The Catalog of Good Deeds

7. Pray in front of the holy icons

Few people know that the spiritual tradition of the Orthodox Church discourages praying with closed eyes, if there isn’t a good reason to do so. Our minds can’t handle lack of visuals well. When we don’t look at anything, our minds start creating various images or visualizations. It may even be pleasant at times but if we pray in this manner, we can easily be carried away by these images, and our prayers will turn into dreams or fantasies. That is why there are holy icons. Looking at them, we direct our thoughts towards the Person who we pray to.

8. Your prayer must have a proper recipient

Proper recipients of a prayer include the Lord God glorified in the Holy Trinity, the Most Pure Theotokos, saints, and heavenly hosts. All other recipients are unacceptable. For instance, we don’t pray to the reposed: we pray to God for their blissful repose. We cannot address the “Mother Earth”, the Blue Sky, the Green Grass, the Fire, and everything else that can be found in pagan rituals. Even if you pray together with people who claim to be Orthodox Christians but encounter things like these, you have to stop and state that this kind of prayer is wrong in clear terms. Prayers like these have nothing in common with Christianity.

9. A true prayer cannot impose any conditions on God

A prayer is an opportunity to talk with God. Only humans have this opportunity. Sure, all creation praises its Creator but only sentient humans can communicate with God using words. A prayer is first of all an interaction between a human being and God. Nevertheless, if the human being starts demanding anything from the Lord, his or her prayer will be more like a magic spell than a truly Christian fear of God and reverence.

10. You must not rejoice at the misfortunes of other people in your prayer

There are three main modes of prayer: gratitude or praise, petition, and penitence. All other emotions that are rooted in our passions, such as anger or resentment, are absolutely impermissible during the prayer of a Christian. For instance, it is wrong to want revenge, to curse other people or to ask God to punish them. It is forbidden to rejoice at other people’s misfortunes and to thank God for sending them these or those trials, and so forth.

11. Prayer mustn’t be formal

You mustn’t read the holy words aloud just to mark them as read. If you don’t want to pray; if you feel that you don’t have enough time or energy for prayer, better pray less but call to God as sincerely as you can. However, it is worth pointing out that reducing the time of prayer must not turn into a habit.

Holy Fathers used to say that God won’t hear the prayers that we don’t hear as we pronounce them. It’s clear that the Lord knows all our petitions before we start praying but if we are careless and read the prayers halfheartedly, just to perform a certain ritual or a ceremony, the value of our words amounts to zero.

12. Prayer cannot be hollow

Before we pray to God or His saints, we ought to prepare by reflecting to whom we are going to pray and what we are going to pray about. More often than not, people who spend years in the Church get so accustomed to the prayers that they start reading them without thinking. Your prayer won’t be powerful if you simply repeat some words, the meaning of which you don’t know or to which you’ve grown insensitive. A prayer isn’t a magic spell that ostensibly possesses power of its own. It cannot be hollow and careless. Apostle Paul says, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Cor. 14:15). You have to try and put your mind into the words of a prayer.

End of Part II

By Archpriest Pavel Velikanov

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

On September 30 (October 13), the Church commemorated a great saint, a missioner and confessor, a bishop of Christ’s Church - St. Gregory, the enlightener of the Armenian people. Thanks to his confessional feat and his work on the field of Christ, the whole people turned to the faith in Jesus Christ. For 2 centuries, Armenian Orthodox Church supported the Eucharistic communion with other local Orthodox Churches. However, unfortunately, it could not accept the doctrines of the 4^th Ecumenical Council and this is why for more than 1500 years is does not have the Eucharistic communion with the Orthodox Church.

Below we will mention some interesting facts about the Armenian Orthodox Church and its founder – St. Martyr Gregory.

1) Gregory was of the family of Parthian kings. His father killed his own relative – the king of Armenia – for authority and the whole tribe of the future enlightener of Armenia was killed for that. Gregory himself was rescued by another relative of him, who later brought him to Caesarea of Cappadocia, where Gregory was baptized and raised in Christian faith.

2) To make amends for what his father had done, Gregory decided to come back to his homeland and join the service at the court of king Tiradath, the son of the killed Armenian king so that he could be his servant.

3) King Tiridath could not stand the Christian faith of his servant and was the one who ordered to throw Gregory into the moat, where he spent 14 years. He ate there the food that one good woman brought to him.

St. Gregory sitting in the moat

4) King Tiridath killed a saint virgin Ripsimia, abbess Gaiania and 35 virgins, after which he lost his mind and could find the cure only through his repentance, to which we was called by St. Gregory.

5) Armenia is the first country in the world’s history that accepted Christianity as its state religion.

6) The Head of the Armenian Church – Catholicos, who has full power. He is the only cleric who can ordain bishops. Other bishops can only assist him during the ordination. The elected catholicos takes his position until his death.

Catholicos Krekin II and Patriarch Kirill

7) Bishops can be chosen only from among single unmarried priests who have a science degree.

8) Before to become a servant, a married priest has to be married at least for a year and has a child.

9) In Armenian Church, the rank of archimandrite is not a position, but a science degree, which can be accepted only by the unmarried clerics.

10) Following an ancient Christian tradition, Armenian Christians celebrate the Nativity of Christ and the baptism of the Lord on one and the same day, which is January 6, and call it the feast of the “Epiphany”.

11) The Armenians use unleavened bread for Eucharist and do not dilute wine with water.

12) Armenian Church did not accept the Council of Chalcedon largely owing to the war against Persia as well as due to the fact that the Byzantine Empire itself denied the Council of Chalcedon back then, and the Armenian Church followed the Byzantine. However, later the Byzantine Empire would accept the decisions of the Council, while the Armenians would not.

By John Nichiporuk,

a Bachelor of Theology,
specialized in Biblical Studies.

The Catalog Of Good Deeds

We’re all for it! Patriotism is a good thing: loving, treasuring one’s homeland and people, a sense of belonging, our own way of doing things, our particular gifts from God.

Americans have much to be patriotic about. (We’re certainly not alone in this; think “Canada” again, for another example.) We have much for which we should be grateful to God, things we easily take for granted:

Political stability for almost 250 years. Despite huge changes in society, threatening events including a civil war, some major missteps and failings and also the occasional bizarre politician, the system still stands. America’s founding fathers were brilliant visionaries in this regard. Imagine anyone today fashioning a form of representative government that would still be around in the year 2245.

Our freedoms – elected government, freedom of worship, of speech, assembly, the press. We have often been slow to apply these God-given rights, as the founders described them, to women and minorities. It’s still a struggle, and these freedoms are not infrequently under attack, but we’ve made progress.

Peace. In parts of the world there is little peace for anybody. Here, despite occasional ethnic strife brought on by rabble-rousers, or because we have mistreated minorities, people of many sorts generally get along together. Our Milwaukee Orthodox Churchwomen’s Association, which includes Greeks, has held luncheons at a Turkish restaurant!

America’s capacity to provide a refuge for people from all over the world (may we continue to do so) and incorporate them into our society – perhaps some of you who are reading this blog. In The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann he wrote how he and his wife Juliana came to America as immigrants, she not speaking a word of English, and 25 years later she was made head of one of New York’s most prestigious schools for girls. He wrote, “The American dream is still alive!”

Orthodoxy and the Nation

Orthodoxy has always formed a close bond with society and culture so that the faith is connected with life, not just with Sunday morning. Actually the modern nation state, with its sharply defined boundaries, is a relatively new development. Things were more flexible in ancient times. But Orthodoxy has associated itself with modern nations too. That’s why we have the national Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church and so on.

However, patriotism can also be dangerous. Father Schmemann wrote in his Journal that one of the worst things that ever happened to Orthodoxy was its identification with modern nations, so that people cannot distinguish between the two – like those who think that to be really Orthodox you’ve got to be Greek or Russian or whatever, or like some evangelicals who can’t seem to separate their Christianity from Americanism (of a particular type). When my wife and I were first looking at Orthodoxy 30 years ago a Ukrainian Orthodox woman, a good friend (memory eternal, Helen+), asked me, “Why do you want to be Orthodox? You’re not Ukrainian.” Someone I know was interested in Orthodoxy and visited a Greek church, where the priest told him, “I’m glad you visited. Now go back to your own church where you belong.”

This attitude is called Phyletism (“tribalism”): the odd notion that Orthodoxy is limited to a particular tribe or culture or nation. It was condemned at a pan-Orthodox council in Constantinople in 1872. The great danger of Phyletism is that it limits Orthodox people to one narrow national way of looking things. Orthodoxy is multi-cultural: for all the world, all peoples. Orthodoxy is super-cultural: wider, broader, deeper, higher, wiser than any one nation or culture.

Our Lord Jesus made this clear regarding Jewish tribalism. How often he made foreigners the heroes: the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan leper who alone returned to give thanks, the Roman centurion of whom he said. “I tell you many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in kingdom of heaven, but the sons of Kingdom [the Jews, or us if we are unfaithful] will be cast out into the darkness”. John the Baptist warned,“If God needs sons of Abraham, he can raise them up out of these stones.” And so it is if God needs Americans… or if he needs Orthodox.

Orthodoxy in America

American Orthodox are not much tempted by Phyletism. This is not an Orthodox country. Nor, despite what we read, did the United States have a Christian foundation in the classical sense of that word. At the time of the American revolution only about 30% of Americans had any formal religious affiliation. The conversion of America to “believing” Christianity began in the 18th century with the evangelical Great Awakening and continued in the 19th century with the arrival of many Roman Catholic immigrants. However, among well-educated Protestants of the 18th century the predominant theology was deism, the belief that God like a clockmaker created the universe, then largely left it running on its own. No miracles, please.

I think many of America’s founding fathers were affected by deism: they often gave God an impersonal deist title, “Providence”. But they weren’t consistent about it: they also spoke of his involvement in human affairs. Also, very much in the spirit of of the times, few of them believed in the divinity of Christ. Thomas Jefferson revised the New Testament leaving out all miracles. George Washington, an Anglican vestryman, never received Holy Communion. John Adams was a Unitarian. They believed in the social value of religion in general but established no particular religion. I hate to tell you this, but in today’s terms many of America’s founding fathers were religious liberals. I don’t mean to disparage them or their work. Goodness, wisdom, intelligence and political brilliance are not limited to Orthodox Christians.

As Orthodox Christians how should we relate to a non-Orthodox America? We should incorporate what is good here, which is a whole lot. The Orthodox Church has always moved into new lands and has taken what is good in the culture and brought it into the Church. Unlike Protestant missionaries who made Hawaiian natives dress like Scottish Presbyterians, American Orthodox women do not need to dress like Russian peasants – though they certainly may if they want to. Alaskan pagans had spirit houses in their cemeteries where they went to commune with their dead; today many old spirit houses have Orthodox crosses on them where the natives pray for their dead.

Already some good American things are being pulled into the Orthodox Church. America is in many ways a democratic culture. Americans like to participate. This is helping American Orthodox recover some elements of authentic ancient Orthodoxy that have been underplayed: more frequent Communions; worship in the local language, so people can understand and participate; more open icon screens so people don’t feel cut off from the action in the altar; parish councils and national conventions, so laypeople can take their proper place in the running of the Church, and more. Some churches appropriately have services on American Thanksgiving Day. And I think America’s emphasis on freedom fits well with Orthodoxy’s hard-to-explain unity in the faith without external compulsion.

But Orthodoxy rejects those things in cultures which do not conform to the faith. Here are some things in American culture that we do not want in the Church:

1. If Americans have loose sexual mores (as apparently many do, judging by television and the movies and the behavior we accept in some of our political leaders), they are to become strict when they become Orthodox.

2. Arrogance. Many Americans both conservative and liberal take it for granted that we are right and the rest of the world is wrong, and our job is to tell them how to do it. I once watched a visiting American secretary of state on Greek television publicly telling Greek leaders exactly what they must do and how they must do it, and I could see by the Greeks’ facial expressions that whatever she said (even if she was right, and I think she was) they were not going to do it. Arrogance (even if it’s unintentional as hers was, for she is not by nature an arrogant person) is destructive. Since we Orthodox believe we are the original and authentic Church we are tempted by this kind of triumphalism. We need to reject it. It will drive people away – or, worse, it will attract proud, arrogant people. The Orthodox virtue is humility.

3. The confusion of political freedom with spiritual freedom. In John 8 when Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”, the Jews responded, “We are sons of Abraham. We’re not slaves to anyone.” (“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”) Jesus answered, “I tell you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.” If pride, greed, lust, anger, hatred, drink, drugs, whatever, control you, you are not free. You can vote in every election and pray in every school and still be a slave. In fact one can have no political freedom, no religious freedom and still be truly free. Freedom from sin is the ultimate freedom.

4. The modern American attitude towards money. It is taken for granted in our culture that money comes first: the purpose (for many the sole purpose) of life is to make bigger profits, get rich, accumulate as much stuff as possible, have the perfect kitchen. (I refer to HGTV.) The Church calls this the sin of greed. American Orthodox are very tempted by this: to think that the measure of success is big houses, big churches, big budgets, big money. This is not compatible with Orthodoxy. I am glad that God has provided my church, Saint Nicholas, Cedarburg, with the money we need (including 10% for charities) but not much more.

The Orthodox Mission to America

Our mission here is not to change Orthodoxy to make it American. Orthodoxy is what it is, always has been, always will be.

Our mission is twofold:

1) to make Americans Orthodox. To make authentic Orthodoxy available and accessible so Americans can enter into it. By the grace of God this is happening, slowly. I believe the Orthodox Church has arrived in America at just the right time, and that Orthodox from the old countries, whether they know it or not, have come here by the hand of God, for the purpose of God.

2) to make America Orthodox. To contribute our Orthodox values and gifts to this society: our strong families; our theological and moral stability; our worship with its sense of mystery and wonder and of being “at home in heaven”, now so lacking in most American religion and society; our ability to transcend political divisions in a way that many American denominations cannot, and more. The Orthodox Church has always been concerned not only with saving souls but with the conversion of cultures, creating Orthodox societies. If God wills, we hope to convert the nation. In the Roman empire 2000 years ago we were a small minority but growing even despite persecution, and you know what happened. Today we are a small minority in America but growing. In time who knows what may happen? Hang in here for a few more centuries.

For the sake of America and Americans I hope these things will happen. Despite all that we Americans justifiably complain about, we are blessed to live here, now. But all nations and empires, even the best of them, come and go – this is no secret – while the Church, by the promise and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will endure forever. The gates of death will never prevail against her, and in her and her ways are found true freedom and security for every nation and every people.

By Fr. Bill Olnhausen

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/frbill/21-patriotism/

There has been a Q&A column on the website of FOMA Magazine for a long time. Every reader can ask a question and receive a personal response from a priest. However, there are questions that cannot be answered in a letter: they deserve a lengthy answer. A couple of weeks ago, we received an interesting question, “How can you tell a false prayer from the genuine one?”

We forwarded our reader’s question to Archpriest Pavel Velikanov, the rector of St Paraskevi Church of the Holy Trinity and St Sergius Lavra in Sergiyev Posad, and the editor-in-chief of Bogoslov.ru portal.

1. A good prayer always has a reliable source

Most prayerbooks contain prayers composed by saints and tested by centuries-long practice of church life. These prayers help to set one’s soul to the right pitch of conversation with the Lord and his saints. Unfortunately, people are often looking for “simple” and “easy” prayers and expect to resolve their problems through them.

There are quite a few prayers that aim to meet practical needs, e.g., childbirth, marriage, or career. It isn’t evident that the authors of these prayers are holy and spiritually advanced. Almost all “time-tested” prayers have an author. Recently, there has been an influx of “anonymous” prayers, composed by no-one-knows-whom and no-one-knows-where with grave dogmatic errors and wrong moral and spiritual teachings.

Books of prayer must have an imprimatur “Recommended for publication by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church,” whereby the Church guarantees that the prayers fit into the tradition of spiritual life of the Orthodox Church. There is another kind of endorsement, which states, “Allowed for publication by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church”, which means that there isn’t anything that disturbs one’s inner peace or contradicts the tenets of Christianity in that prayerbook but there might be some prayers that are not used by the entire Church.

Check if the prayers that you find online correspond to the printed books that have these imprimaturs. There are many websites that distribute prayers of dubious content.

2. Don’t be addicted to the search of new prayers

You should remember that the most important and the most essential prayer of every Christian is the Eucharistic prayer, i.e., the central and the most important part of the Liturgy, during which the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist is performed. It doesn’t ask God to grant any privileges for yourself and your family. It boils down to our participation in the building of God’s Kingdom here and now, which happens when we celebrate the Liturgy, when we take communion, when we become able to hold the Divine fire and to carry it into the world. Anyone who loves and understands church worship will never seek or invent new prayers because our church worship has everything that a human might request from God, and even more.

3. If you pray together with other people, do it in church

Joint prayers, or the so-called prayers of agreement, can happen outside the church in two cases. First, if it’s the prayer of the “home church”, i.e., the family. Second, if it’s impossible to pray in a church for some reason (illness, distance, etc.) If people gather in someone’s house to pray for no apparent reason and without a priest’s blessing, or agree to read certain prayers at a certain time, the question is why can’t they do so in the church, led by a priest?

It is worth mentioning that we literally pray in agreement when we come to church and take part in the service. We gather “in the church” (1 Cor. 11:18) and turn into a Eucharistic community by joint prayer and participation in the Liturgy. We must also remember that there are molebens, akathists, panikhidas, and other divine services performed in the church, and we shouldn’t disregard them, either.

4. True prayer results in humility and obedience, not self-righteousness and egoism

By its very nature, a prayer must bring a person closer to God. What does it mean? God is holy. Accordingly, getting closer to God means getting closer to holiness. The fruit of real and genuine prayer will be expressed in two ways. First, the desire to obey God, that is, obedience. Second, humility, that is, realizing that you are unable to get saved by your own power, and that you need God’s help badly in all other matters. Humility doesn’t mean self-deprecation. It doesn’t mean that you should enjoy being guilty of everything and at all times. Humility is the pursuit of God. It is when you commend yourself in God’s hands so that He could come and start managing your life as He pleases.

If someone becomes self-righteous and self-centered as a result of his prayer and the cocoon of his self-sufficiency doesn’t break loose, then his prayer is wrong and false.

5. Prayer must be free from self-excitement

If we become too emotional, sentimental, and affectionate during prayer, it may mean that we’re heading straight down the path towards the dangerous condition known in Orthodoxy as prelest (devil’s charm), that is being short-circuited on one’s own self and self-deceitful. When we fall prey to this devil’s charm, it might appear that if prayer makes us so enthusiastic, we must be spiritually sound and close to holiness already. The devil often warps one’s perception of reality in order to rob one of the saving fruit of a genuine prayer. Of course, there are special inspirational phenomena that happen during a real prayer, too. They happen when God’s grace touches a person’s heart. However, these phenomena can’t be predicted or achieved by artificial self-excitement.

6. Prayer mustn’t make you ecstatic

Needless to say, shamanic mumbo-jumbo is strictly forbidden during prayer. More importantly, we have to emphasize that we mustn’t repeat a prayer mechanically and aimlessly, without understanding its meaning and without a penitential feeling, as if it were a mantra or a spell, until you reach an ecstatic state of altered conscience.

End of Part I

By Archpriest Pavel Velikanov

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her enemies. The soul that has learned of God's grace to pray, feels love and compassion for every created thing, and in particular for mankind, for whom the Lord suffered on the Cross, and His soul was heavy for every one of us.

The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God.

I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: "O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance," and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way. But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God's love within him, and does not know God.

If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies - know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts - or good thoughts.

The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

Understand me. It is so simple. People who do not know God, or who go against Him, are to be pitied; the heart sorrows for them and the eye weeps. Both paradise and torment are clearly visible to us: We know this through the Holy Spirit. And did not the Lord Himself say, "The kingdom of God is within you"? Thus eternal life has its beginning here in this life; and it is here that we sow the seeds of eternal torment. Where there is pride there cannot be grace, and if we lose grace we also lose both love of God and assurance in prayer. The soul is then tormented by evil thoughts and does not understand that she must humble herself and love her enemies, for there is no other way to please God.

What shall I render unto Thee, O Lord,

for that Thou hast poured such great mercy on my soul?

Grant, I beg Thee, that I may see my iniquities,

and ever weep before Thee,

for Thou art filled with love for humble souls,

and dost give them the grace of the Holy Spirit.

O merciful God, forgive me.

Thou seest how my soul is drawn to Thee, her Creator.

Thou hast wounded my soul with Thy love,

and she thirsts for Thee, and wearies without end,

and day and night, insatiable, reaches toward Thee,

and has no wish to look upon this world, though I do love it,

but above all I love Thee, my Creator,

and my soul longs after Thee.

O my Creator, why have I, Thy little creature,

grieved Thee so often? Yet Thou hast not remembered my sins.

Glory be to the Lord God that He gave us His Only-begotten

Son for the sake of our salvation.

Glory be to the Only-begotten Son that He deigned to be

born of the Most Holy Virgin, and suffered for our salvation,

and gave us His Most Pure Body and Blood to eternal life,

and sent His Holy Spirit on the earth.

O Lord, grant me tears to shed for myself,

and for the whole universe,

that the nations may know Thee and live eternally with Thee,

O Lord, vouchsafe us the gift of Thy humble Holy Spirit,

that we may apprehend Thy glory.

Source: http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/Holy_Fathers/St._Silouan_the_Athonite/

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How to Pray in the Right Way - 12 Steps (Part II)

Some Facts about St. Gregory the Enlightener of Armenia and Armenian Church

Patriotism: What Role Does It Play for Orthodox Christians and Their Faith?

How to Pray in the Right Way - 12 Steps

Parable of the Day: God Gives You not What You Ask for, but What You Need

St. Silouan the Athonite on How God Teaches Us to Love

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