Is the Kingdom of Heaven Really Within You?

 

by Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

The Catalog of Good Deeds

(icon from here)

 

In Scripture Jesus tells us “The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) How do we know this? We know it  when we experience joy, not just happiness, but a feeling that transcends happiness.  It is a feeling that comes from the heart when we know God is with us. 

But what is the opposite of this? Elder Paisios tells us that it is “when we have anxiety, feelings of guilt, then there is a portion of hell within us.”

When we are sadled with anxiety we have left Paradise and find ourselves mired in hell. This is common condition for most people today. Many drugs that we regularly take are for relieving us from this anxiety we experience in our daily life. But we are capable without any medications to experience joy from all our activities in life.

Elder Paisios says, 

“It isn’t difficult to achieve this; but unfortunately, egoism prevents us from this spiritual magnificence.”

What is required to change this anxiety into joy? The key according the Elder Paisios is to allow God to govern our lives. The involves a surrender of our ego to the Church, to Christ whose Church is His Body. In the Church we are guided through the services, sacraments, teachings about prayer and ascetic practices like fasting to overcome our ego-centeredness and become Christ-centered.  But first we have to choose to surrender to the teachings of the Church.  We must pray often and for sure every morning and evening. We need to follow the liturgical calendar, and participate regularly in the sacraments, especially Holy Communion and Confession. We must follow the fasting guidelines fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays as well as during the  fasting periods like Great Lent. We must read Scripture and the writings of the Holy Fathers.  We must make Christ and participation in His Church a top priority in our lives as well as the life of our entire family. Scripture says, “Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33)
Elder Paisios says,

People today have made their lives difficult, because they are not satisfied with a few things, but are constantly chasing after more and more material goods. But those who would like to live a genuine spiritual life must first of all be satisfied with a few things. When their life is simplified, without too many concerns and nuisances, not only will they be liberated from the worldly spirit, they will also have plenty of time available for spiritual things. Otherwise they will tire themselves out by trying to follow the fashion of the times; they will lose their serenity and will gain only great anxiety.”

Examine your life and search for all those things which are not necessary, that only complicate what otherwise could be quite simple.
The elder gives a very simple example of a man who asked him to come to his home. When he arrived he notices that the man took of his shoes and walked carefully on his toes.  He asked him, “Why are you walking like that?”  He replied, “Its nothing Geronda; I am walking careful so that I don’t ruin the parquet.”
See how easy it is to complicate our lives? We decorate, we clean, we strive to make money so we can redecorate only to worry about maintaining an appearance. The same goes with our clothing.  Also our hobbies, our vacations and so forth.  How about all the activities we have our children enrolled in. They keep us busy as well as themselves. Where is time for the creative time at home doing art things with Mom or Dad as I remember from my youth; for apple picking, for building a model railroad, for reading, for climbing trees and and laying on top the vines that have grown over them gazing into the heavens  wondering how far the sky goes? We organize everything these days and it only complicates our lives, shuts us off from joy making it more burdensome financially and more stressful to keep up with it all. Joy is replaced with achievement which is always only temporary happiness.  
Seek simplicity in your life and you can discover the Kingdom of God within.

By Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Counsels IV: Family Life, p160

 

St. John the Russian, the Free & Wonderworker Slave, & St. Andrew the Fool for Christ (May 27 & 28)

Please, see:

 

St. John the Russian, the Free & Wonderworker Slave! (May 27)

 St. Andrew the Fool for Christ, who pretended insanity by day, but prayed to God all night long (May 28)

Being Saved – The Ontological Approach

Fr. Stephen Freeman

Ancient faith / Glory 2 God for all things

 

 

I cannot begin to count the number of times I wished there were a simple, felicitous word for “ontological.” I dislike writing theology with words that have to be explained – that is, words whose meanings are not immediately obvious. But, alas, I have found no substitute and will, therefore, beg my reader’s indulgence for dragging such a word into our conversations.
From the earliest times in the Church, but especially beginning with St. Athanasius in the 4^th century as the great Ecumenical Councils took shape, the doctrines of the Church have been expressed and debated within the terms related to being itself. For example, St. Athanasius says that in creating us, God gave us “being” (existence), with a view that we should move towards “well-being,” and with the end of “eternal being” (salvation). That three-fold scheme is a very common theme in patristic thought, championed and used again in the work of St. Maximus the Confessor with great precision, as he matured the thought of the Church as affirmed in the 5^th Council.
At the same time, this language of being was used to speak about the nature and character of salvation, the same terms and imagery were being used to speak about the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. That language continues up through the Seventh Council and is the language used to define the doctrine of the veneration of the Holy Icons. Conciliar thought, carried on within the terms of being (being, non-being, nature, person, existence, hypostatic representation, essence, energies, etc.) can be described as speaking in the language of “ontology.” Ontology is the technical name for things having to do with being (“onto” as a prefix in Greek means “being”). There is a “seamless garment” of theological exposition that can be discerned across the range of the Councils. It is ontological in character.
Tremendous work and discussion on the part of the fathers resulted in a common language for speaking about all of these questions. Thus, the term “person” (an aspect of “being”) is used both for speaking about the Trinity as well as speaking about human persons and the one person of Christ in two natures. It is the primary “grammar” of Orthodox conciliar thought. No other imagery or language receives the kind of imprimatur as the terms raised up into the formal declarations of the Church’s teaching. To a degree, everything else is commentary.
Many other images have been used alongside the ontological work of the Councils. The Church teaches and a good teacher draws on anything at hand to enlighten its students. Nevertheless, the dogmatic language of the Church has been that of “being.”

So what constitutes an “ontological” approach to salvation?
Here is an example. “Morality” is a word and concept that applies to behavior and an adherence to rules and laws. “Immorality” is the breaking of those laws. You can write about sin (and thus salvation) in the language of morality and never make reference to the language of being. But what is created becomes a sort of separate thing from the conciliar language of the Church. Over the centuries, this has often happened in theology, particularly Western theology (Protestant and Catholic). The result is various “departments” of thought, without a common connection. It can lead to confusion and contradiction.
There is within Orthodoxy, an argument that says we are on the strongest ground when we speak in the language of the Councils. The language of “being” comes closer to accurately expressing what is actually taking place. Though all language has a “metaphoric” character, the language of being is, I think, the least metaphorical. It is about “what is.”
Back to the imagery of morality. If you speak of right and wrong in terms of being, it is generally expressed as either moving towards the path of well-being-eternal-being, or moving away from it, that is, taking a path towards non-being. What does the path of non-being look like? It looks like disintegration, a progressive “falling apart” of existence. The New Testament uses the term phthora (“corruption”) to describe this. Phthora is what happens to a body when it dies. Death, in the New Testament, is often linked to sin (“sin and death”). It is the result of moving away from God, destroying our communion with Him.
For most modern people, death is seen as simply a fact of life, a morally neutral thing. It can’t be a moral question, we think, because you can’t help dying. But, in the New Testament and the Scriptures, death is quite synonymous with sin. When Adam and Eve sin, they are told that it will result in death (a very ontological problem). A moral approach to that fact tends to see “sin” as the defining term and death as merely the punishment. The ontological approach sees death itself as the issue and the term that defines the meaning of sin. Sin is death. Death is sin.
And so, the language of the Church emphasizes that Christ “trampled down death by death.” In the language of ontology, that simple statement says everything. “He trampled down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowed life.” This includes the destruction of sin, freedom from the devil, forgiveness of sins, etc. But all of those things are included in the words of “death” and “life.”

An advantage in speaking in this manner can again be seen in comparing it to a simple moral approach. Morality is about actions, obedience, and disobedience. It says nothing about the person actually doing those things (or it can certainly avoid that topic). It can mislead people into thinking that being and existence are neutral sorts of things and that what matters is how we behave. This can be coupled with the modern heresy of secularism in which it is asserted that things have an existence apart from God, that the universe is just a “neutral no-man’s land.” The ontological approach denies this and affirms that God upholds everything in existence, moment by moment. It affirms that existence itself is a good thing and an expression of God’s goodness. It says as well that it is the purpose of all things that exist to be in communion with God and move towards eternal being. It is the fullness of salvation expressed in Romans 8:21-22.
Moral imagery also tends to see the world as disconnected. We are simply a collection of independent moral agents, being judged on our behavior. What I do is what I do, and what you do is what you do, and there is nothing particularly connected about any of it. The language of being is quite different. Everything in creation that exists shares in the commonality of created being. What happens to any one thing effects everything else. There is true communion at the very root of existence.
And it is this communion of being that the fathers use when they speak of Christ’s Incarnation and our salvation. When the Creed says, “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man,” it is speaking about salvation. It does not say, “Who, in order to pay the penalty that was due…” Such language can be used and has been used, but it is not at the heart of the Conciliar words of the Church. It is not recited every Sunday.
So how does Christ save us in terms of being? In essence (no pun intended), He became what we were in order to make us what He is. He became man, entering and restoring the full communion which we had broken. The Lord and Giver of Life, the Author of our Being entered into dying humanity. He took our dying humanity on Himself and entered into the very depths of that death (“suffered death and was buried”). He then raised that same dying humanity into His own eternal life. This is our forgiveness of sins. If sin is death, then resurrection is forgiveness. Thus we sing at Pascha:

“Let us call brothers even those that hate us and forgive all by the resurrection.” That sentence only makes sense in terms of the ontological language in which it is written.

We do bad things (immoral things) because we have broken communion with God. “Sins” are the symptoms and signs of death, decay, corruption, and disintegration at work in the soul. If left unattended, it will drag us into the very depths of near non-being in what can properly be described as hell. This is reflected in the Psalm verse, “The dead do not praise the LORD, Nor any who go down into silence.” (Psa 115:17)
In Holy Baptism, we are asked, “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” This is the language of being and communion. St. Paul tells us that in Baptism we are united to Christ in His death and raised in the likeness of His resurrection. He then adds that we should “walk in newness of life.” That union with Christ and infusion of His Life creates a moral change that can be described in the language of being.
The unity of language, I believe, is very helpful and salutary. It is easy for modern believers, nurtured in the language of morality, to hear teachings about the Trinity and the two natures of Christ, etc., and think, “What has any of that got to do with my life?” That is a natural conclusion when salvation is expressed in a language that is separated from the language of the doctrinal foundations of the Church.
There are some who have pushed the moral language into the language of the Trinity, such that what is important is the Son’s propitiation of the Father’s wrath. Such terms find no place within the Conciliar thought of the Church and can (and have) created problems. It is not that such terms have no use nor that they have never been used by any of the Fathers at any time. But they have a long history of being misused and distorting and obscuring the foundational doctrines of the Church.

In my own life, I personally found the language of being, when applied to my salvation, to explain the meaning of Scripture more thoroughly and connect my daily life and actions to the most fundamental doctrines of the Church. It allowed me to read St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Maximus and a host of others without feeling that I had come to something foreign. It more than adequately addresses moral questions, whereas moral language cannot address anything else and creates problems and heresies when it is imported into the language of the Trinity. I should add that I have worked within this for nearly 30 years and have found nothing within Scripture than cannot be understood within the ontological understanding and that doing so frequently takes you deeper into understanding what is actually going on. It also forces you to ask the questions of “how does this relate to everything else?”
I hope this little introductory train of thought is helpful for those who are thinking about these things. It should explain why I see this as important and something that goes to the very heart of the Orthodox faith.

SAINT CONSTANTINE: FROM LEGEND TO REVILEMENT / Saint Constantin le Grand, le premier empereur chrétien, et le Sainte Hélène (21 May)

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Saint Constantin le Grand, le premier empereur chrétien, et le Sainte Hélène (21 May)

Photo d'ici: «En trente et un ans de règne, Constantin avait su mettre fin aux luttes fratricides de la Tétrarchie et pacifier les frontières de Rome, il avait rétablit l’autorité de l’Etat dans les provinces de l’empire et œuvré pour rétablir la justice. En réformateur, il avait continué l’œuvre entreprit par son prédécesseur Dioclétien. 

En bâtisseur, il avait fondé la capitale d’un de empire qui aura l’une des plus longue longévité de l’Histoire. En chrétien, il avait amorcé la conversion de l’empire, tout en essayant de mettre fin aux querelles qui minaient le christianisme. Mais tout en respectant les païens. Parmi toute la ribambelle de monarques et de dirigeants qui se sont affublés le surnom de " Grand ", il est sûrement l’un des seuls à l’avoir mérité»

 

SAINT CONSTANTINE: FROM LEGEND TO REVILEMENT

 

Είναι άγιος ή όχι ο Μ. Κωνσταντίνος;
 
Η αγιότητα του Μ. Κωνσταντίνου
 
Το πολιτικό μανιφέστο του αγ. Κωνσταντίνου

Άγιος Κωνσταντίνος, από το θρύλο στην ύβρι
 
Ο ρόλος του αυτοκράτορα στην Α΄ Οικουμενική Σύνοδο
 

Love is a wound!...

The truth is that love is counted by the wounds that it leaves on the soul and the body

Fr. Haralambos Libyos Papadopoulos
Orthodox Outlet for Dogmatic Enquiries

Those we had loved had probably tormented us very much. 

Those we had loved, we had most probably likewise tormented.

The mark that love imprints inside us is not the words that we have exchanged, but rather the pain we have felt, the sacrifices we have made and the light that we have partaken of...

In the words of the Metropolitan of Gortyna in one of his evening sermons:

“When Christ needed to convince His disciples that it was truly He -their Lord- who had appeared before them, He did not display the triumph of His Resurrection, but instead his wounds.”

He said:  “Come and see My wounds; place your hand on the wounds of My love for you.”

What He was essentially saying to them was:  “Don’t you remember Me?  Don’t you recognize Me?  It is I, who have loved you even to the death.  Just look at the proof of My wounds.”

In the Kingdom of God, we will not be identified thanks to our successes and our achievements, but our sorrows and the torments we have suffered

Just like that poor, suffering woman undergoing dialysis who happened to show her wounds to the Elder (Saint) Paisios, and calmly saying:  "Look, Elder, at my open wound... you can clearly see my bone through it ..."  

To which the Saint replied: "I can't see any bone through your wound; what I can see however, is Paradise..."

  

Translation: K.N.

"Cyril & Methodius, the Apostles of Slavs", full movie with English subtitles (2013)!

 
Honey and Hemlock
Suraj Sebastian

Hollywood doesn’t make many big-budget films of holy people, and when they do, it’s usually a dog’s breakfast. However, an exciting docudrama project from the Czech Republic in 2013 has resulted in an excellent series on the lives and historical importance of the two brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius.
Saints Cyril and Methodius were two Byzantine brothers born in the 9th century who became prominent Christian missionaries. Their mission influenced the cultural development of all Slavic nations, for which they are called the Apostles of the Slavs. In order to commemorate the 1150th anniversary of their legacy, a 4-part docudrama was created tracing their lives and work.
This project, established in the Czech Republic, involved cooperation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as these saints established what would be the foundation and future development of Czech and Slavic culture and education.
The series follows Cyril and Methodius, two Byzantine Greek brothers born in the 9th century. They became missionaries of Christianity and influenced the cultural development of the Great Moravian territory.
Original title: Cyril and Methodius – The Apostles of the Slavs. Audio: German. Subtitles: English. Format: HD. Director: Petr Nikolaev. Writers: Petr Hudský, Miroslav Oscatka. Stars: Josef Abrhám, Milan Bahúl, Jirí Bohm.
Cast: Methodius - Roman Zach, Cyril - Ondřej Novák, Fotios - Josef Abrhám, Hermanrich - Marian Roden, Rostislav - Milan Bahul, Svatopluk - Jan Jankovský, Živena - Radka Fidlerová.

Equals of the Apostles and Teachers of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius  

 

Commemorated on May 11

Orthodox Church in America

 

Troparion & Kontakion

Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equals of the Apostles, and Enlighteners of the Slavs came from an illustrious and pious family living in the Greek city of Thessalonica. Saint Methodius was the oldest of seven brothers, Saint Constantine [Cyril was his monastic name] was the youngest. At first Saint Methodius was in the military and was governor in one of the Slavic principalities dependent on the Byzantine Empire, probably Bulgaria, which made it possible for him to learn the Slavic language. After living there for about ten years, Saint Methodius later received monastic tonsure at one of the monasteries on Mount Olympus (Asia Minor).

Saint Constantine distinguished himself by his great aptitude, and he studied with the emperor Michael under the finest teachers in Constantinople, including Saint Photius, the future Patriarch of Constantinople (February 6).

Saint Constantine studied all the sciences of his time, and also knew several languages. He also studied the works of Saint Gregory the Theologian. Because of his keen mind and penetrating intellect, Saint Constantine was called “Philosopher” (wise). Upon the completion of his education, Saint Constantine was ordained to the holy priesthood and was appointed curator of the patriarchal library at the church of Hagia Sophia. He soon left the capital and went secretly to a monastery.

Discovered there, he returned to Constantinople, where he was appointed as instructor in philosophy. The young Constantine’s wisdom and faith were so great that he won a debate with Ananias, the leader of the heretical iconclasts. After this victory Constantine was sent by the emperor to discuss the Holy Trinity with the Saracens, and again he gained the victory. When he returned, Saint Constantine went to his brother Saint Methodius on Olympus, spending his time in unceasing prayer and reading the works of the holy Fathers.

The emperor soon summoned both of the holy brothers from the monastery and sent them to preach the Gospel to the Khazars. Along the way they stayed in the city of Korsun, making preparations for their missionary activity. There the holy brothers miraculously discovered the relics of the hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome (November 25).

There in Korsun Saint Constantine found a Gospel and Psalter written in Russian letters [i.e. Slavonic], and a man speaking the Slavic tongue, and he learned from this man how to read and speak this language. After this, the holy brothers went to the Khazars, where they won a debate with Jews and Moslems by preaching the Gospel. On the way home, the brothers again visited Korsun and, taking up the relics of Saint Clement, they returned to Constantinople. Saint Constantine remained in the capital, but Saint Methodius was made igumen of the small Polychronion monastery near Mount Olympus, where he lived a life of asceticism as before. 

 

Saints Cyril & Methodius, Czechia (from here)

Soon messengers came to the emperor from the Moravian prince Rostislav, who was under pressure from German bishops, with a request to send teachers to Moravia who would be able to preach in the Slavic tongue. The emperor summoned Saint Constantine and said to him, “You must go there, but it would be better if no one knows about this.”

Saint Constantine prepared for the new task with fasting and prayer. With the help of his brother Saint Methodius and the disciples Gorazd, Clement, Sava, Naum and Angelyar, he devised a Slavonic alphabet and translated the books which were necessary for the celebration of the divine services: the Gospel, Epistles, Psalter, and collected services, into the Slavic tongue. This occurred in the year 863.

After completing the translation, the holy brothers went to Moravia, where they were received with great honor, and they began to teach the services in the Slavic language. This aroused the malice of the German bishops, who celebrated divine services in the Moravian churches in Latin. They rose up against the holy brothers, convinced that divine services must be done in one of three languages: Hebrew, Greek or Latin.

Saint Constantine said, “You only recognize three languages in which God may be glorified. But David sang, ‘Praise the Lord, all nations, praise the Lord all peoples (Ps 116/117:1).’ And the Gospel of Saint Matthew (28:18) says, ‘Go and teach all nations....’” The German bishops were humiliated, but they became bitter and complained to Rome.

The holy brothers were summoned to Rome for a decision on this matter. Taking with them the relics of Saint Clement, Saints Constantine and Methodius set off to Rome. Knowing that the holy brothers were bringing these relics with them, Pope Adrian met them along the way with his clergy. The holy brothers were greeted with honor, the Pope gave permission to have divine services in the Slavonic language, and he ordered the books translated by the brothers to be placed in the Latin churches, and to serve the Liturgy in the Slavonic language.

At Rome Saint Constantine fell ill, and the Lord revealed to him his approaching death. He was tonsured into the monastic schema with the name of Cyril. On February 14, 869, fifty days after receiving the schema, Saint Cyril died at the age of forty-two.

Saint Cyril commanded his brother Saint Methodius to continue with their task of enlightening the Slavic peoples with the light of the true Faith. Saint Methodius entreated the Pope to send the body of his brother for burial in their native land, but the Pope ordered the relics of Saint Cyril to be placed in the church of Saint Clement, where miracles began to occur from them.

After the death of Saint Cyril, the Pope sent Saint Methodius to Pannonia, after consecrating him as Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia, on the ancient throne of Saint Andronicus (July 30). In Pannonia Saint Methodius and his disciples continued to distribute services books written in the Slavonic language. This again aroused the wrath of the German bishops. They arrested and tried Saint Methodius, who was sent in chains to Swabia, where he endured many sufferings for two and a half years.

After being set free by order of Pope John VIII of Rome, and restored to his archdiocese, Saint Methodius continued to preach the Gospel among the Slavs. He baptized the Czech prince Borivoi and his wife Ludmilla (September 16), and also one of the Polish princes. The German bishops began to persecute the saint for a third time, because he did not accept the erroneous teaching about the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son. Saint Methodius was summoned to Rome, but he justified himself before the Pope, and preserved the Orthodox teaching in its purity, and was sent again to the capital of Moravia, Velehrad.

Here in the remaining years of his life Saint Methodius, assisted by two of his former pupils, translated the entire Old Testament into Slavonic, except for the Book of Maccabbees, and even the Nomocanon (Rule of the Holy Fathers) and Paterikon (book of the Holy Fathers).

Sensing the nearness of death, Saint Methodius designated one of his students, Gorazd, as a worthy successor to himself. The holy bishop predicted the day of his death and died on April 6, 885 when he was about sixty years old. The saint’s burial service was chanted in three languages, Slavonic, Greek, and Latin. He was buried in the cathedral church of Velehrad.

See also
 
Mad Max & Orthodox Christianity!
Orthodox Christianity In Czech and Slovakia Is Growing
Basic Points of Difference between the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church
The Way - An introduction to the Orthodox Faith
Protestants ask: Why be Orthodox?
The Road to Rome? Why Orthodoxy Deserves a Look
The ancient Christian Church - About Orthodox Church in the West World...
I love the Pope & the Roman Catholic faithful, but...

During the time that Luther and Calvin were formulating the Reformation...
"True freedom is to choose the better in the light of truth..."
Miley Cyrus, or: why Orthodox Mission in the West is an urgent need...
LIVE, BEYOND THE LIMITS!
Theosis (deification): The True Purpose of Human Life
Theosis, St. Silouan and Elder Sophrony
Orthodoxy's Worship: The Sanctification of the Entire World  

The Life-Giving Spring & the Sunday of Saint Thomas...

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Bright Friday: The Life-Giving Spring of the Theotokos! 

Sunday of Saint Thomas (2nd Sunday after Easter) - The example of the doubting