The Catalog of Good Deeds

A rude word out of a baby’s mouth isn’t something extraordinary nowadays. A four-year-old toddler can sometimes say a foul word that a drunken sailor would be ashamed of. “Where do they learn all those words?” the embarrassed parents gasp in bewilderment. “We never say words like these at home.” If you really never say “words like these”, hopefully we will be able to correct this situation.

Even if you don’t use foul language, your neighbors and their children, as well as other children in the kindergarten and at school, along with some of your guests, passers-by, and characters from YouTube videos that you let your children binge watch to get them occupied with anything, do. You say you avoid all those things? Great but the issue with worldly influences remains. You can’t shield your child from all dangers and evils of this world, for then must ye needs go out of the world. (1 Cor. 5:10).

What shall we do? You’ve got to teach your children to tell good from evil, useful from harmful, holy from sinful. You’ve got to teach your children to be thoughtful and responsible. You’ve got to teach them not just to avoid bad language but also regard the gift of speech as a God’s gift in general. You’ve got to teach them to use their tongues in moderation and in a clever manner. It’s high time that they learned it!

Having assigned themselves this lofty task and hasty to see the results, parents can start beating their children up and doing other unseemly things—and to no avail, in my opinion. Your child will not appreciate your deeply held righteous motives; she will resent you and feel the urge to do the opposite of what you’re trying to teach her.

Another extreme way to achieve your goal is making your child listen to your abstract and lengthy moralising. A child usually finds an abstract thought hard to memorize. Her world is filled with objects and feelings, not concepts. Children like to touch, smell, taste, or disassemble things. They can’t live without interaction and contact with the environment. A smack on the head is wrong; abstract moralising is wrong, too. You have to find the perfect balance.

When I happened to utter a foul word in my mother’s presence (I had heard it from my friends), she sent me to wash my mouth with soap. I was rubbing my lips and tongue with the bitter detergent and thinking that words can be dirty, too. Old school, huh? I don’t think anyone uses this method any longer nowadays but it made a huge impression on me and I didn’t feel offended or humiliated.

However, we should look for other ways of explaining this point. I’ve found one such way, not far from the soap: toothpaste. Dear readers, here is a sketch of a class on The Gift of Human Speech, for children aged (approximately) 6-9.

You will need several toothpaste tubes. Find an appropriate moment and be serious and focused: yours is an important mission.

Lesson 1. Recklessness

Give one tube to your child and invite him or her to squeeze all toothpaste onto a plate. “Dreams come true,” he or she will think and start doing it vigorously. When the child hands you the empty tube, smile and ask him or her to… put the toothpaste back into the tube.

Naturally, toothpaste won’t get back into the tube. That is when you will rightfully conclude that “a word is like toothpaste: once out, you won’t bring it back in.” An empty tube looks ugly; people throw it into a trash can. A verbose person is often considered empty and unworthy of paying attention to.

One more thing. If anything goes wrong, children sometimes say the magic phrase, “I take my words back.” The example of the squeezed toothpaste teaches them that what they do is hide the plate behind their back and pretend that the toothpaste isn’t there but it is a lie. As soon as the word enters the world, it begins to act, healing or crippling, building or destroying. You’ve got to bear responsibility for every word.

Lesson 2. Talking Too Much

Take another tube and another plate, this time with patterns or a drawing. Invite your child to repeat the contours on the plate with toothpaste. Encourage your child to imagine that she is a maverick artist who always wants to try something new. Praise her for her effort and say that it’s one thing to squeeze everything at once and the other thing to squeeze the toothpaste bit by bit and only where needed. It’s more difficult but the difference between a shapeless mass and a masterpiece is evident. Talking only as much as necessary is a great achievement that pleases our Heavenly Father.

Lesson 3. Slander and Flattery

If your son or daughter has already been to summer camps and seen the practice of smearing a sleeping person with toothpaste, typical of those places, you can give them this example to teach them about words that people can use to besmirch a person: to libel a righteous person or to justify a bad person. Applying toothpaste to your summer camp friend’s face isn’t the proper way of using this substance. The Lord gave us the gift of speech not for slander or flattery.

Lesson 4. Switcheroo

Finally, it’s time for the last tube, which is a special one. It appears to be the same as the other three, but this isn’t the case. You had previously replaced the toothpaste with shoe polish and made it look like toothpaste. Ask your child to apply this paste on a new toothbrush. Imagine how surprised she will be when a strange-smelling black substance will go out of the tube instead of the colorful and fragrant white toothpaste. Ask her if she likes it. Build your discussion in such a way as to make your child understand that foul language does not correspond to our calling. God wants to hear certain kinds of words from us but sometimes hears different words. The toothbrush is spoiled by the shoe polish, and we’ll have to throw it away. Isn’t it a symbol that shows how destructive swearing is?

I believe that’s all with regard to toothpaste. I’m sure, though, that there are some other funny ways to help children make sense of our complicated life. You can correct most of the character flaws of your child, hopefully—but only if you, dear readers, serve as a good example for your children and don’t use foul language.

By Fr. Leonid Kudryachov

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

St. Moses is a perfect example, like St. Mary of Egypt, that sometimes the greatest sinners can become the greatest saints, by means of deep and sincere repentance. Moses had been a murderer, a thief, and a very violent person. Therefore, St. Moses is a marvelous model for us of the power of repentance and of God’s forgiveness, especially for those who might feel that they are too sinful to be reconciled to God and His Holy Church, because they have strayed and fallen into sin. The “righteous” can be further from God than the sinner, because the “righteous,” like the pharisee and the elder son of Jesus’ parables, do not see their sins, and therefore are filled with pride instead of humility. In contrast, like Jesus’ prodigal son and tax-collector, the great sinner who repents can grow ever closer to God by means of his continued sincere repentance and consequent humility and self-abasement. St. Moses is just such a person.

St. Moses lived in Egypt during the fourth century. He was a very dark-skinned Ethiopian, and thus is also called St. Moses the Black. In his youth he was a slave of a high-ranking man, but after Moses committed a murder, his master banished him. Filled with much anger and bitterness, Moses joined a band of thieves who attacked, robbed and murdered travelers in the Egyptian desert. His band of brigands chose Moses as their leader because of his enormous physical strength and readiness to sin. People were afraid at the mere mention of his name.

After a number of years of this sinful life, by the grace of God, Moses repented, abandoned his band of robbers and went to one of the desert monasteries. He had to weep and beg for a long time before the brethren believed he was sincere, and finally they accepted him. He wept bitter tears of repentance for his sinful life, and became very obedient to the abbot, his spiritual father and confessor, Abba (Father) Isidore, a wise and experienced spiritual guide. After a while, Moses withdrew to a solitary cell, where he prayed, fasted, and continued to struggle against the passions and the violent attacks of demons, with the guidance of Abba Isidore, who taught him how to pray all night and to struggle against the demons. His long struggle with the passions and demons was necessary in order to become completely cleansed of his former sins. In his battle between the legions of demons and angels, Abba Isidore assured Moses that the angels would prevail.

One time four robbers of his former band attacked him in his solitary cell, not realizing who he was. Having lost none of his great physical strength, Moses tied them up, threw them over his shoulder, and brought them to the monastery, where the elders said to release them. Upon learning that this was Moses, their former ringleader, and that he had dealt with them kindly, they followed his example, repented and also became monks. When the rest of the band of thieves learned what happened, they too abandoned their life of sin and became fervent monks.

Intensifying his spiritual efforts, St. Moses started carrying water every night from the well to each of the brothers, especially for the Elders, who lived far from the well, and for whom it was difficult to carry water. Once, while leaning over the well, the demons took revenge for Moses’ victory over them, and delivered such a severe blow to Moses’ back, that he fell unconscious, and for an entire year he lay crippled in his cell. After this, he was healed and was freed from his passions, and received from the Lord power over demons.

As the years went on, and word about St. Moses spread, people started coming to see him, and Moses left his cell to hide from visitors. Along the way he met the servants of the local governor who were sent to find the saintly desert dweller. Moses told them, “go no further to see this false and unworthy monk.” When the servants returned to the governor at the monastery, they learned that they had encountered St. Moses himself.

After many years of monastic struggles, St. Moses was ordained deacon. In his humility, he believed himself unworthy of this office. Once, wishing to test him, the bishop told the clergy to insult and ridicule him as an unworthy Ethiopian, and to drive him out of the altar. The humble monk accepted the abuse. After this test, the bishop then ordained St. Moses as a priest. He was sixty years old at this time. For another fifteen years he continued his monastic labors, and about 75 disciples gathered around the saintly Elder, who had been granted by the Lord the gifts of wisdom, foresight, and power over demons. When he was 75, he warned his monks that soon brigands would attack their small monastery (skete) and murder everyone. He begged his monks to leave, but he himself refused to leave, because he believed the time had come for the Lord’s words to be fulfilled: “All who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Mt. 26:52). Seven brethren stayed with their Abba, one of whom hid when attacked, and lived to tell how the robbers killed St. Moses and the other six monks. It was about the year 400.

By Sister Ioanna, St. Innocent Monastic Community,

Redford, MI

Source: https://www.stinnocentchurch.com/life_of_st_moses_the_black.html

The Mother of God reached the end of her earthly life. For quite a long time (and even today), the life of the Mother of God remained in the shadow: the gaze of ancient Christians was focused only on Christ, although since the apostolic times, the Church honored the memory of holy martyrs, who testified about their faith in the Resurrected Messiah with their own blood. Only when some people began to talk ill about Virgin Mary, diminishing Her dignity and hence diminishing the dignity of Christ, the Christians set their sights on the Blessed Virgin.

The credible ancient story about the last days of the earthly life of the Most Holy Theotokos was carefully preserved by the Church of Jerusalem. Later that very story became the general tradition for all the other Churches.

According to the tradition, the Mother of God spent the last days of Her life in Jerusalem. She often visited the holy for every Christian’s heart places, which reminded Her of Her Divine Son. Archangel Gabriel announced Her about the day of Her great decease, and the whole Christian community of Jerusalem was waiting for that day to come. By the Divine Will, all the holy apostles were miraculously gathered in Jerusalem on the day of Mary’s death so that they could accompany Her to the place of Her burial. As the tradition states, when the apostles stood near the bed of the Mother of God, Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared to them surrounded by His holy angels, and the Mother of God gave Her soul to the hands of Her Son.

What lesson can we take from the great Dormition of the Mother of God? Indeed, Christ took the soul His Mother in His hands and, as many Orthodox Christians believe and many holy fathers state, thus He revived Her and took to His Kingdom. But what about us? What is coming for us? Ordeals, the meeting with bright and dark angels? No, if only we live a pious life, preserving God’s commandments in our hearts. No, if only we become the salt of the earth, the good leaven of Christ and the sons of light who walk in the true light of Christ. No, if only we preserve untarnished robe of truth, in which we got covered after the Sacrament of Baptism – the robe that proves we all are forgiven by Christ, and that our former royal and priestly image is restored now: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

No, we will not die and neither we will be given in the enemy's hands, if only it is possible to say about us that we “washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). If we often partake of Christ’s Supper, with humility partake of the Holy Eucharist, if we bring God the sacrifice of our praise and partake of His Blood and Body, then we will not be trampled by the evil one because Christ will accept us and comfort us all.

Let us be brave in our Christian life. Let us hope in Living God, asking the Mother of God for Her prayers and help, for She never leaves us without Her protection and never stops praying for Christians. Let us be filled with faith, hope and love, and thus praise the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – the Coessential and Inseparable Trinity.

The word of St. Andrew of Crete:

“This is the final goal of the covenants God has made with us; this is the revelation of the hidden depths of God's incomprehensibility. This is the realization intended before all the ages; this is the crown of God's oracles, the inexplicable, supremely unknowable will of him who had cared for humanity since before creation began. This is the first-fruit of God's communion with his creation, of His identification as Maker of all things, with what He has made. This is the concrete, personal pledge of God's reconciliation with humanity, the surpassing beauty of God's sculpture, the perfectly-drawn portrait of the divine model. This is the first step to all ascent, to all contemplation; the holy tabernacle of him who made the world; the vessel that received the inexhaustible wisdom of God; the inviolate treasury of life. This is the spring of divine radiance, which can never be drunk dry; the impregnable stronghold, raised so high over all of us in its purity that it can never be conquered by passion. Through this woman [the Theotokos], the pledge of our salvation has been made and kept, in that this marvelous creature has both reach the limits of our lot and has paid the common debt proper to our nature. And if not all the features of her life were the same as ours, that is due simply to her nearness to God.”

Reflections in the Holy Church Tradition:

Kontakion — Tone 2

Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos, Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions. For being the Mother of Life, She was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb.

End of the last part.

Full infographics here.

Here is a short test that consists of 12 questions about the Dormition of the Mother of God. Check what you know about this feast day.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Today we mark one of the Twelve Great Feasts, the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. We are celebrating this feast in the principle temple of our Church: the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin. Along with the entire Church, we rejoice in an event that has been passed down to us by the Holy Tradition of the Universal Church: the blessed repose of the Most Holy Theotokos, her Dormition, which has become a feast day.

If we transfer our gaze from this event to modern life, we will notice a profound contradiction between two understandings of death. Blessed repose, dormition, falling asleep – the word “death” is not used in reference to the Theotokos. Incidentally, another word used in ecclesiastical parlance is derived from here: “reposed” – not died or perished, but reposed. We see that there is a different understanding of death. On the one hand, there is the understanding connected with the triumph of the Mother of God; on the other, there is our ordinary understanding of death as a tragic end, as the termination of all things. One feels animal fear, the fear of death, before this tragic end. How greatly this fear of death contradicts the basic value judgments of modern society, a society of consumerism and prosperity! But this very society, imbued with false values, recognizes the impossibility of joining its ideals – those of unlimited consumption and pleasure – with the fact of death.

But how does today’s society, today’s pseudo-culture, reply to this contradiction? It replies to this challenge of worldviews by, as it were, ignoring death. A different picture of life is drawn for us through advertisements and the cultivation of these same false values that turn our gaze away from death. If we are to speak of burial practices, we can note that in many countries – especially in prosperous ones – everything is done somehow to mitigate people’s contact with the dead body. The coffin is not opened during the funeral service – in fact, it is generally not opened at all – and people always bid farewell before a closed coffin. More often than not, the coffin is lowered into the grave when people are already leaving the cemetery. For this reason, it is covered with flowers or spruce branches in such a way that the very act of burial goes unseen. The widespread custom of cremation also serves this end: the coffin goes out, and there is no real contact with the moment of burial.

But there is yet another way to mitigate this inwardly insurmountable conflict between society’s false ideals and death: to turn death into a show, into a spectacle. We see a huge number of deaths every day: on television and in many films, where death is always present in one way or another. But do we empathize with this death? Death is just part of the intrigue; more often than not, this death – even a violent one – is bound up with the victory of the main hero. However, none of these attempts to remove the question of death from the scope of modern man’s worldview can ever succeed, because every day, every hour, and every minute brings each one of us closer to death. The whole point lies in how we perceive death: as a nonsensical end of life, devoid of any meaning; as a departure into complete non-existence of everything we possess – mind, emotions, and will; as an extinction of all life, with all its joys, sorrows, ups and downs, discoveries, victories, and defeats; or as the final chord, the finale of our earthly life and the transition into another life…

The Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God was a triumph of the Church: the Apostles gathered together, placed the tomb of the Mother of God in Gethsemane, and never again found it, because the Mother of God’s body disappeared. A firm tradition of the Church has passed down to us the tidings that the Mother of God’s body was caught up into the Heavenly Kingdom. S0me Holy Fathers of both the Ancient Church and the Russian Church – among whom St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) should especially be remembered – compared the mystery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God with the Savior’s Resurrection. There is no death: there is dormition and departure.

Reflecting on the theme of departure, the Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt says that departure is just a change of place: a person “departs” and his soul occupies a place in another world, another age, another time. Did the Mother of God fear death? No. Did the Holy Apostles fear death in the face of violent, martyric deaths? No. The Apostle Peter, originally fearing the persecution that broke out under the Emperor Nero, decided to leave the capital of the Empire at the urging of the Christian community in Rome. But while leaving Rome, the Risen Lord met him and asked: “Whither goest thou?” This question alone caused Peter to return to Rome and joyfully to accept a martyric death. And how many testimonies do we have in the lives of saints! We see clearly that they did not experience any fear of death, but prepared themselves for death as for a truly great event in their lives, by which one passes from an earthly existence to a heavenly one.

So where does the fear of death come from? Reflecting on this theme, the Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt rightly states that God did not create death, but that death came into people’s lives through sin. He goes on to write: “Death shall frighten us so long as we abide in sin.” This inner connection between the fear of death and sin is completely obvious. If someone lives according to the law of the flesh, if he sins and never thinks of God, then when this spiritually unprepared person – who lives in this world’s vanity and whose life is bound only by the values of this world – comes face to face with death, there will be fear and terror. There will be mortal fear, because of the presence of sin. St. John Chrysostom teaches us how to overcome this fear of death: through repentance, prayer, victory over the passions, labor, patience, and spiritual peace – that is, by living according to God’s commandments.

Through the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos and the experience of the Church, the truth is revealed to us that the religious way of life, the Christian way of life, is not only dispensation, blessedness, and happiness in this earthly life; it is not only the acquisition of authentic goals; but it is also the overcoming of the fear and apprehension of death with a calm and peaceful spiritual state, as the natural completion of the earthly portion of human life. Such a view of life and death has great power for the human person, before whom there are no barriers and who fears nothing.

It is upon this attitude towards life and death that true struggle, valor, and the ability to give one’s life for another are based. Would someone give his life for another who is bound to this tawdriness, to this modern consumer life, for which the main value is here and only here? Why would he take the risk? Why would he give his life for another? Why would he sacrifice what is most precious? Within the framework of a godless worldview, it is impossible to justify heroism, struggle, or self-sacrifice. If people who do not consider themselves religious do undertake such struggles, this does not mean that their motivations lie in the material plane. This is a manifestation of a latent, rudimentary religiosity, which becomes part of human life through one’s upbringing, through the values that are instilled in one. But if we destroy this rudimentary religiosity, then we will become a completely different society, a completely different people, incapable of either sacrifice or struggle. Such a society does not and cannot have a future, because people’s upbringing in faith is a question of life or death – not only of society, but even of the human race. This is why the preaching of the great spiritual values that have been revealed to man through the Divine word is the principle foundation upon which the future of the human race depends.

Remembering our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary and her glorious Dormition, let us always remember that the Dormition, the Mother of God’s death, is a great feast day of the Church. And in this glorification of the death of the Most Holy Theotokos lay the great faith of all preceding generations that death does not mean the end of life. As a great sign of the fact that after death comes resurrection, the Most Pure Queen of Heaven was caught up into the heavenly abode of her Son with her soul and body, as a sign of man’s immortality, as a sign of eternal life, and as a sign of Divine omnipotence. Amen.

By Patriarch Kirill of Moscow

Delivered on August 28, 2011

http://www.pravmir.com/two-understandings-of-death-on-the-dormition-of-the-theotokos/

Ruslan Yarotsky is a religious scholar and an Orthodox missionary from Hrodna who is also the head of a charitable fund, which helps Orthodox Christians in Africa. He started doing his mission in St Elisha Monastery in Laŭryšava, HR.

When you get to know about the Orthodox Church on the African continent for the first time, it will definitely feel “different” from what we, who live in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, are used to. It doesn’t have the tranquility and pensive atmosphere, the elaborate precision and rhythm of worship… It doesn’t have the wonderful architectural edifices and populous religious processions… A Divine Liturgy in Africa, with its drum beats and polyrhythmic African tunes, and with the parishioners and priests praising God by dance, may appear strange, unfathomable, and even unacceptable. An Orthodox believer in our traditionally Orthodox lands always has the opportunity to look back into the past and find support and comfort there. What do African Christians have in their past? Where is their Seraphim of Sarov or Theophan the Recluse? Where is their glorious and not-so-glorious history of struggle against “this fallen world”?

The Church in Africa is like a young tree. It grows and has lush green leaves but it does not have a strong root, a tall trunk, and a wide top, all of which make old trees different from younger ones. Does it? Does the real power of the Church on that continent lie in something else?

The brothers first got to know African Orthodoxy in Kenya, where St Elisha Monastery organises missionary outreach with the support of many parishes from Belarus and neighbouring countries.

What is, then, the aim of this narrative, which, of course, represents solely our own subjective opinion? Hopefully, you will feel a closer connection to the Church in Africa after you read this post. Sometimes, even simple concepts can take years to soak into people’s minds. One of these concepts is the simple idea that there is only one Church of Christ in the world; the names “Russian Church”, “Belarusian Church”, “Greek Church”, or “American Church” mean something only here on earth. Probably, we will be moved by compassion and love and join efforts in helping our brothers and sisters in Africa. I’m optimistic that the experience of a missionary outreach can “animate” our spiritual lives, and add meaning, joy, and new substance to them.

Mass media paint a bleak picture of Africa. Indeed, most African countries are poverty-stricken, with absent or inadequate welfare, and teeming with infections, ethnic and religious conflicts.

Sadly, the mzungu (whites) left the continent with roads and buildings but not good memories. After the independence, Kenyans had an extremely negative attitude towards the British. Frankly, they were equally wary of all “whites”.

Nowadays, the situation has improved. Tourists can easily visit many African countries, with some precautions, of course. However, this positive change isn’t always the result of a change in attitude. Rather, the locals have figured out that tourists bring money.

That is why if you board a plane from Paris or Amsterdam to Nairobi, you may see crowds of European tourists with cameras, bristling with excitement at the thought of being able to see exotic African animals and take a selfie with them. The majority of those tourists will see a Kenya and a Tanzania adapted to their liking. For instance, Mombasa, a city on the shore of the Indian Ocean, famous for its white-sand beaches, has become the favourite place for many European tourists. However, it’s just the façade of Kenya.

The population of Kenya is 50 million people. When you travel around the country, you will assume that the population numbers are largely out of date. Streets of Hrodna, Minsk, and Vilnius look almost empty in comparison with an average Kenyan village. How can you count the population of city slums like Kibera? Most people there are constantly moving. Where are they going? Although they don’t have jobs, they are very busy. Some of them are lucky enough to have their own “business”, like a car wash. Just look at how they proudly sit on a heap of old tyres with the name of their company on a cardboard sheet, some soap, sponges, and water from the nearest river in rusty barrels…

It must be noted that the advances of technology are evident in the cities and towns in Kenya. Most people have mobile phones and work hard to buy a TV panel, which costs almost as much as here in Belarus. With that said, living conditions of most Kenyans may appear absolutely unsatisfactory. Why not buy wallpapers, paint, or a vacuum cleaner instead? This way of spending money looks like an escape from the brutal reality…

Kenyans are very open and kind. If you’re in trouble, they will happily help you. The general impression from the people is really positive. Of course, hard life conditions and poverty leaves an imprint of people’s behaviour and world view. Crime rate in the country is high: robberies, thefts, and murders are quite common, for a lot of reasons.

As a rule, a tourist does not encounter this side of the life in the country. Sometimes this grim reality haunts you. When we brought humanitarian aid to Father Michael, an Orthodox priest in a village named Gilgil, we were delighted with his enthusiasm and kindness to such an extent that even that gloomy place looked quite attractive, in spite of all its dirt and poverty. A week after we left, we learned of a murder during a possible robbery attempt. The victim of that murder was Elijah—a student of an Orthodox college who was studying to become a teacher. Seeing Kenya and Africa in general also means seeing a graveyard, where lots of new graves can tell you a lot about the true state of affairs.

You shouldn’t, however, look at Kenya through a black or a pink glass. Africa appears different to everyone. The way you see it depends on what you are willing to see and what means you have at your disposal.

Civilization has transformed a modern tourist so much that he will be happy and excited to notice a giraffe’s head in the savannah, a zeal of zebras, or some baboons on the Naivasha–Nairobi road but will turn a blind eye on the yellowish whites of children’s eyes, crowds of beggars that besiege his car when he drives to his luxurious hotel after a delicious lunch in a restaurant, and the abject poverty that he may encounter in rural areas and city slums. Personally, I felt ashamed for the first time on Lake Naivasha, when we were feeding biscuits to a giraffe named Eric, and the eyes of our guides followed each biscuit closely as it disappeared in the giraffe’s mouth. In fact, you begin to think about it seriously only later.

Kenya is a country of stark contrasts. There is poverty and luxury side by side. The incredible beauty of African nature and its rich animal world is combined with inhumane living conditions for most people. It must be noted that the painful reaction to the Kenyan way of life is our subjective experience. Kenyans perceive the horrors, which make our hearts ache, with enviable calmness. They dream of having their own plot of land and cultivate it to earn money and be able to pay for their children’s education. They love, quarrel, dream, and wonder. Their men do their best earning money, and their women do their best to look gorgeous. Just like we do. It’s just the conditions that are different. It’s easy to fall in love with Kenya.

Africa is a continent where religion is still important. Although it may appear that there isn’t anything noteworthy about Kenyan religious life, I’m assured that Mircea Eliade could have found a vast field of study here. The majority of people here view themselves as Christians. Indeed, there are signs that read “Pentecostal Church”, “Church of God”, “Messianic Church”, “Adventist Church”, etc., in every town and village. There is a sizable proportion of Catholics here, as well as dozens of Neo-Protestant groups. Small but neat (at least in contrast to the chaos that surrounds them) mosques can be found in bigger cities, along with Hindu and Buddhist temples, and traditional cults, Hare Krishna followers, Orthodox Jews, and many other religious communities.

It seems that there is no need for an Orthodox mission in a country with such a large Christian populace, is there? In my humble opinion, Kenyan society has become more “Christianised” during the 20th century, albeit superficially. Missions that can invest large amounts of money are the most successful in the impoverished country. Locals tend to join religious organisations solely to improve their financial standing and not after an “encounter with God”. You can’t judge them. Of course, neither should you infer that everyone becomes a Christian for ulterior motives. Many people are entirely sincere in their faith.

You meet religion at every corner during your travel in Kenya…

End of Part I

St. Elisabeth Convent

June 16, 2018

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