The Catalog of Good Deeds

The question, “What was the first Orthodox parish in America?” is surprisingly difficult to answer. A big part of the problem comes from that word, “parish.” What is a parish? When does a collection of Orthodox people become a “parish”? It’s a matter of interpretation, and particularly in the early years of Orthodoxy in America, the lines are quite fuzzy.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans is considered by many (including me, in past writings) to be the first Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States (i.e., outside of Alaska). Here’s how the New Orleans parish website describes its early history:

In 1860, Mr. Nicholas Benachi, a businessman and Consul of the Royal Government of Greece, spearheaded an effort to secure a site for the construction of the Church, which was also unsuccessful. Finally, in 1864, Mr. Benachi offered his personal property for a temporary location for worship, at which time he and a few cotton merchants the Church. Until 1866, services where held there as well as other locations, with the Very Reverend Agapios Honcharenko serving as the first priest of the Community. During that year, Mr. Benachi sold a parcel of property to the Community (for $1,200) on 1222 North Dorgenois Street and, with the assistance of generous donations by Mr. Benachi, Mr. Demetrios Botassis and Mr. John Botassis, Holy Trinity Church was erected.

There are some issues with that account — most especially the reference to the supposed “first priest” of New Orleans. This man, Agapius Honcharenko, was a rogue Ukrainian deacon who seems to have been ordained a priest in Greece (under unclear circumstances) and showed up in New York City in early 1865. He got word of an Orthodox community in New Orleans and went down for a visit, but based on his public statements in the New Orleans newspapers at the time, he only intended to visit for a couple weeks — he never planned to stay as the resident priest of the parish. After his visit, he returned to New York, but once news spread of his sketchy past, he left the city and ultimately settled in the San Francisco area and lived the rest of his life as a kind of oddball farmer, outside of Orthodoxy.

The actual first priest of the Holy Trinity community in New Orleans was Fr. Stephen Andreades, who arrived in 1867 from the Church of Greece. So when did the New Orleans parish begin? 1864, when lay services were held on the Benachi property? 1865, when Honcharenko visited and served the first Divine Liturgy? 1866, when a parish building was constructed? Or 1867, when the first parish priest arrived?

And then there’s the other contender for the title “First Orthodox Parish in America” — Holy Trinity, the OCA cathedral in San Francisco. It’s gone through many name changes over the years, but this San Francisco parish was established right around the same time that the New Orleans community was organizing itself.

The website of the San Francisco parish declares, “Established in 1857, Holy Trinity Cathedral is the oldest Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States.” The parish history, written by the late Fr. Victor Sokolov, says this:

Holy Trinity Cathedral Parish traces its history to December 2, 1857, when the first Orthodox Society was founded in San Francisco. Ten years latter, on September 2, 1867, it was incorporated as the Greek Russian Slavonian Orthodox Eastern Church and Benevolent Society. During these years, the Orthodox population of the Bay Area was spiritually and sacramentally served by chaplains from Russian Navy ships that frequented San Francisco Bay. During the Holy Week of 1868, an Orthodox Priest was sent to the City from Alaska to conduct the Paschal services here.

So, again, there’s the question, when did this parish begin? 1857, when the first Orthodox benevolent society was founded? 1867, when the society was incorporated (and, late in the year, requested a priest and a church building)? Or 1868, when the first parish priest arrived?

It all depends on your premises — on how you define “parish.” And it might depend on specific facts that we don’t necessarily have, such as what exactly that Orthodox Society in San Francisco was doing, as a practical matter, in the years 1857 to 1867. Were they holding regular services? Or was this more of a typical “benevolent society,” where individuals with a common background (say, being Orthodox) would contribute to the organization, which would then give aid to members in need? One small bit of evidence to consider, in this case: at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1862, an Episcopalian priest from San Francisco reported that “some” of the 300-400 Orthodox people in San Francisco were “under his charge” (although not receiving communion) and “were about to build a church of their own and become organized into a parish.” (From the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 12/6/1862.) It’s just one source, but this suggests that, at least in 1862, the Orthodox in San Francisco weren’t yet a parish, although they were definitely moving in that direction.

Of course, which was the first parish doesn’t really matter, does it? Both of these parishes began as informal or semi-formal groups of Orthodox laypeople and evolved to the point that they were able to have a church building and obtain a parish priest. They did these things at pretty much the same time, getting their first priest within months of each other. I’m fairly comfortable calling this a tie — the two Holy Trinity Cathedrals are the first Orthodox parishes in the contiguous United States.

Source: http://orthodoxhistory.org/2015/02/13/what-was-the-first-orthodox-parish-in-america/

Janis (John) Pommer was born to a peasant family in the district of Vendzen, Latvia in 1876. He had no Russian blood, even though he later showed a great love for Russia. His great-grandfather had been one of the first to accept the Orthodox Faith in this region, and as a result he had been subjected to severe persecution.

At that time there was a great interest in Orthodoxy among the peasants of Lithlandia, thanks to the preaching which had been begun in the Latvian language. The Lutheran pastors, for the most part, looked upon the local inhabitants and their language with disdain. The Latvians, who at one time had been forcibly baptized as Catholics by the German invaders, had also by force become Lutherans after the Reformation following their lords. Those who had gone over to Orthodoxy in the middle of the last century were regarded by the local authorities (the German Barons) as rebels.

In his childhood, Janis helped his parents on the farm and was a shepherd. He was a serious boy, avoiding games, and as a teenager he loved to go into the forest and stay there. His father taught him how to read and write so well that he had entered straight into high school. From his first year in school he was so outstanding that his teachers recommended that he be sent either to the grammar school or to the seminary preparatory school. On the advice of the local priest the boy was sent to the latter. He entered the seminary school in 1887 and in 1891 transferred to the seminary itself in the Latvian capital, Riga. Owing to his success in his studies and his good behaviour, he received a scholarship during his studies. He always spent his summers at home helping his parents on the farm.

He finished the seminary course in 1897 brilliantly. However, the disorders in Russian educational institutions at that time stopped him continuing his education immediately. For three years he worked as an instructor among the Latvian people, showing great talent as a teacher. In 1900, having passed the entrance examinations brilliantly, he was accepted as a student at the Kiev Theological Academy, again on a scholarship. He was popular among the students, both for his outstanding success in his studies and as a hero in the realm of sports. For those who knew him well, however, the monastic tonsure of the young student in 1901 at St Michael’s Monastery in Kiev, was not unexpected. His companions, even before he was tonsured, used to call him ‘monk’ for his devotion to absolute sobriety and for his continence.

He finished the Academy course in 1904 so brilliantly that he was given a choice between a scholarly career and practical work as a teacher. He chose the latter. As an instructor in the Holy Scriptures at seminary in Chernigov, he inspired his students to such an extent that several of them devoted their lives to the study of the Scripture and later became teachers of this subject. The seminary authorities also valued the work of the young instructor and in 1906 they promoted him to the post of Inspector at the Seminary in Vologda. There Fr John also showed his ability as an administrator. The order which he was able to bring in a very short time to the populous and disordered Vologda Seminary was so exceptional that, despite his youth, in the next academic year he was made Rector of the Orthodox Seminary of Lithuania and Superior of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Vilna. He was also given assignments in the diocesan administration. Therefore, his transfer in 1911 to Minsk, where the ailing Archbishop Michael of Minsk had called him to the post of vicar bishop, was met in Vilna with universal regret. On his way to Minsk he participated in the canonization of St. Joasaph of Belgorod.

In 1912 Bishop John was transferred to Odessa as a vicar of the Archbishop of Cherson, Dimitri, who was then very old. With the new year of 1913 he was given the task of establishing the new diocese of Priyazovsk. His relationship with the local inhabitants here was so good that this diocese became the only one in Russia in which his salary and that of his clergy was taken by the local people on themselves. During his four years as head of this diocese, which embraced a mining district, the energetic pastor visited all its corners. There were occasions when the Bishop was chosen as arbitrator when there were conflicts between the workers and the employers. The workers considered him the defender of their interests, and the employers submitted to his decisions without discussion. When, in connection with the War, waves of refugees from Galicia and Czechoslovakia reached the area, they found in Bishop John one who took great care for their needs. Many refugee schools and orphanages were organized with his participation. Hundreds of grateful Galicians and Czechs became Orthodox, including the intelligentsia.

The Revolution found Bishop John in this post. He was dangerous to the revolutionary leaders, and a campaign began against him immediately. Both open and secret revolutionary agents followed him everywhere. Meanwhile, among the masses of people who were entirely devoted to their bishop, an attitude formed that was not acceptable to the local revolutionary authorities. Volunteers from among the workers and the soldiers organized a guard who watched over the bishop day and night. On his way to and from services he was accompanied by masses of people who were prepared to defend their bishop against enemies.

The local revolutionary authority thought that it had found a way out by arranging the transfer of the beloved Archpastor to the diocese of Tver. But after the final service in the Cathedral, the people returned their bishop by force to the episcopal residence and surrounded him with guards who were to prevent the departure or abduction of the bishop. Under such conditions the humiliated authorities asked the bishop to leave the city and go to Moscow. However, together with Bishop John a delegation from the people went to Moscow, representing the clergy, laymen, soldiers and cossacks, intending to protest against the actions of the local authorities. In Moscow the delegation obtained its end with a favourable decision from both the secular and the Church authorities. However, the Bolshevik coup and the beginning of the Civil War made the return of Bishop John to Priyazov impossible. Accordingly, he was assigned as Archbishop of Penza.

In Penza, where Archbishop John arrived at the beginning of 1918, the believers immediately undertook the defence of their Archpastor from both the secular authorities and the Church modernists. Again a volunteer guard was formed. The local Secret Police immediately subjected the Archbishop to search and interrogation, but neither gave any reason for arrest. Then the Police decided to mark the celebration of Easter 1918 with the murder of Archbishop John.

On Easter Eve there appeared at the Archbishop’s residence in the Transfiguration Monastery two agents, the former officer Rudakov and the worker Dubovkin, and they began to demand access to him. The guard sounded the alarm to warn the people and Dubovkin fled, but Rudakov broke down the door of the cell and fired several shots which, fortunately, went wide of the mark. The Archbishop succeeded in disarming him. The people who had by this time gathered intended to take care of the criminal by lynch law and only the energetic intercession of the Archbishop saved Rudakov from certain death. And here a miracle occurred: Rudakov, who had just made an attempt against the life of the Archbishop, threw himself on his neck with the Easter greeting, ‘Christ is risen!’

Naturally, the authorities were swift to deny taking part in this matter, despite the fact that Rudakov had a written order on him. The unfortunate man was arrested and soon died in prison. Bright Week in Penza, and all over the diocese, turned into an unheard of demonstration of love and devotion of the faithful for their shepherd. The authorities, calculating the situation, hid for a while and refrained from taking any open steps. The faithful, including even the liberal circles of the local intelligentsia, grouped even more tightly around their Archpastor. The important local lawyer, V.A. Bemnov, the Archbishop’s legal advisor, became the head of these zealots and was his subdeacon. Church life revived and strengthened in the whole diocese.

In May 1918 the Bolsheviks, for no reason, opened artillery fire on the Transfiguration Monastery. The place where the Archbishop was living became the centre of fire. Later the authorities explained this incident as a misunderstanding, but the local people accepted this as an attempt against the life of their Archpastor and they protested. On 7 September 1918, the local Secret Police again made a long search of the Archbishop’s cell and office. Even though nothing incriminating was found, agents took the Archbishop to prison. This made the Archbishop late for the Vigil of the Nativity of the Mother of God. When the believers found out that the Archbishop had been taken to the ‘house of no return’ on the day when executions were performed, those who had come to the service decided that the Archbishop had been shot together with the other condemned. Thus when Archbishop John returned very late to the Cathedral, instead of the Vigil he found in progress a requiem service for himself.

As its next provocation the authorities made use of the local representative of the ‘New Church’, V. Putyatu-Gruenstein, who, on September 14, appeared at Sts. Peter and Paul Church with his followers, while Archbishop John was celebrating. They attempted to enter the church but the people prevented this. Because of the disorder around the church the Archbishop was imprisoned by the local Secret Police. He was kept in prison for a whole month despite his obvious innocence. From one day to the next the local Police were besieged by delegations of the faithful demanding the release of the Archbishop. Prayers were offered in the whole diocese for this. All of this made the Secret Police stop their case against the Archbishop. At midnight on 14 October the agents began to call the prisoners, one by one. It was a Saturday, the day on which executions were usually performed. Those who were called went out and did not return. They were handed over to the executioners at once. On the long list of the doomed, Archbishop John was the very last. This was a subtle torture: he had to suffer everything that is suffered by those who are condemned to death. About one o’clock in the morning he was finally informed that he had been freed.

On 18 July 1919, the authorities called the Archbishop to the military headquarters, where he was examined and pronounced fit for military service, being assigned to a regiment in the rear. A postponement of this was won, thanks only to the intercession of the faithful. When, at the end of 1919, White troops began to draw near to Penza, the authorities hastily arrested the main Church people. On 11 November Police agents conducted a new search of the Archbishop’s cell, this time an especially careful one. Although nothing was found, the Archbishop was again arrested.

The Secret Police declared that a mythical counter-revolutionary organization had been discovered, the members of which were immediately executed. Bezsonov, the Archbishop’s subdeacon, was among them. In reply to the categorical protest of the Archbishop, he was sent to Moscow where his case was to be examined. His case was taken by the Chairman of the Secret Operations Division of the Secret Police, the notorious Latsis (a fellow-countryman of the Archbishop, who was eventually to perish himself in the underground rooms which he knew so well). This time the Archbishop was imprisoned for three months. The agents did not manage to collect or fabricate any incriminating material at all and he was released on 11 March 1920.

On 3 February 1920 Archbishop John was elected by a Council of the Latvian Orthodox Church as Archbishop of Riga and All Latvia. Latvia, which until the Revolution had been a part of the Russian Empire, had suffered greatly from the effects of the First World War and the disorder in Russia. Already on 14 January 1919, Archbishop Platon of Revel had died a martyr’s death in neighbouring Estonia. Although the Communist threat receded for some two decades from the Baltic countries, still the Orthodox Faith in newly-independent Latvia was looked on by the government as something which had outlived its time and was now superfluous.

The Cathedral of Riga, which under the German occupation had been turned into a Lutheran church, and had then twice been damaged in military action, was returned to the Orthodox, but since it was a reminder of Russian rule it now stood sealed. The bishop’s residence and St. Alexis Monastery had been given to Roman Catholics, and other Church properties had been confiscated by the government and turned to secular uses. Orthodox not only in Riga but also in all the cities and towns of Latvia, found themselves in terrible conditions, without a shepherd, persecuted, totally without rights. A systematic attempt was being made to uproot the Orthodox Faith. Under these painful conditions, the Latvian Orthodox could have done no better than to choose as their Archpastor Archbishop John, who was not only the most eminent Orthodox Church figure of Latvian blood at that time, but also a man of great courage and decisive action.

At the repeated request of the Latvian Orthodox Church, on 14 April 1921, Patriarch (later St) Tikhon blessed Archbishop John to go to Latvia, but on 23 May he changed his decision at the request of the clergy and faithful of Penza. Only on 19 July 1921, ‘in view of the importunate request of the Latvian Church’, did the Patriarch give his final agreement for Archbishop John to leave, expressing his gratitude for his self-denying and fruitful labour for the good of the Church. Before Archbishop John’s departure, Patriarch Tikhon, in agreement with the decree of the Holy Synod and the Higher Church Council, granted Archbishop John the widest canonical autonomy to govern the Latvian Orthodox Church. This act of confidence was completely justified by the further activity of Archbishop John, who in his martyr’s death was to follow in the steps of the Patriarch.

On 24 July 1921, the Orthodox clergy and people, carrying crosses and sacred objects from all the Orthodox churches, met Archbishop John at the railway station in triumph and took him to the Cathedral Church. Even while the Archbishop was celebrating his first service here (where an Orthodox bishop had not celebrated since 1917), the local Orthodox leaders had no idea where he was going to live, since the bishop’s residence had just been seized by the government. But at the end of the service, after blessing the people, to the astonishment of everyone present, the Archbishop went to the basement of the Cathedral and said: ‘I will live here’. Thus he testified to the persecution of the Latvian Church and made the Cathedral the centre of his unrelenting battle to restore the rights of the Orthodox Church in Latvia. In the campaign that followed in the Latvian government and press to demolish the Cathedral, the fact that Archbishop John himself lived there was a decisive factor that prevented the realization of this project.

The arrival of Archbishop John was the beginning of a new era in the life of the Latvian Orthodox Church. His first appeal to the Latvian government was met with the cold reply: ‘The laws of Latvia know neither the Orthodox Church nor its organs and organizations and do not oblige the Latvian government to defend the Orthodox Church’. Soon, however, Archbishop John succeeded in obtaining the promulgation of a law concerning the Orthodox Church in Latvia which regulated the relation between the Church and the State and secured for the Church a number of rights, in particular obtaining considerable sums of money from the government.

A stop was put to the senseless destruction of Orthodox holy objects, such as the removal of the chapel from the main railway station in Riga. Orthodox parishes began strengthen and the churches which had been destroyed in the War were restored. From the very beginning Archbishop John was the head of all the Orthodox Christians in Latvia, both Russians and Latvians, and it was thanks only to his unquestioned authority, mind, experience, and subtle tact that they avoided the terrible division which prevailed in the other Baltic States between Russians and the local inhabitants. This Latvian by birth, with a Russian soul, was a bridge between the two peoples and both considered him their own.

From 1925 on Archbishop John became the representative of the Russians of Latvia in Parliament. From this moment his activity took on enormous dimensions. He opened an Orthodox seminary, property was restored to churches, and finally, he managed to obtain the return from the Soviet Union of holy objects and property for great sums of money. Orthodox Latvians, who before Archbishop John’s coming had largely concealed themselves, now stepped out boldly behind their fearless leader, and the Latvian Church experienced the best years of its brief existence. In a few years, according to official statistics, the Orthodox population increased by twenty per cent, thirteen new churches were built and consecrated, and four others were under construction, with still others being planned, when Archbishop John was martyred.

The situation of the Latvian Orthodox Church in the first years after the First World War and the Russian Civil War was, of course, difficult; but incomparably more difficult was the situation of Orthodox believers in Russia. Archbishop John successfully fought against his local enemies, the Latvian Communists, but neither did he forget his chief enemies, the Bolsheviks. And so it was that a regular campaign of lies and slanders was started against Archbishop John. The campaign was systematic and well-planned; when one lie was exposed, a new slander would immediately be invented. However, lies were exposed, and Archbishop John was also shown to be the benefactor of many non-Orthodox people. He was truly the father of his flock.

In the last years Archbishop John suffered much from the so-called ‘Russian Christian Movement’. Archbishop John himself loved children and young people very much and was glad to see representatives of the youth, and it was not rare that groups and even whole classes of students, would visit him (for in Riga at that time there were more than a dozen Russian primary schools and several grammar schools). At first Archbishop John was very sympathetic to the newly-formed Movement, but with time, when the nature of this organization became clear, he had nothing more to do with it. His reputation among ‘liberal’ religious groups was likewise not helped by his friendly relations with the Synod of Russian Bishops Outside Russia, even though for political reasons he could not be a part of them. In 1931, on the tenth anniversary of Archbishop John's episcopate in Riga, the great Metropolitan Anthony of the Russian Church Outside Russia, was to call him ‘a courageous defender of Orthodoxy’.

Archbishop John’s political enemies did not hesitate to send hooligans to attack him. Once, when he was returning in the evening to his summer residence outside of town, hirelings were supposed to beat him mercilessly, but instead, miscalculating the physical strength of their victim, they were mastered by him. To begin with, the Archbishop knocked their heads together. But then he took them home, spoke to them from the heart, and had such an effect on them that they repented of everything before him and became his friends.

In the life of Archbishop John there were some circumstances which for a while were enigmatic. His slanderers for a long time reproached him for the fact that he lived alone, without a cell-attendant. ‘He is afraid of witnesses’, they said, repeating the slanders which were spread about him. But when his well-wishers asked him about this, he replied that it was better for him to live alone. Various people came to him and, besides this, he did not want to subject anyone to danger. The meaning of these words became clear only after his martyr’s death. Indeed, people of all sorts would go to see the Archbishop. Famous foreign prelates would come, and also poor people and ragged creatures.

Archbishop John conducted an inspired, ceaseless and completely open battle against the atheist regime in Russia. No matter where he might speak (as a Member of Parliament, before Russian organizations, and most of all in Church), everywhere his powerful and bold voice sounded forth fearlessly, imploringly and loudly, like an alarm bell. He was an inspired preacher; he spoke simply and briefly. In fact he would have preferred a solitary life in some quiet monastery cell, giving himself over to spiritual labours; but the times would not allow this. Anyone who ever saw the Archbishop in the garden of his summer residence, near the beehives, or working at his carpenter’s bench, knew that such occupations were not foreign to him.

A good example of Archbishop John’s fearless expression of the truth is to be seen in his sermon in the Riga Cathedral on Great Friday 10 April 1931. For him it was not possible to separate the Golgotha of Christ our Saviour and the Golgotha of the contemporary Orthodox Church. Standing before the Holy Shroud of Christ, the bishop’s flock did not escape reality, but was told how to understand the terrible reality of these days, and how to be victorious in its midst:

‘Of Joseph of Arimathea it is said that he was a disciple of Christ, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. In this respect he is not an example for us. To hide one’s faith out of fear is not a work worthy of respect. If you really fear God, you will no longer fear anyone else at all. Stand for Christ and He will stand for you. Lukewarmness must be cast out of oneself and out of others. The fear of men is the weeds on the spiritual field which are to be uprooted.

Joseph of Arimathea followed Christ from afar, secretly. Oh, if only this would serve as a warning for all those who in our time also hesitate to confess Christ openly. Renounce the evil counsels of the world and the flesh! Forward for truth, righteousness, and the Lord!

But perhaps someone will say: the time when Joseph lived and acted was different from our time. O my contemporary friends, either you actually do not see, or else in a cowardly manner you pretend not to see that our present reality, both in word and in deed, has far surpassed all that measure of evil deeds which forced Joseph to cease his concealment and come out into the arena of open confession of Christ.

Anyone who follows the contemporary press and the contemporary platform knows that the contemporary mockery of Christ has incomparably surpassed both in its malice and in its crudeness all the mockeries which the contemporaries of Christ cast on Him up to Golgotha and on Golgotha. The person of Christ, and the teaching of Christ, and all the works of Christ, and His whole work in general have been subjected to the crudest and most shameful mockery. If the present-day enemies of Christ could obtain the Body of Christ which was crucified on Golgotha, it would again be subjected to the most refined torments, the most subtle means of torture to death. But the Body is not available to them, and so the enemies of Christ exhaust themselves in tortures and crucifixion of the Body of Christ which is on the earth, and is called the Church of Christ. Recall what you have seen, heard, and read about the torture of the Body of Christ, the Church, within the boundaries of Bolshevism, and even in the incompleteness of our information you will understand that the demon of Golgotha is a child by comparison with the Soviet demon.

Yes, our time is not like the time of Joseph of Arimathea. It is incomparably more evil and cruder than that time. If Joseph found in the evil deed of Golgotha sufficient inspiration to be converted from secret confession to open confession, then our time should be considered as one that calls us to a loud confession joined to a clearly expressed protest against the raising upon Golgotha not only of God, but also of man. At the mouth of the river Thames, at one of the points which juts out and marks a dangerous shallow, there has been placed a bell which by its ringing during storms warns sailors against the mortal danger. The fiercer the storm, the sharper and more powerful its ring. At the present time of storm and darkness, when the shallow of Bolshevism has spread across the whole face of the earth as a deliberate trap, every soul must take upon itself the role of this bell which warns and saves. They are deeply mistaken who consider this danger to be local. And even a danger of a purely local character cannot be a matter of indifference for a Christian, but the present Bolshevik danger of which we are speaking has the intensified aim of becoming universal. Therefore the bell of alarm at the present time should be sounded across the whole face of the earth, to warn everyone everywhere.

No concessions to the enemy! Give him an inch and he will take a mile; give him a finger and he will take the whole arm.

When we entered the Church of Christ by the gates of Holy Baptism, of us was demanded the confession of faith in God in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Church. But also, three times we were asked: ‘Do you renounce Satan and all his works and all his angels and all his service and all his pride?’ And three times we replied: ‘I renounce them’. Again three times we were asked: 'Have you renounced Satan?' And we replied three times: ‘I have renounced him’. When in later life it comes to confessing the faith, usually this part of the confession is forgotten. At all times this is bad, but at a time of intense battle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, such forgetfulness is intolerable.

For the infirm human consciousness there is born the temptation that supposedly one may confess God and at the same time keep a neutral position, a kind of loyalty with regard also to the kingdom of Satan. There is created thus a kind of double citizenship. But upon all of us there lies a double responsibility: on the one hand, to kindle in oneself and in others an active love for the Kingdom of God, and on the other hand to kindle a no less active hatred for the kingdom of the devil.

The Lord is the same yesterday and today and forever. When the shame of godlessness and impiety now presses upon the children of the new Israel, Holy Russia, somewhere in the plains of Russia, or in the Siberian forests, or in some one of the lands of exile and diaspora of the great God-bearing people, there is already being prepared a grace-given field which will cause to spring up a chosen one of God for the deliverance and rebirth of the God-bearing people. There are no more leaders, and pastors are in straitened conditions. The human eye does not see from where deliverance might come; but the All-knowing Lord knows this. The Lord, by ways known to Him alone, will raise up suitable men at a suitable time. Of this we can and must be convinced’.

Like only a few other non-Russians, Archbishop John felt deeply Russia’s tragedy deeply and saw the significance of Orthodox Russia for the whole world.

The generally accepted version of the Archbishop’s death, which was confirmed by the brother of the reposed, Anton Pommer, is as follows:

The Archbishop had been called in the evening by Sobinov, the famous singer from Russia, who was passing through Riga; he was an old friend of the Archbishop’s, such a one as the Bolsheviks once in a while allowed to go abroad. It was agree that he would go to the Archbishop in the evening. The latter opened the door to him and let in his murderers. Sobinov himself died under mysterious circumstances at this very same time.

The story went that firemen, who had been called by neighbours at about two o’clock in the morning, found a frightful disorder in the Archbishop’s residence: cupboards and drawers had been thrown open, the office had been ransacked, furniture had been overturned. The Archbishop had evidently been wounded in the hall, on the lower floor, and had been carried to the attic on a ripped-off door. There, in the workshop, he had been tied to the carpenter’s bench and, doused with kerosene, had been set on fire. An examination of the lungs revealed that he had still been alive at this time, for there was smoke inside them. There was evidence that he had been tortured. Both stoves in the hall were burning, and some kind of papers had been burned in them. It is known that he had papers proving the treasonable activity of the Latvian Communists.

This crime was never explained, at least officially. It was probably the only unsolved crime of this sort for the whole period of the existence of independent Latvia. Every child in Latvia knew who the true inspirers of this crime were, but there were no official accusations: the trail led to the Soviet Embassy. The press did not write about this; the shadow which the mighty and cunning neighbour threw upon the small land of two million people was too ominous. But the whole country knew the truth. The crime occurred in the night between Thursday and Friday on 12 October 1934. The Archbishop was in the full flower of his life and activity and not yet sixty years old. He was the most outstanding figure in the Church life of the Baltic countries.

At the funeral the whole city was in mourning. More than 100,000 people were in the streets - about a quarter of the whole population of the city. In the Cathedral, from the bishop’s place to the Altar, there were rows of priests, fifty on each side. Everyone followed the coffin. A huge crowd lined the way from the Cathedral to the cemetery, several miles away. In this there was a kind of demonstration, a challenge to the unpunished murderers. Soon a small chapel was raised over the grave, a miniature replica of the bell-tower of the Cathedral. In the former residence of the Archbishop the basement of the Cathedral, a corner was devoted to his memory, with the bench on which he had been burned. A vessel containing a few drops of his blood was walled up in the Cathedral and an inscription made on a marble plaque. And here, every Thursday (the day of the murder), a requiem service was celebrated, until eventually the Truth and the Light conquered, the Lie and the Darkness were defeated and Archbishop John was canonized in triumph as a saint of God.

Holy Father John, Pray to God for the Land of Latvia and all Thy People!

Source: http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/oelatvia.htm

It’s a great thing to rely on God and to pray; and here comes somebody saying, “I want to start a family, but I don’t know how to do it, or where to find the right person,” and so on.

Several of you have written to me about such problems, problems with your children, with yourselves—that the years are passing and you’re still not married, and so on. Indeed, the years and time are passing, but do we know what it means that time passes? God knows time; time is how God wants it to be; time is good!

“But,” you say, “I’m already thirty-five!”

Well, perhaps God wants you to start a family at thirty-eight?

“But I’m already forty!”

Well, perhaps God wants you to start a family later, or, perhaps, He has a different plan for you, which is nevertheless magnificent. I don’t know what it is to be able to reveal it to you.

Can I tell you something simple? Pray to God for Him to reveal it to you. Pray for Him to enlighten you!

Once one such person came to me and said, “I want to start a family. What should I do? Help!”

“How can I help with this; what do you have in mind?”

“For you to tell me what to do…”

Archimandrite Andrei (Konanos)

No, please, don’t do anything—first just calm down. You have stress, and when you have stress, you can’t start a healthy family, because when you are under stress, panic and uncertainty will seize you, and even if you find the right person, this stress and fear will make you question yourself: “Will she want me? Will a relationship develop between us? Won’t we break up? Won’t she toss me away, like last time? Won’t she reject me? What if she suddenly doesn’t like me?”

It’s stress, my child. You cannot create a healthy family if you’re going to start with such stress. What are we talking about for so long? Trust in God! Love God! Believe in God!

“I love Him,” he says, “but…”

Okay, but if you loved Him, would you really be in such panic? You love God and you’re panicking? Look, if I take your hand and squeeze it, you’ll feel warmth and say, “Ah, I feel confidence and calmness—someone is holding my hand!” It means people touch you, and you calm down, but God touches you, and where is your peace? Where? Therefore, come on, first let’s calm down.

Do you know why you need to relax? To clearly see that there’s no more stress inside of you, for panic to disappear, for peace to come, because for these questions—of meeting someone and starting a family—the will of God is clearly reflected in calm and peaceful souls. Your soul should be quiet and calm so the will of God can reverberate in it. If panic and confusion seize you, the will of God cannot be reflected. You make some frantic movement, you distort your image and create a false view of yourself in the eyes of the person with whom you’re going to get acquainted, because some anxiety and uncertainty comes from you.

Above all, leave everything up to God. Someone said one remarkable thing: “Do you know when these questions will be resolved? When you stop dwelling on them.” I really like that. When you stop having stress from something, then it will all be settled; but if you’re stressed, it can’t be settled. Stress doesn’t help, but conversely, it creates a very unpleasant and difficult climate for settling our problems. Relax and forget your problem! Live your life!

“But,” he says, “life has no meaning for me!”

What are you talking about? Your life has no meaning? That is, your life has no meaning because you don’t have a family? Are these actually serious words? Here’s the first lesson you should grasp first, before creating a family—life is beautiful not because of a family, but because Christ exists. Our beloved Christ is so rich in gifts that He gives us a family; but even if you haven’t started a family, life in Him is wonderful.

We wound God, we offend God, and we commit sin, saying, “If I don’t ever have a family, my life will be a failure and will lose all meaning!” This is incorrect.

First, life is beautiful because the Lord exists, our Christ exists. Once someone went to Elder Paisios and said, “Father, I’m in trouble; things are bad for me!

“Why, my child?”

“I’m forty, and I’m not yet married!”

“Okay, well don’t worry!” Elder Paisios said. “I’m already seventy and I’m also not yet married!”

He laughed as he said that. That is, don’t look at it that way. The question isn’t in age, and not that your turn has come and something should happen now, but that you try to develop your inner world.

I heard about this from Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol in one of his talks; I don’t know if he heard it himself, but he did personally know Elder Paisios.

It’s a good thing to be reconciled with God, because your question will thus be settled.

“But tell me something practical to do! To go, to see, to do!”

Look, I won’t forbid you; I didn’t tell you to lock yourself up alone at home and wait for everything to resolve itself, or for the gift of family to fall from Heaven, and for the love of your life to come down from Heaven. It can happen. If you have such holiness and boldness, then it will be. Fr. Epiphanios (Theodoropoulos) says, “If we had enough living faith in Christ, real living faith and love, then we would say, ‘Lord, I’m going to confess and then commune, and pray, and I’ll walk out of my house and the first person I meet will be the one I will start a family with.’”

Can I tell you something? Don’t do this; don’t do it, because you might get disappointed and disappoint others. I mean for you not to do it, but if some holy person does it, he will have success. Do you know why? If Christ saw that your heart was surrendered to Him, that you trusted Him completely, do you know what He would say? “This, My creation lives for Me, lives by Me, and awaits everything from Me. He completely believes in Me, and now he is going to meet the love of his life. I will not disappoint him, because if I disappoint him, his faith will be shaken, and he will say, ‘Where is my God? So what, Lord, you don’t exist?’”

This is my obedience to Christ. St. John Climacus calls this obedience “sleep walking.” In other words—“Lord, I entrust myself to Thee, and I walk the path of this life with closed eyes; I sleep and I go. I walk, that is, I act, I am active, but at the same time I am sleeping—that is, I quiet down, I sleep peacefully, I walk, and I sleep.”

It’s very interesting; it means that I entrust myself to God. If you will do this and feel it as inner trust, then there is no chance that the Lord will not immediately solve your problem.

God therefore delays, that through danger, searching, mistakes, setbacks, torments, and rejection which we endure or bring, He wants to teach us other lessons, before we get married—lessons of life, humility, patience, and faith. Otherwise, how will you endure life? You will become a useless father, a glib mother, if you act so quickly. You are stressed, you will carry yourself in this stress, and why would you undertake to start a family—to lead others to stress?

There are children who tell their parents when they are fighting: “So what, you got acquainted in the dark? You got married in the dark?”

As some of them say, “Did they gave you a diploma in the dark, or what?”

Well, this is wrong, but why do children say it? Why? Because they understand that something here doesn’t add up, something is wrong, and they see it—they see such nervousness, grumbling, fights, disagreements, anger, whims, and capriciousness. Is that marriage? What kind of relationship is that? What were they thinking about when they met?

***

I like how one of my friends put it: “Father, I’m not going to pretend to be a good person. As soon as I meet a girl, on the second or third date I’m going to tell her about my weaknesses; I will say that I am egotistical, that I’m nervous, that I can explode with anger.”

“Come on, my child, calm down!” I said to him.

“No, I want to say that I’m not going to deceive someone else. I want to tell her the truth, that I will work on myself and try to correct myself, but to make myself into someone I’m not, I will not do.”

Well, as a spirit, as an ethos, as a way of thinking, I like it: “Of course, it might look like unreliability on my part, but I at least want to show her that I am not acting with her. I will not try to convince her of something that’s not true. I want to tell her how I really am. I’m not wearing any mask of hypocrisy, to make myself out to be some big shot, to hide something; no, I am a simple, real, open person; I trust in God and godly people. Sure, it’s a risk, but I say it anyways. I will tell her everything, and when I reveal to her my mistakes and infirmities, then I will be humbled, and she will be touched by this and love me even more, because I’m not making myself out to be anything, but telling her who I really am.”

In this way we lay a good, humble, genuine, down to earth beginning in our life, and Christ serves as our prototype. Although, it would be good if when someone is planning to start a family he had some kind of restraint, because some people, in the name of sincerity, start to tell everything about their lives, and the other person is stung by it, disappointed, and horrified. You should clarify this with your spiritual father.

There are a few things we hide, not out of cunning or malice, but out delicateness and discretion. Do you understand? It could hurt the other person. You don’t need to always pick at the mistakes that happened in the past and which you have already confessed.

“What should I do then?” this person asked me.

I told him the same thing at first:

“Pray! It would be good if you prayed. Above all, she is coming—do you understand?”

“Who’s coming?”

“Your love! Do you hear her footsteps? Listen! Do you hear the footsteps?”

“What are you talking about, father? What footsteps?”

“I’m telling you! If you’re over twenty, then the person you want to start a family with, whom God has prepared for you to meet in some moment—listen to what I’m saying!—that person already exists, and is out there somewhere.”

You ask, “Why are you telling me this?”

I’m saying it so you would feel awe, affection, and joy. I pray to God for your paths to cross, for you to meet. You and her, existing somewhere out there. And you should also say in your prayers: “Lord, we, probably, are walking parallel paths—perhaps we are near one another. The person whom Thou, in Thy wisdom, goodness, and loving plan have prepared for me, exists somewhere. Lord, this girl whom Thou hast prepared for me and who exists somewhere, protect her! Preserve her, and prepare her for me, for our meeting, and grant her the gift of Thy Holy Spirit; give her Thy blessing and love, protect her from all temptations, trials, and physical and spiritual danger.”

Now do you know what to do? Pray for her—familiar and unknown X, whom, however, the Lord knows. On the other hand, there is a known X—it is our Christ… It is a question of days, months, years, when the Lord will place this person in your path.

Just think: You’re talking to Christ, and in that moment Christ already knows the name of the girl who you will marry! He knows her name, and on the day of the wedding everyone will festively hear it: “The servant of God Nicholas is crowned to the handmaiden of God Elena!”

God already know this Elena, who we will hear about then. And you say, “O, my Lord, who is she? I don’t know how this meeting will happen; I don’t know what to do—after all, it’s not human—it’s a mystery.” As it says in the Wedding service, God accomplishes this combination and union between a husband and wife, this meeting. How can two strangers, not knowing one another, suddenly connect, get to know one another and become so attached, become so close to one another, love one another so strongly, and share everything with one another?

I have no family and never will, however I experience awe before it, just as you experience awe when a person becomes a monk and dedicates himself to God. That is, it’s all marriage (monasticism and marriage).

And something else. Someone said to me, “When are we going to hear, ‘Rejoice, O Isaiah?’” That is, when I am I getting married? Well, how could you not hear it? And he heard it—they sing it at the ordination of a deacon and a priest. You will hear it only once, when you get married, but a priest hears it twice: “Rejoice, O Isaiah, the Virgin is with child, and shall bear a son Emmanuel, both God and Man, and Orient is His Name, whom magnifying we call the Virgin blessed.”

Look with awe upon this event, which is coming. If you look at marriage this way, while it has yet to happen—but for God it has happened—then God, of course, will help you. This is what I had in mind.

Well, my brother and all who are anxious for their children over these questions, then you will act otherwise, if you will look upon it as a sacrament. Sacraments are connected with God, and not with your intellect, abilities, pedagogical skills, art, and technique, gimmicks, or your books where you read how to work on yourself, how to act, how to communicate with people—none of this, but it’s a mystery, and it is experienced in the Church, near God.

Unfortunately, the majority of young people today experience these wonderful things outside of God. It’s our drama, the drama of modern man: Families are destroyed, unable even to create something together.

So what are we to do then? If a family isn’t functioning as it should, then nothing good will come out of it—a sick family, with problematic and run-down children who react to everything, resisting, breaking, smashing, rebelling, and liking nothing in this life, and setting cars on fire.

Someone said to me, “And they do well!” I answered internally: “Well, yes, of course they do well!” What do I mean? And what else could they do? What else, when parents, the relations between them, their feelings, love, child, and pregnancy were not sealed by God’s grace, and everything happened with them like animals in nature? The only difference is that cute animals are blessed by God, because they follow their instincts, as God created them. And you? You, man? You will do what you want, whatever comes to mind, what you like? No, you will not. The water you drink out of the faucet is not blessed, but you give it to a priest, he blesses it, and it becomes Holy Water. It is Holy Water—water, blessed by the hand of the priest, the hand of the unworthy priest, and through his hand the Lord invisibly stretches forth His hand and blesses the water.

Only in the Church do bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, while at home they are just bread and wine—bread which molds, and you throw it to the pigeons or bury it in the garden. But in the Church, bread and wine are experienced as a Sacrament; they are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore, any biological or psychological function of man needs precisely that—to be sealed by Christ, to be planted in the Church, where it will be consecrated and become blessed.

Of course, here we are speaking about your personal relationships, about the most sacred and most important events of your life, that is, about your profession, education, and marriage. These are very important questions in life, therefore you answer them in adulthood; but you want to answer these very important questions yourself and say, “I will think it all over myself, I will decide! This is what I think, this is what I have decided!”

But, unfortunately, your criteria are totally worldly, human, biological, psychological, emotional—in general, not Divine. They are not Divine, my child! Few have the strength to put a limit on their instincts and passions and say not “what I like,” “what suits me,” but “Lord, this is what I think, but Thou, Lord, how doth Thou look upon it? Because I can be blind.” When emotions and love are not leavened with the love of Christ, they are only human and blind, and therefore you don’t see clearly.

Yes, this impulse and desire are necessary, to lay a beginning, but we need reason to look at several things logically. And where can this happen? In the Church. How else can you get enlightenment? By yourself? Not praying, not confessing, and not communing? Therefore, I gave one man practical advice: “Every day, read the Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos. Are you doing this?”

“I don’t manage; I don’t think I have enough time.”

“Okay, if you don’t have enough time, then don’t do it. But if you don’t have enough time to do it, then I understand that your problem doesn’t really bother you.”

“How could I not be bothered, father? I want to find her and start a family!”

If it bothered you, you wouldn’t leave it up to chance. You should be at least a little tense. The Israelites passed through the Red Sea on dry land, because it was a miracle, but you must sweat a little, do something, bring something. How? By your prayer, by which you show your strong desire. You show it in prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos and to our Lord, and you say, “Most Holy Theotokos, give me the love of thy Son and send me the person who would love me and who I would love, that we might spend the remainder of our lives together and that our whole family would love the Lord God, thy Son,” and the Most Holy Theotokos will give it to you.

You say, “Do I really have to do it every day?”

Yes, you are not serious; you don’t look seriously upon the spiritual life, and that which you’re seeking doesn’t bother you, because if it bothered you, you would, not just once a day, but constantly, read the akathist.

You say, “If I knew it would work, then I would do it!”

Do you see? This is where your big problem is. Do you recognize it? Now you’ve peered into the very root of the problem—you don’t believe. We don’t believe in the power of God, the power of prayer, in the Lord, and therefore we don’t pray, therefore we don’t hope in prayer. I tell you otherwise: The Lord therefore does not listen to these unbelieving, cold, formal prayers. What does He say? “Leave him, leave him for a while, let him ‘bake,’ let him cry out from the heart.”

The Lord does not torment you; He wants you to mature. To mature means to begin to look seriously upon your relationship with God, with people, and to understand that these important questions are not answered outside of the Church, because, unfortunately, after divorce everyone runs to the Church. When your children lose their way, you say, “Father, save my child!”

When something happens at home: “Father, take these names and commemorate them! Our family is falling apart!”

But why? Are we really going to pick up the pieces all the time? The light of Christ exists not to illuminate some of the debris, but whole diamonds, shining with paradisiacal light and Divine beauty. The Church does not exist only for failed, tormented, and suffering spouses.

Those of you who have passed through danger—you who are drawn to the Church, who have found the path, even through sickness and suffering: bravo! You deserve praise. And who else is standing at the beginning—may the mistakes and failures of others make you think.

The truth is that it’s impossible without Christ to survive these events and not soon feel the stench of corruption, death, and decay. It’s difficult, I think, it’s impossible for people to have a strong bond without Christ—when it’s built just on money, or favors, and so on; but when a tempest arises in someone’s relationship, who doesn’t then exclaim, “O, my Lord, save me!”?

Those who love Christ without coercion, out of gratitude, out of love, because their hearts are thus attuned, are worthy of admiration. Blessed are those who in a maelstrom of problems—at least then—turn to God and find their path.

I pray to God that you all might find this path and meet the love of your life on it, and that you might walk hand-in-hand with them, and not that one be pulled here, and another there, but that you were both pulled to the East, that is, to Christ! I always pray to God, that you would experience miracles in your life, such as those we have spoken about, like the very greatest miracle—the feeling of God’s presence and love in our hearts and lives!

By Archimandrite Andrei (Konanos)

Source: http://orthochristian.com/106288.html

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