with palms and follow after Him, “carrying the banners of victory.”  Amen.

Protopriest Alexander Shargunov

 

 

CHRISTIAN TEACHING

Commemoration of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

The feast of the forty martyrs of Sebaste was always a great celebration for the Orthodox Church. From ancient times, from the day of their martyric death which took place in the early 4th century, in A.D. 313, the Church lauded and glorified these saints. They suffered for Christ on the very eve of the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire. At that time the famous Edict of Milan, which granted freedom to confess the Christian faith, had already been adopted, but there were still separate outbursts of persecution before the achievement of Christianity’s complete victory and its firm establishment in the Roman Empire.

These forty soldiers were martyred for Christ in the icy Lake of Sebaste. However, their death was especially glorious because they were simultaneously tempted by the possibility of deliverance from suffering: a bathhouse was heated up on the shores of the lake, and each one of them was offered the chance to leave his place of martyrdom and seek this means of salvation. This bathhouse was not the simple bathhouse we think of today. In those times the bathhouse was like a social club in which the entire life was spent; it represented all that a man who does not know God would be looking for in life.

This spiritual endeavor is also memorable for us because one of the soldiers was actually unable to stay the course and did do just that: he chose a safe and comfortable life without Christ over death with Christ. This was seen by one of the guards. By God’s unfathomable providence it was revealed to the guard that the place where the martyrs were standing contained life and glory. It contained the warmth which cannot be found anywhere else, at any time, for the Lord Himself was there. Seeing martyric crowns descending upon the sufferers, he cried out: “I, too, am a Christian!” – and joined them, in order to share with them both the suffering and the glory.

From the very beginning the Church saw in this image that which determines the life of every Christian and the life of the entire Church. For better or for worse each person faces such a choice at different periods in life, and each must choose either one thing or another. That is the way life is set up: we must either give up Christ, or give up our well-being. No one can avoid this choice.

Sometimes there are tribulations that overwhelm the entire Church. The persecutions which took place in the early days of the Church, and those which took place in recent times have all been defined precisely by that concept – some chose Christ, while others renounced Him. Some renounced Him when they were close to receiving a martyric crown. And yet among people indifferent to the Church and even among its persecutors were unexpectedly found those who preferred death with Christ to life without Christ.

And so we ponder the state of being Christ’s elect. The Lord tells us in His Gospel that the mystery of the salvation of each individual is deep, and that only the Lord, Who reads our inner hearts, knows who will endure the hour of persecution and who will renounce Christ. The Lord also tells us that it does not matter when a person is called to Christ: at the last hour or among the first. A person can seemingly be with Christ and in the Church throughout his entire life, yet at the last hour renounce Christ. Even an entire people can seemingly be with God and then suddenly renounce Him, as was the case with the Jewish people.

In commemorating the forty martyrs of Sebaste we ponder this mystic providence of God – the fact that the Lord calls each person to Him irrespective of the progression of the person’s external life. Some come in the first hour, as the Lord says in the Gospel, others in the third or sixth hour, still others come much later, and some, as it turns out, come when there appears to be no hope left whatever of conversion to Christ – in the eleventh hour.

The Lord calls some people to Him when they are in the bloom of youth, others at the noon of maturity, and still others at the sunset of their lives. Some can reach the Lord within the space of an hour, as did the wise thief, while for others even a whole lifetime is not enough to come to Christ.

Some people are called by the Lord when they have been able to accomplish a lot here on earth; others when they stand at the threshold of life, full of aspirations, perhaps even noble ones, of accomplishing great things; and others still when they have not even begun to live.

And all are equally received by the Lord, no matter when, or at what hour, or at what age the person is called to Christ. The Lord is compassionate toward all people and especially to those who seem to be unable to come to Him. To those who stand around until the eleventh, the last hour, like laborers who wish to be employed, who wish to use all their abilities and talents in life, but who are unable to make use of them. No one needs them. Or perhaps they do not have any special talents, and this is why no one needs them. The Lord is always deeply compassionate towards such people. He calls them to Him, too, and gives them His own work, the work of Christ, which, as it turns out, is not any lesser than the work done by other people. And we look with amazement upon the generosity with which the Lord recompenses all who come to Him. Some have labored throughout the entire day, while others have labored for only one hour and have not suffered the heat or toil of the day. Yet He gives the same recompense to all.

At this point a very important mystery of spiritual life is revealed to us: that in reality the Lord takes into account not the quantity of our labors, but our love. Everything we do in life is regarded by the Lord through the prism of the inner content of what we do.

This is what defines man’s entire life and his participation in the Church. It is so understandable: just like when a child draws a picture for his mother’s birthday – how precious the gift is to her! The mother is overjoyed, and this picture is dearer to her than any other gift. The same concept measures our offering to the Lord, only to an infinitely greater extent.

Let us absorb this mystery of life by remembering our New Martyrs of Russia. Let us not forget that the trials undergone in the 4th century and in the 20th century still await the Church at the very last turning point in history. The trials in which each person, the entire Church, the whole of mankind will have to make a choice: the terrible choice that was already made once when Christ was being crucified, when they shouted: “Give us not Him, but Barrabas.” The choice that was made by one of the martyrs of Sebaste, who preferred those “warm bathhouses” – life in all its well-being – to Christ. “Not Him, but Barrabas,” – such was the choice made by mankind at that time. And such will be the last choice before the end of the world. We see that it is already being made before our very eyes.

Let us remember that one person may be engaged in some grandiose activity, seemingly even a Christian one, and may occupy a very important place in the Church, while another person may be completely unnoticeable and unknown, and may perform his services humbly, quietly. Yet the Lord tests the hearts of people and accepts them not in accordance with their external service, but according to the spirit in which the person performs this service, in order to make him part of His bounty and His boundless love.

May God grant us a beneficial passage through the forty days of Great Lent. The forty martyrs are like these forty days, with each day granting us the possibility of either living or dying spiritually. Let us then die for sin, in order to become confessors of Christ’s truth, become those who prefer the Lord Christ to everything else on earth. Amen.

 

    Protopriest Alexander Shargunov

 

 

 

 

THE JOY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

 

The holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, speaking in his Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ’s last farewell talk with His disciples, cites the Saviour’s words: “Ye now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

That farewell talk at which these words were said took place during the Mystic Supper, before the Saviour’s journey to suffering. In this talk the Saviour encouraged and fortified His disciples before those great and at the same time terrible events that were to take place in the night of His suffering – His laborand death for the salvation of the world. Whoever reads or listens piously and attentively to the Gospel narrative on this talk, sees not only the divine depth of its content, but also its very special nature. Reading or hearing it, one could think that it was not the Saviour Himself who was embarking upon suffering, but rather His disciples – so agitated and upset were they, and so majestically calm was He, – knowing and seeing in advance all that He would have to undergo and suffer in just a few hours’ time. As a loving Father and a concerned Teacher He fortifies His beloved and loving children, and as a good Shepherd He prays to His Father for them…

At that time it was not yet revealed to the apostles all that their Lord and Teacher knew, but from His words and actions they clearly and undoubtedly felt that some terrible event was approaching, and that some kind of danger threatened their Teacher. It is for this reason that, comforting and encouraging them, the Lord says to them: “Ye now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

The hours of Christ the Saviour’s redemptive suffering finally arrived, and His sorrowful prediction came to pass: “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone”… The apostles became afraid and abandoned their Teacher – and were themselves left alone. Inexpressible sorrow filled their souls, and darkness enve-loped them… They loved their Lord with all their soul, all their heart, all their strength, all their thoughts, in the entire world there was no one and nothing more precious to them than He, and with His death the sun seemed to stop shining for them, and the world became empty, cold, and dark…

But then – Christ arose! A miracle of miracles occurred! There came the day of which in deep antiquity King David sang; “This day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice in it!” And the Church joyfully proclaims: “Now all is filled with light: the heavens, and the earth, and the netherworld; let all creation celebrate Christ’s resurrection, in which it is affirmed”… The feast of feasts and the triumph of triumphs!

The Holy Gospel tells us that the first word which the Lord said to the myrrh-bearing women who saw Him after His resurrection was an appeal to joy: “Rejoice!” – He told them, and bright joy filled their souls. But He also knew what sorrow and grief had taken hold of those whom in His love and compassion He had called His brothers – His beloved disciples. And thus, on this very day of His resurrection, He appears to them as they are gathered together. “And the disciples rejoiced, seeing the Lord,” – notes St. Evangelist John. What the Saviour had prophesied to the apostles at the Mystic Supper now came to pass – their souls were filled with the joy of His resurrection. Now no one could take away this joy from them, and they spread this joy to all of mankind. For in their preaching they primarily stressed the fact that they were witnesses to His resurrection, and the book of the Acts of the Apostles specifically points out that the apostles testified to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ with great power.

To this joy of Christ’s resurrection the Holy Church also summons all of us by saying: “Come, let us rejoice in the Lord who had destroyed the dominion of death”… Before Christ’s resurrection the “dominion of death” was indestructible – death lorded it over all living beings, and had the last word in regard to every living being by terminating its life. But the resurrected Christ trampled down death by death, destroyed its power, shattered the dominion of death, and now for every Christian believer death is only “eternal rest in blessed dormition” or, according to St. Basil the Great, “a passage from sorrow to that which is beneficial, sweet, comforting, and joyous.” This is what the Conqueror of hell and death granted to us through His resurrection. Come then – let us rejoice in the Lord!

And let nothing darken or take away from us the joy of the bright feast, of the great triumph of our faith, which is “the victory that overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4). Let dark clouds gather over the world. Let life become more disturbing and tense, and let our planet become like a powder keg thanks to the latest technological discoveries, ready to blow up any minute and destroy all existence. Let the world, which is getting farther and farther away from God and His truth proceed to its inevitable and inescapable end. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according to his work” – says to us the Conqueror of death and hell (Apoc. 22:11-12).

Before embarking upon His mankind-saving endeavor, Christ warned His disciples, and through them all of us who believe in Him: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He makes everyone who truly believes in Him a participant in this victory. And this victory is the victory of His Resurrection, the victory of life over death, of good over evil, of light over darkness. Let each faithful soul see Him, the Master of life and the Conqueror of death, through the eyes of faith, and let it rejoice with the triumphant joy of His Resurrection – and this joy no man will take away from it for ages unto ages!

 

Christ is risen!

 

Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)

 

 

 

LIVES OF THE SAINTS

 

On April 19^th (the 6^th by the old calendar) the Church commemorates the righteous elder Seraphim.

Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin) was born on 1/14 August 1894 in a pious noble family. The infant was called Dimitry and was the last child in the large and amicable family of the Tyapochkins. At the age of seven Dimitry was prematurely accepted into a religious institute. From a young age the boy felt God’s summons and his priestly calling.

In 1911, having received his parents’ blessing, Dimitry entered a religious seminary, and in 1917 he continued his studies at the Moscow Spiritual Academy. After the Academy was closed down in 1919, Dimitry Tyapochkin moved to Yekaterinoslav, where he was married and became ordained as a deacon and later a priest. These were the years of the godless Soviet rule’s harshest battle with the Church. Everywhere sacred objects were profaned, churches and monasteries were destroyed, the clergy was persecuted. In 1933 Father Seraphim’s beloved wife died, and in 1941 he was arrested and condemned to 10 years of concentration camps. Father Seraphim’s path of suffering began in one of the camps in Kazakhstan. Father Seraphim did not like to talk of his life in camp, but it became known from his relatives that while he was in the camp, he continued his service as a faithful pastor of Christ’s Church, led spiritual discussions with the prisoners, baptized new converts, confessed them, gave burial rites to the dead. All of this was strictly forbidden by the camp administration, and violation of the rules led to incarceration, from which one could often not return alive. Therefore, all services were held in the strictest secret from the administration. The prisoners themselves sang the services. They also prepared priestly vestments for Father Seraphim out of towels, and embroidered them with crosses. During these years in the camp Father Seraphim felt himself like a chalice, which was gradually, drop by drop, filling up with grace-filled love for God and others. At the same time his heart was becoming filled with simplicity and childish innocence. This was felt by all the prisoners who were in contact with him, even the most hardened criminals, and all of them trusted him completely.

After ten years of camp, before regaining freedom, the investigator asked Father Seraphim: “What are you planning to do when you are free?” Father Seraphim replied: “I will continue serving as a priest, just as I have up to now.” – “Well, in that case, – decided the investigator, – stay for a while yet.” And Father Seraphim was sentenced to another five years and sent into exile in the Krasnoyarsk region.

After being freed from camp in 1955, Father was taken into the Kuybyshev diocese by its Bishop Jeronimus. In 1956 there occurred an event which shook the entire Orthodox world – the famous “Zoya’s stand.” Let us briefly bring back to mind that miracle.

A certain Zoya, who was a worker at a pipe factory, decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with her friends. Her religious mother was against merriment during Nativity Lent, but Zoya did not heed her. All the friends gathered, and only Zoya’s fiancé Nikolay was delayed somewhere. The music played, the young people danced, and Zoya alone had no pair. Mad at her fiancé, Zoya took down an icon of St. Nicholas and said: “Since my Nicholas is not here, I will dance with St. Nicholas.” At her girlfriend’s counsel not to do it, Zoya arrogantly replied: “If there is a God, let Him punish me!” With these words she began dancing. At the third round the room became filled with great noise, a whirlwind appeared, a blinding light struck like lightning, and everyone ran out of the room in fear. Only Zoya remained rooted to the spot with the icon of St. Nicholas clamped to her breast, petrified and cold as marble.

She could not be moved from the spot, and her feet seemed to have grown into the floor. However, despite the lack of outward signs of life, Zoya was alive: her heart continued beating. From that time on she could neither drink, nor eat. The doctors applied all possible effort, but could not bring her to her senses. News of the miracle quickly spread all over the city, and many people came to look at Zoya’s stand. But after a while the city administration suddenly realized what was happening, and all approaches to the house were barred, a police guard was put around the building, while the curious and visitors were told that there was no miracle and nothing had happened there at all.

The guard detail that stood at Zoya’s post heard her cry out at night: “Mother! Pray! We are perishing in our sins! Pray!” Medical investigation confirmed that the young woman’s heartbeat had not ceased despite the petrification of her tissues (they could not even give her any shots – all the needles broke off). All invited priests, after finishing their prayers, were unable to take the icon out of her frozen hands. But on the feast of Christ’s Nativity Father Seraphim (then still Dimitry) came, served a moleben, and blessed the entire room. After that he took the icon out of Zoya’s hands and said: “Now we must wait for a sign on the Great Day (i.e. Pascha).”

Before the feast of Annunciation a certain old man of noble appearance asked the guard to let him through. He was refused. He appeared on the next day, but the next shift did not let him through either. On the third day, on the very day of the feast, the guard did not detain him. The guards on duty heard the old man say to Zoya: “Well now, are you tired of standing?” Some time passed, but the old man did not come out. When they looked into the room, he could not be found (all the witnesses were sure that it was St. Nicholas himself who had appeared).

Zoya stood for 4 months, until the very day of Pascha. In the night of the bright Resurrection of Christ, Zoya loudly cried out: “Pray! It is terrible, the earth is burning! All the world is perishing in sin! Pray!” From that time she began to come alive, her muscles became softer, more pliable. She was laid in bed, but she continued to cry out and ask everyone to pray for the world perishing in sin and for the earth burning in iniquity.

By the prayers of St. Nicholas the Lord showed mercy upon her, accepted her repentance, and forgave her sins… All that happened so amazed the inhabitants of Kuybyshevo and its environs that many people turned to faith.

After Father Seraphim took the icon from Zoya, he was arrested. He spent two years in prison. He was forbidden to tell anyone of taking Zoya’s icon, and after his term ended he was sent to serve in a distant village. However, a great flow of pilgrims continued to arrive there, wishing to venerate this miraculous icon, which always stood in the church where Father Seraphim served. After a while the authorities demanded that the icon be removed, and it was transferred to the altar.

In 1960 protopriest Dimitry Tyapochkin was tonsured into monasticism with the name of Seraphim, and the following year hieromonk Seraphim was made an abbot. At first no one came to the services in his village church, sometimes only two or three old women. The walls of the church were covered with frost, and snow fell from above. It was obviously necessary to begin repairs, find people, resources, materials. But Father Seraphim did not make any visible efforts to engage in reconstructive work. Except for daily prayer. And gradually help came. The Lord sent donors, helpers, builders, – all that was necessary.

Father Seraphim loved church services and was piously strict in following church rules. In the altar the elder stood with great awe and always served the liturgy in a pious condition. Father Seraphim considered sermons to be an integral part of the service and constantly preached in church. He spoke feelingly and with heartfelt conviction. To each listener was revealed that which was necessary to him at the moment. During confession Father Seraphim helped people open up their souls with all sincerity. He knew from experience that without help from above a person cannot offer true penitence to God, and so he himself, often with tears, quietly pleaded with God to send the grace of penitence to the sinners.

The Lord granted Father Seraphim a peaceful and blessed Christian end. He reposed in the Lord on April 19, 1982, on the second day of Christ’s bright Resurrection.

 

 

 

 

 

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

 

NOAH’S ARK ON MOUNT ARARAT

 

For many years the Russian people were brainwashed into believing that the Deluge and the story of Noah were simply myths that had nothing to do with science. But recently some secret Soviet intelligence materials have come to light which confirm that back in the 1940s a Russian pilot, flying over Mt. Ararat, saw a huge ship on top of the mountain, frozen into a high mountain lake…

What do we know about Noah’s ark? From the offspring of Adam and Eve mankind multiplied very rapidly. From Seth came pious and good people – the sons of God, while from Cain the wicked and evil ones – the sons of men. Mingling among themselves, the descendants of Cain and Seth became depraved and iniquitous. Out of the whole of mankind only Noah and his family remained righteous. At that point God decided to cleanse the earth of iniquitous humanity, but to preserve the righteous Noah and his family for the restoration of mankind.

God appeared to Noah and warned him that He would send a deluge upon the earth in order to destroy the wicked people. He commanded Noah to build an ark – an enormous ship into which his family and the animals could be placed. Noah was told the exact measurements of the ship: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width, and 30 cubits in height (150 x 25 x 15 meters). This was an enormous structure, which Noah proceeded to build over a period of several decades.

In the age of rationalism doubts began to be expressed concerning the reality of the events described in the Bible, that supposedly the story of Noah was nothing more than a myth, despite the fact that all over the world there are various inexplicable structures attesting to the fact that the technical knowledge of antediluvian mankind was on a much higher level than that of contemporary mankind.

Strangely, the first confirmation of Noah’s story was found by scientists precisely in mythology. It turned out that diverse peoples, totally unrelated to one another and living on different continents, have legends very similar in content concerning a deluge and the salvation of chosen individuals.

The second confirmation of the historicity of a universal deluge came from modern geology, which found proof of a global catastrophe in the earth’s fossil layers.

But the most vivid confirmation of the universal deluge and the story of Noah would have come from the discovery of Noah’s ark.

The Bible says that the ark landed on top of the Ararat mountains. The Greater Ararat is a mountain 5,165 meters high, whose top is eternally covered with ice to a depth of almost one kilometer. In the early 1950s mountaineers made two attempts to find Noah’s ark, but both were unsuccessful due to snowstorms. The search was also made more difficult by Ararat’s location at the intersection of the borders of three countries that have concluded an agreement forbidding the ascent of Ararat.

In recent times the ark was discovered by French mountaineer Fernand Navarra. A report of this discovery in 1955 became a sensation. Navarra found the ark frozen into the ice of a mountain lake located at an altitude of 5 kilometers from the top, and was able to cut out a piece of the hull. A radioactive analysis performed in several countries confirmed the age of the structure – circa five thousand years. Scientists believe that the ark, which used to sit on the very top of the mountain, gradually slid down under pressure from snow avalanches, until it came to rest and froze into a lake situated in the path of its descent. The expedition was conducted by Navarra without official authorization. He was shot at by border guards and arrested, but was later let go with his photographs and the piece of the hull.

Navarra was not the first discoverer of the ark. In the 3rd century B.C., Babylonian and Greek historians wrote of how an ancient ark lay in the Kurdish mountains of Armenia, and how people tore off pieces of tar from it to use as antidotes or amulets. In his opus “Judean Antiquities” (1st century A.D.), Joseph Flavius reported that many people brought down pieces of the ark from Ararat. The same was confirmed by Theophanus of Antioch in the year 180.

Several reports appeared in the 19th century about people having seen the ark, while the Turks reported that they even went inside the ship, which was built with partitions that were now filled with ice.

One of the most interesting confirmations of the ark was obtained in 1916, when the Russian aviator Roskovitsky unexpectedly saw the ark while flying near the top of the mountain. That year the weather was warmer, the snows on the Ararat melted down more than usual, and the ark could be seen more clearly. Roskovitsky reported his find to his superior, who repeated the fly-by with the aviator and then sent off a report to the Russian government. Emperor Nicholas II ordered an official expedition to be sent to Ararat which, despite many difficulties related to bad weather and snow avalanches, was still able to reach its goal and found the ark roughly in the same location and the same condition as it was later found by Fernand Navarra. A detailed report on the results of the expedition was sent to the Russian Imperial government, but by that time a revolution had taken place in Russia, and the report was “misplaced” (or deliberately kept quiet or even destroyed). Several years later, living abroad as an émigré, Roskovitsky revealed this story, but his account was doubted and even ridiculed, because it was no longer in keeping with the spirit of the times.

Only Navarra, some decades later, with his photos and his scientific research was visibly able to confirm the existence of the ark. Several more expeditions ascended the Ararat after him, bringing back new proofs and pieces of the hull. The ascents continued until the mid-70s, when the Turkish government firmly forbade any further climbing of Mt. Ararat.

 

(Reprinted from “Orthodox Votkinsk,” No. 8, 2001)

 

 

 

 

SPRINGTIME

 

 

With the chant of paschal prayers And a pealing of the bells, Spring comes bursting in upon us From its distant southern lairs. And today in our garden, In a shy, secluded spot, I saw lilies of the valley Kiss a white-winged pale moth.   - K.M. Fofanov