Personal Stories: The Gift of Orthodoxy
St. Paul speaks of being "an Apostle out of due time" in the sense that he did not know Jesus first-hand, and did not travel around with Jesus the way that the other Apostles did. Yet God chose him particularly to have a special and useful place in the Church. In the same way, converts are not natural inheritors of Orthodoxy in the same way as are those people born in traditionally Orthodox countries and cultures. But God takes us from all sorts of places, adopting us in a special way, making us a part of His Church in a way that we would have no natural inherited right to. (Someone born Greek or Serbian or Russian would normally inherit Orthodoxy.)
Because God has chosen to give us Orthodoxy outside of normal means,
perhaps we tend to cherish it more and also to feel the obligation to share it
with those who do not have the gift and also to help those who have inherited
it to understand and appreciate it better. This becomes more true when in
retrospect it is possible to see that our becoming Orthodox was not just a
chance occurrence, not something that we stumbled into blindly by ourselves,
but something that God planned out and manipulated starting many, many years
before we had even the smallest idea anything was happening. Let me give you an
example by telling a bit about what happened in my case. The part that I wrote
to you before was rather the third act of the drama and the climax, but did not
show all the careful and patient preparation that God did for so many years.
We had a most unusual parish priest during my teen years. He taught the
high school religion class and gave us a thorough grounding in early Church
history, and for a Catholic priest, gave an amazingly honest appraisal of the
politics involved in creating the break between East and West. He also told us
that the TRUTH was an absolute quantity which could stand any amount of
searching, questioning and probing. He insisted that we should search, think,
question everything. Also, he created a "model" parish.
People came from all over California to see us during Sunday Mass because
the entire congregation could sing the Mass or make the responses in Latin if
the Mass was being spoken instead of sung. This gave a clear sense of
participation and involvement with the main worship service and pointed out
clearly the position of primary importance of Holy Communion. Then, once a
year, on the feast of the Ascension of our Lord, he placed an Iconostasis in
the church and had the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom performed in a different
language Greek, Slavonic, Syrian, Arabic and Aramaic. Some people were
indifferent, some disliked it, but I positively loved the Liturgy right from
the first time.
After finishing university, I had an opportunity to study abroad for a
year. I wanted to go to Japan and was accepted to study there, but God
intervened and I ended up in Sweden instead for a year. There I became
fascinated by all the beautiful Russian icons in the museums and when an
opportunity came to travel during the spring holidays, I travelled to Russia. On
the way, we were taken to Vespers in a Russian Orthodox Church in Helsinki.
Then, in Moscow, the leader of the tour had tried to arrange for us to go to
the Pascha Liturgy. We trudged miles through the snow to get to one of the few
open churches left there. It was an amazing experience.
We got there at about midnight. There were people everywhere, almost solid
for about two blocks around the church. It was a real effort to make our way up
to the church through this throng. Then we were confronted by mounted police
guarding the area and a huge wrought - iron fence about 12 feet high. We were
told that we should have had our passports with us in order to be admitted, so
someone went back to the hotel to fetch them. The rest of us waited. Every so
often, the gate would open and a few people, foreign visitors like ourselves,
would leave.
We were fortunate that some of the students in our group could speak
Russian so they talked with people standing around with and were told that the
church was already full and there was no more room for anyone, that is why they
were not permitted in. But one wing was reserved for foreign visitors, and that
was where we waited. One girl in our group slipped in the gate as some visitors
were let out. She held a rosary with a crucifix on it and gestured that she
wanted to go in the church.
We stood there for over three hours and finally about 4 am, left and made
our way back to our hotel. The service was not finished but we just felt unable
to keep standing anymore. Bright Monday, the "Intourist" guide
collected us all after breakfast (the only day in Russia that we did not have
boiled eggs for breakfast) and she told us that in Russia mistakes don't
happen, but that it was not going to be possible for us to see the factory we
were scheduled to see! Instead, there was only one thing that she could arrange
at such short notice, a visit to an old monastery 50 miles outside the city.
That is how we ended up at the Holy Trinity Lavra at Zagorsk. Zagorsk, the
monastery established by St. Sergius and considered by many to be the holiest
place in all Russia. But of course, I didn't know that then. I only knew that
it was a very beautiful, peaceful place and that the people from the town
seemed extraordinarily full of faith for being in a Communist country.
A friend had picture postcards with various churches and monasteries and
for some reason gave some out to the ladies standing around after the service.
People seemed to materialise from everywhere and want one. In the end, she gave
them all away, while the ladies stood in groups eagerly comparing and seeing
which church each one had received a picture of. They seemed almost like a
group of small children who had just been given lollies than ladies in their
fifties and sixties. After we saw the church, a Russian lady saw that I was
wearing, a cross, hurried home, and upon returning, smilingly presented me with
a dark red egg.
After we returned to Sweden, my fiance and I found a small antique shop in
Stockholm selling Russian icons that had been taken out of Russia by a friend
of the proprietor. In this way, we acquired a beautiful 19th century icon, the
"Mother of God, Joy of all who Sorrow". We had intended the purchase
as an investment to be sold when we married in order to help set up house. But
somehow, we could never bring ourselves to sell it.
Much later, we were told by a Russian Orthodox friend that he knew of
several cases where people had bought icons as a "piece of art" or as
an investment, but after living with the icon, became Orthodox.
When we came to Australia, my husband began lecturing at the university.
Years later, he had a Greek young man in one of his classes providing someone
for us to talk to when Robert began to ask questions about Orthodoxy. This very
serious young man was just the right person to explain things because he wanted
to become a priest. Christos became the nonos (godfather) for our whole family
when we became Orthodox. And even though he wanted to go to Greece to study for
the priesthood, things kept happening, various papers were lost, or misplaced,
red tape everywhere, so that he was able to be with us for the first year after
our Chrismation.
Christos finally went to Greece, completed 3 years of study for a degree in
theology and became a monk on the Holy Mountain. Last year, he became a deacon.
Now he is called Fr. Theonas.
Many people might say that these were all odd, isolated, or random
happenings, but I don't think so. Behind everything always the hand of God
nudges and prods, like a Fisherman slowly and carefully gathering in His net
until He has each one of us precisely where He wants us. His slow, patient,
careful planning, the years of inexorable, diligent pursuit are almost
terrifying in their intensity. It says something to us very clear and real
about His love for us and His determination to save us in spite of ourselves.
No wonder that Christ is portrayed sometimes in the West as the Hound of
Heaven, relentlessly pursuing souls with the same unswerving determination
displayed by a bloodhound after its prey.
The amazing thing is that there are so many of us and yet God goes to such
trouble over each one on a very individual basis. What incredible value He must
place on each of us to go to so much trouble on our account.
From a journey to
Orthodoxy by our sister in Christ,
Elizabeth Huestis
Source: http://www.orthodoxchristian.info/pages/Elizabeth.html
