The Catalog of Good Deeds

What can we say about the Orthodoxy in Kenya? I think I should forgo the statistical data, which you can find in many articles in Russian and English, and stick to “what our eyes have seen.”

There are many children in the Orthodox parishes in Kenya. Children often constitute 70–80 percent of a congregation. There are a lot of orphans in the country. AIDS, hepatitis, and other diseases take their toll on the Kenyan population. Coupled with drug and alcohol abuse, this disastrous situation leaves many children in need of foster care. This is the kind of work that the Orthodox Church has undertaken. The Church establishes schools and shelters to feed and clothe the children, at the same time preaching Christianity. Aside from comprehensive education, young Christians study the tenets of the Orthodox faith and participate in church worship and the operation of the shelter. That is how they naturally become more involved in the life of the Church. This missionary strategy has been implemented for a couple of decades and has proven to be very effective: the Orthodox Church in the country demonstrates remarkable growth.

Most of educational facilities and shelters look unseemly. The buildings stand on rented or purchased land and look like bunkhouses without floors and windows, made of planks and other building materials. If there is a water well, it’s considered a blessing. Water is very pricey in Kenya.

You will hardly see “Orthodox” architecture in Kenya. There are some nice-looking churches but we haven’t seen any luxurious or weird ones. St Macarius Church in the seminary stands out from the rest. There are churches made of stone in Nairobi and several other cities. There are few such churches and most of them don’t look particularly appealing. It costs an immense lot to build a stone church. Many priests used to be enthusiastic about it but could not finish the construction. Churches under construction aren’t a rare view in Kenya.

Going through the country, we came across churches made of wood and all kinds of stuff. They looked less presentable than barns back home. You will suddenly discover that this or that shanty is a church only when you enter it and see the Royal Doors, icons, and candle holders. People sit in church during worship. Anyway, regardless of how run-down the building might be, you’re immediately impressed by its tidy yard. Only the Orthodox and the Catholics seem to have clean church yards in Kenya but I can’t speak for the entire country, of course…

The Church in Kenya is the community — the faithful — rather than edifices. Perhaps, this is its main advantage. The Church does not waste huge amounts on “centennial projects”. It invests in the people, its parishioners. Huge buildings and expensive vestments don’t play any role here. In spite of a favourable attitude of the government, the Church does not enjoy financial support from the state and survives on its own. These conditions make a bag of rice more valuable than some costly adornments of a parish church.

Naturally, one shouldn’t look at Orthodox Christian life in Kenya through rose-coloured glasses. Community life requires some effort, emotional investment, and, what is crucial, good stewardship. We met extremely poor missionaries but they had vibrant communities nevertheless. We also visited stone churches in big Kenyan cities, which stand half-empty even on Sundays. Generally, it is obvious that the most essential aspect of the Orthodox mission is planting the congregation — the community of people who love God and care about each other.

What are Kenyan priests like? They’re just people. Like ours. Younger priests are filled with zeal and enthusiasm, while the older generation have a more tempered attitude. What they have in common is high theological qualifications, thanks to Nairobi Seminary. The seminary teaches clergy for the entire African continent. Good professors, many of whom received their degrees in Greece and St. Vladimir Seminary in the USA, teach in the seminary. The Primate of the Orthodox Church in Kenya Metropolitan Makarios is an example to follow: he graduated from Oxford University and the Russian Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris.

Life is tough for the priests who serve far from big cities. The Orthodox Church primarily addresses the poorest groups of population. That is why many priests have to work. For instance, Father John rents two fields where he grows flowers for sale. His work day begins very early. Before he comes to the shelter and plunges deep in the problems of the school and the children, he works in the fields with his family. After 6 PM, when most of the children go back to their homes, he has to return to the fields in order to feed his family. The life of Orthodox clergy is really hard. That is why their happiness is worth much more. They are happy not because life’s always good; it originates in their ability to knock at the heaven’s door and to receive joy from God.

The high priest of the Kenyan Orthodox Church is a unique and remarkable man. He jokingly calls himself a “grandson” of Saint Silouan the Athonite because Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, known to the Russian reader by his brilliant book Elder Silouan, was his spiritual father for more than thirty years. He is the person who sets the standards of behaviour to all priests and lay people in Kenya. He is remarkably active for his age: he teaches in the seminary and travels around Kenya all the time, supporting his priests in their work. Metropolitan Makarios keeps looking for ways to fund the construction of churches, schools, and shelters.

When we first visited Kenya, Metropolitan Makarios took us on a visit to some local parishes. We visited five or six parishes in one day and brought them some humanitarian aid. At the end of the day, our legs were swelling so hard that we could barely move, but His Eminence was still smiling and lively.

Metropolitan Makarios is easy-going, far from the image of a self-important and arrogant “prince of the Church”. As soon as he met us, he led us to the seminary refectory, seated us around a table, and started waiting on us: he fetched new meals and carried away our dirty plates. It puzzled us because our people are not accustomed to this kind of Gospel-like simplicity and modesty. He does not have guards, expensive accessories, and stylish cars. You immediately comprehend that he is a true monk. He doesn’t care who you are: the President of Cyprus, with whom he talked on phone in our presence, or a regular guy from a poor neighbourhood…

Returning to Nairobi from our mission trip to the coast, we knew: Metropolitan Makarios was there waiting for us. He phoned us several times to make sure that we were okay. When we finally arrived at the seminary several hours later, in the middle of the night, he was really waiting for us. He grabbed one of our bags and tried to carry it to our cell. Doesn’t it speak louder than words? His priests love him very much. I have never witnessed such friendly and warm relationships before.

A liturgy in Kenya is accompanied by joyful songs and dance. The dance is meant to glorify God. It doesn’t have any erotic or dirty connotations. It’s absolutely pious and fits into the worship harmoniously. Africans dance everywhere but it doesn’t mean that they dance during every service, not at all!

Parishioners actively participate in the Divine Liturgy. They read the Holy Scripture, recite prayers, sing chants and hymns. The Eucharist crowns everything.

It is during one such service that it suddenly dawns on you that their joy is for real. Many of them literally live in hell. The Church and common prayer is their only beam of hope and joy. Our “proper reading” of prayers, not grounded in the spirit of those prayers, is much more dangerous and hypocritical than their childlike spontaneity. You suddenly realise that God is present.

There is no “other” Orthodoxy. It’s exactly like ours. There are various conditions that people live and get saved in but everyone is saved by the same Jesus Christ.

Every time I return home from a mission trip, I start looking at what the Lord has given me from a different angle. We are so happy to see open churches, have the chance to read the Gospel and do the ministry! How much we are given and how insensitive to it we have become!

People always ask me why children in Africa keep smiling, despite their poverty, diseases, and hunger. I don’t know. Maybe their eyes aren’t worn out by the screens of iPhones, their spiritual eyesight is still strong, and they can feel that God is always near because they are loved.

End of Part II

St. Elisabeth Convent

June 14, 2018

Spiritual life is full of paradoxes. Thus, an individual doesn’t notice his sins before he turns to God. He can’t even imagine that he has to confess anything at all. As soon as the individual turns to God, he immediately finds out that he is a sinner. Before we turn to God, the only thing that we can see is our false righteousness. When we encounter God, we begin to acknowledge our sinfulness and powerlessness. Apparently, our image of self is very distorted until God sheds his light into our souls.

Self-righteousness makes you blind, while repentance makes you see. We move forward only when we finally begin to feel and realize how weak and unstable we are without God. The paradox here lies in the fact that a soul that acknowledges that she is lost, will be saved, whilst the soul that regards herself saved, will perish.

Using visible signs to evaluate your spiritual progress is a mistake. It will lead us to notice our so-called achievements everywhere. We will begin to count how much good we have done: we gave money to a beggar, we helped an old lady to cross the street, we don’t swear for a long time already, we don’t drink too much booze, we don’t smoke, we don’t fight with anybody. Don’t we deserve the Paradise? This kind of statistical thinking makes you arrogant, and arrogance in turn leads to failure.

Take, for example, a young man who decided to quit smoking. He stopped smoking on the first day of the Great Lent — amazing, isn’t it? After that, he glued a cigarette to the door of his toilet, where he had used to smoke, and wrote “I DID IT” in big letters. He intended it to remind him that he had summoned enough willpower to defeat his weakness, and that he wasn’t attached to cigarettes any longer. However, two years later he ran into some trouble and started smoking a lot again. That is what “I did it” means; that’s what your reliance on your own strength means. That is why the path to perfection in the Gospel starts with the commandment “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” Our spiritual achievement are possible only thanks to God’s power. We shouldn’t rely on ourselves.

You shouldn’t measure your spiritual advancement by counting the good actions that you do. You should detect your own previously overlooked shortcomings and work on eliminating them. Just take a look inside yourself and see what happens in your heart when you are blamed and scolded unjustly, when they prefer another person to you — and you’ll see how Christian you really are.

There is a story about Abba Anthony in the Book of Memorable Stories. Some monks told Abba Anthony about a wonderful ascetic. When the said monk came to Abba Anthony, the latter decided to test whether the monk could be able to put up with an insult, and he couldn’t. Abba Anthony told him, “You’re like a village that looks great from the outside but is devastated by robbers inside.” Likewise, we sometimes appear to be decent but are torn apart with passions, anger, and the search for our own “truth” inside.

If I lose my temper when someone pulls a joke on me or criticizes me, it means that I haven’t made any spiritual progress. If someone’s words are capable of taking my composure away, where is my spiritual maturity and stability?

We make spiritual progress only when the negative impact from other people, their reproaches, annoyance, or resentment don’t quench our love towards them. When our souls love so much that no one in the world can hurt it. When we are happy with someone else’s success and forget about our own — these are the first indications of our spiritual growth. However, it is achievable only if we pursue God and repent of our spiritual flaws sincerely.

To that extent, your confession must not consist of a formal enumeration of your imperfections, which are common for all of us. You should confess your own spiritual issues, the painful memories of your life that you have a hard time struggling with. Have a closer look at what you keep stumbling over and what you may even be ashamed to admit: that’s what you should confess to make sure that you move forward in your life.

May the Lord help us not to stumble on the road of our spiritual life.

By Fr. Valery Dukhanin

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

Next in this commentary series on the Divine Liturgy I would like examine the Peace and the Creed. The liturgical exchange of the Peace (or “the holy Kiss” to use more ancient terminology) goes back to the very earliest possible time. St. Paul ends both of his epistles to the Corinthians by telling them to “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12), as he also does in his first epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:26). This kiss was not simply epistolary convention, but a liturgical action—since Paul’s letters would have been read to the churches during their liturgical assembly (probably at the conclusion of their readings from Scripture—compare the pairing of Paul’s letters with Scripture readings in 2 Peter 3:16), the holy kiss he bids them offer also formed part of their liturgical assembly.

In fact it formed an integral part of every celebration of the Eucharist, and the earliest extant account of the Eucharist from the second century pen of St. Justin Martyr tells us that “having ended the prayers [i.e. the prayers of intercession] we salute one another with a kiss” (from his Apology, chapter 65). During the time when the church congregations were small enough to be intimate and close-knit, the holy Kiss was exchanged even across the gender divide (thus Tertullian in his To His Wife, 2, 4), and on the mouth (the custom being mentioned in Sophronius’ account of the Life of St. Mary of Egypt). It was not long until this custom was felt to be problematic, and the Kiss was later restricted according to gender. But however given, the Kiss of Peace is still retained in our Liturgy, as the deacon bids the faithful every Sunday “Let us love one another!” He is not here inculcating an internal attitude, but giving liturgical directive — a directive which is followed by the clergy when two or more of them concelebrate. It is tragic that the laity do not follow suit and exchange the Kiss among those standing next to them. St. Justin Martyr would wonder, as would Chrysostom, why the people were not doing what they were told.

The Kiss of Peace is not simply an expression of socialization, a kind of liturgical “hello there, nice to see you”. Rather it functions to seal the intercessory prayers of the people which (as we see from Justin’s description) it immediately followed. In this exchange each communicant recognizes his fellow-communicant as a fellow-member of Christ’s Body — that is, flesh of his own flesh, blood of his own blood, as intimately a part of himself as one member of a human body is to another. That is why the Kiss was never exchanged with the catechumens, for they were not yet members of that one Body (or, in the words of Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, “their kiss is not yet holy”). Far less would it be exchanged with a heretic, as St. John reveals when he forbids the faithful to give the heretic any greeting — i.e. any liturgical greeting (2 John 10).

The Peace serves to express the mutual love and seal the unity which all enjoy as members of the one Body of Christ. Without this unity, our intercessory prayers remain unsealed, ineffective, unheard, for they are only sealed through love. Christ teaches this when He says that if we refuse our brother forgiveness, we ourselves will not be forgiven. St. Peter taps into the same principle when he insists that a man must honour his wife as a joint heir of the grace of life, lest his own prayers be hindered (Matthew 7:14-15, 1 Peter 3:7). A person trained in the western church’s concern for legality will look only to the question of whether or not a Eucharist is “valid”. But validity is not the issue; the power that comes from love is. In the Didache (ca. 100 A.D.) it says “let no one who has a quarrel with a companion join you until they have been reconciled, so that your sacrifice [i.e. the Eucharist] may not be defiled” (Сhapter 14).

This leads to another function of the Peace in the Liturgy, that of sacramental preparation. The mutual recognition and acceptance of one another as fellow-members of the same Body allows for reconciliation before the weekly reception of Holy Communion. The Church has always applied to its own Eucharistic worship Christ’s words in Matthew 5:23f: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” Christ originally intended this counsel to show how essential forgiveness was to worship, and He said it was so crucial that even if it was at the last moment before the sacrificial knife fell upon the neck of the sacrificial animal that one remembered a need for reconciliation, even then one must call a halt to the offering and go first to be reconciled. Our sacrifice is the Eucharist, and the weekly Kiss allows for a weekly opportunity for reconciliation and peace. That was why it was exchanged after the intercessions and before the Eucharist. It sealed the former and prepared for the latter.

The Kiss of Peace is followed immediately by the Creed. The Creed was not originally a part of the Eucharist, but of baptism. It constituted an expression of the faith into which the candidate was baptized, and if he or she could not confess that faith, then baptism was not possible. In Constantinople it was first inserted into the Liturgy around the end of the fifth century. And of course once it found a place in the Liturgy, no bishop wanted to be known as one who removed it from the Liturgy as if he disagreed with its contents. So, the Creed became a fixture in the Eucharist.

Whether through accident or providence, it is fortunate that it did, for it expresses the inseparable link of love and belief, of our interior disposition and our outer confession of faith. We need both to be truly Orthodox, for love without faith and faith without love are equally unavailing. The Peace and the Creed are joined in a kind of liturgical symbiosis: “Let us love one another that with one mind we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence and undivided”. To offer a pure sacrifice we need both love in our hearts, and the true faith on our lips. Both lovelessness and heresy would contaminate our offering; we need to love one another and confess the true faith.

The presence of the Creed reveals that it matters what we believe, and that mere sincerity is not enough to participate in the Church’s offering. And we must also embrace not just the words of the Creed, but the meaning of those words as intended by their authors. In some circles it is enough to simply say the words, apart from their original meaning and intent. Thus one could say the words about Christ being raised from the dead and still believe that His body was never physically raised. “By ‘the Resurrection’” this person might say, “I only mean that Christ’s spirit and values will always be triumphant. By the words ‘He was born of the Virgin Mary’, I only mean that Christ was morally unique among all the rest of humankind.” One could fill a bibliography with people saying such things. But anyone with a shred of historical integrity and any loyalty to the Fathers will renounce such sophistry. We must say the words and mean by them what they originally meant. When we say that He was raised from the dead, we mean that His glorified physical flesh and bones emerged from the empty tomb, leaving only the grave-clothes behind. When we say that He was born of the Virgin Mary, we mean that He had no physical father. One can play games with history, the Creed, and the Fathers, but God is not mocked. The creed of one saying this is not ours, and we cannot in conscience give him the Kiss of peace, “for he who greets him shares his wicked work” (2 John 11).

The Peace and the Creed thus form both an expression of and a foundation for unity. As soon as the Kiss is exchanged and the Creed is chanted, it is time to stand aright, to stand with fear. The time for the sacrifice of praise is then at hand.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/commentary-divine-liturgy-peace-creed/