The Catalog of Good Deeds

Apart from the self-sacrificial love of God, there is only revenge.

Considering the message of most Western literature and even Hollywood today, a lust for revenge might seem the dominant meta-narrative of our culture.

From the Iliad to Hamlet to the anti-heroine of True Grit, revenge satisfies a sinful passion that infects our souls apart from the Grace of God. It so consumes the message of The Count of Monte Cristo, that Dantes confesses: “How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”

But what does the love of God the Father—as revealed to us in Jesus Christ—teach about revenge? About repaying evil for evil?

Jesus says when struck to “turn the other cheek” (Luke 6:29). In the brutal climax of his torture, he uses his dying breath to pray that the Father would forgive his captors (Luke 23:34). For those who hate us, and wish to do us harm, the Great Physician prescribes a healthy dose of kindness. And the apostle Paul writes to the Romans:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. —Rom. 12:19–21

In the life of Saint Patrick—who the Orthodox Church honors as the ‘Enlightener’ and apostle to Ireland on March 17—we see the sort of self-sacrificial love that God both exemplifies and desires from his people.

Patrick was stolen away as a teenager, taken from his family and friends. Brought to Ireland by Irish marauders, he escaped after six long years. He was dragged to Ireland as a slave, but when he became a bishop, he returned to Ireland with the Gospel. And in this is true love—the antithesis of revenge and self-serving vengeance.

In his Confession, St. Patrick describes the time of his captivity in some detail.

When he was taken, he was nearly sixteen years old. Patrick was the son of a deacon, with a priest for a grandfather. In spite of this ancestry, he admits that he was far from pious and had turned away from God in his youth. In his own mind, the reason for his captivity was unbelief. Like Israel, he was being scattered among the nations for repentance. The Lord had dragged him into slavery in order that he might “turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate” (Confession 1.1).

When Patrick was brought to Ireland and sold into slavery, the land was teeming with paganism. The Irish worshipped the sun as a god, and made sacrifices to it. The ‘plain of slaughter’ was where first-born children were sacrificed to idols. Even wells became a place of worship, with divinity ascribed to them. It was a nation far from the Triune God.

Serving in Ireland as a shepherd, Patrick found many occasions to turn to God in prayer. From his writing, it seems clear that prayer was perhaps his only hope and comfort during this time. He confesses to saying as many as a hundred different prayers during the day, and just as many—if not more—during the evening. Rain or shine, he would withdraw to a quiet place in the mountains near Antrim to pray before first light. It was during a night of fervent prayer that he heard a voice telling him to go find a ship nearly two hundred miles away—prepared, as it were, for his escape back to Britain (ibid. 2.6).

His journey from Ireland back home was fraught with difficulty. At one point, both starvation and exhaustion for his party seemed all but certain. Patrick then turned to God in prayer and they were provided with an abundance of food—just enough, in fact, as they arrived with nothing remaining (ibid. 2.7–9).

Back in Britain after six years, he was received like the prodigal son. Safe at home, he was warmly embraced, his parents knowing that they had lost so many precious years with their child. But a few years after his return, he started seeing visions.

In one, he was told by “the voice of the people of Ireland” to “come and walk still among us.” In another vision, he heard it asked, “Who for thee laid down his life?” When it came time for his ordination to the episcopate, Patrick was thankful that he was preserved in the faith from the temptations of his youth, so that he could offer himself as a living sacrifice. He asked, “Who am I, O Lord, or what is my calling, that thou hast granted me so much of thy Divine presence?” (ibid. 3:14)

As already mentioned, Ireland was a land of pagan worship and child sacrifice. It was a place of depression and unspeakable horrors. It was a people that had taken Patrick away for six grueling years. And yet, it was deeply imbued in Patrick’s heart to return to this place with the Gospel message.

Now a bishop, in 432 Patrick returned of his own free will to Ireland. Of his efforts there, the Menaion records:

His arduous labors bore so much fruit that within seven years, three bishops were sent from Gaul to help him shepherd his flock, “my brethren and sons whom I have baptized in the Lord—so many thousands of people,” he says in his Confession. His apostolic work was not accomplished without much “weariness and painfulness,” long journeys through difficult country, and many perils; he says his very life was in danger twelve times.

After thirty years of service, the Christian faith was established in every part of Ireland. Pagan worship had been driven far away, and love for the true and Triune God was common among all. Patrick writes:

Behold, how the Irish who never had the knowledge of God, and hitherto worshipped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God. —Confession 4.17

St. Patrick reposed peacefully in 461, having given his remaining earthly years as a sacrifice for the people who had once sold him into captivity.

If literature and film that extols revenge is typical of our culture, most of us would have spent those six years plotting our own acts of vengeance against the Irish. But St. Patrick shows us a better way—He shows us the way of Christ.

Revenge is empty. It only destroys our soul and consumes our mind with empty thoughts. But the way of love and self-sacrifice is a way that leads to fullness; a way that leads to transformation into the true image and likeness of God.

By Gabe Martini

March 30, 2014

Source: http://orthochristian.com/69325.html

Great Lent, my beloved brethren, begins today and will be completed in forty days on the Friday of Lazarus. As our Church introduces us to this blessed arena of spiritual struggles and virtues, whose main weapon is the weapon of fasting, together with the accompanying weapons of almsgiving, prayer, personal struggle and the mysteries, it is an opportunity to deepen a little the way we will emerge from this struggle, to complete productively, creatively and spiritually the journey of the forty days that stretch before us.

This journey has an analogy in the treasures of the Old Testament. The analogy is the journey of the people of Israel from Egypt to the Land of Promise, with one difference: it did not take place over the course of forty days but forty years. That journey, as recorded in the Book of Exodus and completed in the Book of Joshua the son of Nun, lasted forty years.

If I'm not mistaken, the Israelites had been enslaved for five generations after Joseph in Egypt, and after terrible drama and intense repression they wanted to leave and return to their own country. They embarked with Moses as their leader after a dizzying adventure and their journey brought them to what Exodus calls "a land flowing with milk and honey." This is what Moses promised them.

Let us look at some of the features of this journey and try to find corresponding analogies with our brief forty day journey in this blessed wilderness of Great Lent.

The first similarity is that they walked through the wilderness as a people. They did not try to escape slavery as individuals, but all together as a nation. They collected and aggregated together, they were given a leader, and everyone embarked on their journey. Imagine a caravan of thousands of people with the common sense that they were the chosen people of God and they were related as a nation. They all left Egypt together and journeyed across the wilderness. And we similarly are one people, the people of God. Together we are the Church.

If we all embark on this journey together we will also arrive together. We should not sense that we are alone in our struggle, that we will go through the process alone and emerge victorious without caring what happens to other people. Our salvation, our struggle, is social and done within the secret Body of the Church, together. Not only as many as we are now, or only those who confess that they constitute the Church, but even those that are within God's embrace perhaps without themselves realizing it.

Just as God Himself "wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," in the same way we, the New Israel, should want to leave the Egypt of this world, the worldly mindset, the passions, the ephemeral, falsehood and deceit, and to pass through the wilderness of our struggle to reach the place promised by God, in contact and communication with His saints, in His sensible kingdom, in the meeting of His person, in the Resurrection.

Therefore, the first similarity is that in our struggle during the fast we do what we do with the sense that we are doing it together. This is why we begin with the Service of Forgiveness, that we may reconcile. We are divided, we are cold, we have our differences, and we place everything aside as one body, one people, and we embark on our journey, forgiven, reconciled, as brethren, with the sense that altogether we need our salvation.

The second similarity can be found if you take the opportunity during these days to read the first chapters, especially the fifth and sixth, of the Book of Exodus. There you will find compelling dialogues reciprocated between God and Moses. You will see that Moses invokes a bunch of excuses to not respond to the honor of being called by God to lead the people of Israel and be their guide. Eventually God convinces him. He convinces him and prepares him. Initially, God reveals to Moses His name. After Moses asked, "Who are You?" He responded, "I am He Who is, Who exists, the source of life and existence, Who is I am by nature and essence."

God then gives Him the ability to work wonders, personal signs to convince the Israelites away from their twisted ways, their selfishness, setbacks, defects, weaknesses, distrust, misery and groaning, as we find throughout their journey. He thus gave these two gifts to Moses as well as a blessing to be their leader. So they embarked on their journey with a guide. What does this mean for us?

We cannot fight the struggle of Great Lent or the struggle of the wilderness of this life without having a spiritual guide. This is both the tradition and proven experience of the Church. And this guide is not merely a guide, but also a father.

He must be a man of prayer, who converses with God. To be a man who has boldness before God, even though he may be a stutterer or not well spoken, as Exodus tells us about Moses, and he may not be externally gifted, but who is called and appointed by God to lead us on the journey.

He is our spiritual father. We have great need to have a spiritual father. To be our father, our teacher, our guide, to be our intermediate with God, to hold us by the hand along our journey. Perhaps in our times God has not given us such a gift. Often we complain, rightly perhaps, that there are not many such spiritual fathers.

Let us bring this concern to prayer, and make an effort and struggle to find such a man to teach us five to ten secrets about the spiritual life, and supplement our inadequate prayers with his prayers. This is his job.

Let us experience the miracle of the return of the waters of the sea, that our thoughts, doubts, obstacles, temptations and difficulties may sink and drown. Therefore the third similarity of our journey of Great Lent is with the miraculous passage through the Red Sea of the difficulties and obstacles we meet.

The Book of Exodus tells us that eventually Moses became the leader and guide, being in reality led by God, for God went before them. And how did the presence of God appear? In two ways. During the day He appeared as a cloud, and at night as a pillar of fire. During the day He draped them with a cloud, giving them the sweetness and warmth of the divine presence, and at night He gave them light in the darkness that they may find their way and progress in their journey. We also need such an alliance in our sense of the divine presence in our struggle, not that we are struggling alone, but that we have strength from above.

But through our prayers, through the humility of our hearts, through the sweet depths of our internal longing, may we have this sense, that our struggle is under the cloud of the divine presence and the light of divine confirmation. In this way we will progress along the way of every phase in the arena of the struggle of Great Lent.

We are told they hungered, they grew tired and became weary. They saw the miracle, experienced the presence, they had Moses, they took solace, yet they still complained. How human! How natural! How unexpected! Yet for us it is also expected and natural that in our struggle, although we may see God's blessings, at the first difficulty of the desert heat and its fruitlessness, we fall on our knees.

This is what happened with the Israelites, but God told them to not worry, for He was with them and near them and saw them and followed them and guided their footsteps. That He promised that He would lead them out of Egypt to the Land of Promise, and if they were hungry then He would feed them. So He sent them a flock of quails and spread around them manna from heaven to eat. The quails were the meat of worship. God also gives us the opportunities to worship Him. Such as with the blessed Complines, what a beautiful service! He gives us Presanctifieds every Wednesday and Friday, and the Salutations during this period. These rare hymns are not chanted any other time. He gives us the Solemn Vespers, the five Sundays of the fast, the beautiful feast of the Annunciation. He gives us such a cluster of powerful food and meat. Nothing else remains than for us to reach out and grab the opportunity, to open our mouths and begin to devour the message of divine truth, as presented in a concrete meaningful way.

But He also gives us the manna. It simply satisfies us. The heavenly manna satisfies the soul, because the heavenly manna is the Divine Eucharist. The heavenly manna is the mystery by which God nourishes His people, the New Israel. It can also nourish us. Our participation in the mysteries is necessary. If we have our Moses, our spiritual father, and his permission, if we have the internal craving and need in our soul, along with repentance, then let us not ignore this untapped treasure of heavenly manna, the Divine Eucharist, which gently falls on the ground of our soul and gives us miraculous satiety.

But God did not only give them food. They were thirsty afterwards. And miraculously God gave them water. He told Moses that with the same staff he struck the sea and parted it in order to pass through, to now strike the rock so it may gush forth water. Moses struck it, and it gushed forth water. This water quenched the thirst of the thirsty Israelites in the wilderness. Similarly water can quench the thirst of our souls with the staff of our own Moses.

And this is none other than the word of God. If we could listen to one thing during these days, to even slightly open our eyes and quench the thirst of our soul, let it be with either the spoken or possibly written word. There are many books, patristic books, even more modern books, also the service books, and if we can find some time to strike the rock of this unknown treasure, we will experience the miracle of the revelation of the divine word in our hearts, which are often harder than a rock.

The Israelites, although they continued on their journey, although they overcame obstacles, crossing through the Red Sea, being satiated in the ways mentioned, quenching the thirst of their souls, quenching the thirst of their bodies, soon after came to face an enemy, the Amalekites. And God performed His miracle.

Although Moses momentarily bends, God says to Him to not worry, for He would give the people of Israel the strength to defeat them. And though the Amelakites may not have been expected, and were many and threatening, and may possibly have exceeded the strength of their people, Moses was to raise his hands in the sign of the cross, and as long as his hands were horizontal in prayer in this symbolic position, then though they were few and weak, they would conquer the many and strong. And as the hands of Moses grew tired, they were upheld by Aaron and Hur, each holding a hand in the horizontal position of prayer which was a symbol of the cross, and in this way they defeated the enemy and triumphed, so they could continue along their journey to Mount Sinai.

We also, despite our fast, despite our good intentions, despite our studies, despite our participation in the mysteries, have the fearsome Amalek who seeks to fight us. This Amalek is our impassioned self. We bear a fallen nature full of beastly passions which currently sit in the corner, perhaps with a bit of our disdain, but in the quiet of the wilderness of the fast and this period we must see who will emerge.

Whoever fights the good fight of the fast will easily discover their unknown passions. In the wilderness they will lift their head, in the quiet they will raise their voice, in the apparent peace they will create turmoil. We must expect these passions.

The solution and answer is the sign of the cross and our prayer and divine intervention will give each of us the victory, without being scared or flinching or being intimidated, to be found victors against our passions. In this way like the Israelites we will arrive at Mount Sinai, the mountain on which God Himself lowers and gives in the midst of an atmosphere of earthquakes, shock and smoke the ten commandments. He reveals to them His will.

This also, my brethren, can happen in our own lives. It must happen. Journeying through the wilderness we must also arrive at and slowly climb our own Mount Sinai, and there we will receive the revelation of the divine will in our souls. Our struggle, our prayer, our faith, our trust in God, our good spiritual dependence in our own spiritual Moses, our participation in the mysteries, our hope in the miracle and divine intervention, all these together in the struggle of the fast, together with the struggle of almsgiving, together with the struggle that each of us will carry can eventually lead us to a successful conclusion, to victory, to the Land of Promise, to the blessing of God, to the joy and experience of the Resurrection.

After forty days we will have the help of God to complete the journey of Great Lent this year. That the experience of this journey will be given to us by God endlessly, the experience of seeking, the experience of divine manifestation, the experience of the miracle that it may be endless and perpetual with the experience of the joy of the divine Resurrection. Amen.

By Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavriotiki

Translated by John Sanidopolus

Source: johnsanidopoulos.com/2016/03/an-old-testament-analogy-of-great-lent.html

Excerpted from “The Typicon of the Orthodox Church’s Divine Services: The Orthodox Christian and the Church Situation Today”.

…Archbishop Averky of Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, New York, makes some sharp and appropriate remarks in a report concerning the “Internal Mission” of the Church which was approved by the whole Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Outside of Russia in 1962:

“It is extremely important for the success of the Internal Mission to attract, as far as possible, all the faithful into one or another kind of active participation in the Divine services, so that they might not feel themselves merely idle spectators or auditors who come to Church as to a theater just in order to hear the beautiful singing of the choir which performs, as often happens now, totally unchurchly, bravura, theatrical compositions. It is absolutely necessary to re-establish the ancient custom, which is indeed demanded by the Typicon itself, of the singing of the whole people at Divine services… It is a shame to the Orthodox faithful not to know its own wondrous, incomparable Orthodox Divine services, and therefore it is the duty of the pastor to make his flock acquainted with the Divine services, which may be accomplished most easily of all by way of attracting the faithful into practical participation.”

Further, in the same article Archbishop Averky dispels the popular misconception that Orthodox Christians are not allowed to perform any church services without a priest, and that therefore the believing people become quite helpless and are virtually “unable to pray” when they find themselves without a priest – as happens more and more often today. He writes, on the same page of this article:

“According to our Typicon, all the Divine services of the daily cycle – apart, needless to say, from the Divine Liturgy and other Church sacraments – may be performed also by persons not ordained to priestly rank. This has been widely done in the practice of prayer by all monasteries, sketes, and desert-dwellers in whose midst there are no monks clothed in the rank of priest. And up until the most recent time this was to be seen also, for example, in Carpatho-Russia, which was outstanding for the high level of piety of its people, where in case of the illness or absence of the priest, the faithful themselves, without a priest, read and sang the Nocturnes, and Matins, and the Hours, and Vespers, and Compline, and in place of the Divine Liturgy, the Typica.

“In no way can one find anything whatever reprehensible in this, for the texts themselves of our Divine services have foreseen such a possibility, for example, in such a rubric which is often encountered in them: ‘If a priest is present, he says: Blessed is our God… If not, then say with feeling: By the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.’ And further there follows the whole order of the Divine services in its entirety, except of course, for the ectenes and the priestly responses. The longer extenes are replaced by the reading of ‘Lord, have mercy’ twelve times, and Little Ectene by the reading of ‘Lord, have mercy’ three times.

“Public prayer, as none other, firmly unites the faithful. And so, in all those parishes where there is no permanent priest, it is absolutely necessary not merely to permit, but indeed to recommend to the faithful that they come together on Sundays and feast days in church or even in homes, where there is no church, in order to perform together such public prayer according to the established order of Divine services.”

This normal church practice, which like so much else that belongs to the best Orthodox Church tradition, has become so rare today as to seem rather a novelty, is nonetheless being practiced now in several parishes of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, as well as in some private homes. This practice can and should be greatly increased among the faithful, whether it is a question of a parish that has lost its priest or is to small to support one, of a small group of believers far from the nearest church which has not yet formed a parish, or a single family which is unable to attend church on every Sunday and feast day.

Indeed, this practice in many places has become the only answer to the problem of keeping alive the tradition of the Church’s Divine services….

The way of conducting such services should preferably be learned from those who already practice it in accordance with both the written and oral tradition of the Church. But even in the absence of such guidance, an Orthodox layman, when he is unable to attend church services, can derive much benefit from simply reading through some of the simpler services, much as he already reads Morning and Evening Prayers. Thus, he can read any of the Hours (First, Third, and Sixth Hours in the morning, Ninth Hour in the afternoon), which have no changeable parts except for the Troparion and Kontakion; he can simply read through the stichera of the great feasts on the appropriate day; or he can read the Psalms appointed for a given day….

Source: http://www.saintjonah.org/services/readerservices.htm

By Metropolitan Paul of Minsk and Zaslavl

Dear Mother Abbess, fathers, brothers and sisters! First of all, I would like to congratulate you all with the feast day, for today is the day of the discovering of the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God. That miraculous event happened in our Motherland 100 years ago. […]

100 years passed since the moment when the enemy of the humankind tried to destroy our Holy Church and our Motherland, to devastate Orthodoxy. However, with God’s help and under the protection of the Mother of God, people managed to save the Church with their effort, sufferings and standing by their faith. Many of them reached salvation through that.

It was a hard time. A lot of blood was spilled. People suffered and had to face, often unfair, exiles, concentration camps and even death. Many people can ask a question: “So, where is God? Why does He allow such horrible sufferings to happen? If He is Love, then why is blood spilled? Why do people kill each other? Where is God, Who is called the Perfect Love by the Church?” Difficult questions. They are especially difficult to those who are far from the Church. However, for those who live a true Christian life, everything is clear.

Imagine yourself that we will look through the camera on mute at what is going on in a hospital. A doctors receives his patients. We cannot hear what they are talking about, we can only see. We understand that the doctor wants to do good for people who come to him. How can we react if we see without hearing that for one people he prescribes a trip to a rest home, for the second person – in-patient treatment, while the third one has to be got on the gurney and brought to the operating table? Unwillingly we begin to wonder, how can this be so that one person gets a ticket to the rest home or some special pills, while the other one is going to be cut? Insanity! What a disgrace! What for should this person be cut?

In fact, here we can see an example of a wise attitude towards all people. All patients are sick, but they all need a different treatment. One needs curative muds and mineral waters, so he is sent to the rest home; the other needs some meds; the third needs vitamins, while it comes out that the fourth person is gravely ill: his organs are in bad condition and this is why he needs a surgery. Is this doctor unfair or severe? However, we do not what is going on in the doctor’s cabinet and can misunderstand it. The main thing any doctor tries to achieve is to help a person to recover, to stay alive.

Around the same happens in our spiritual life. We could not understand why the Lord allowed those troubled years, the October revolution and the internecine war happen. If the Lord is really the Perfect Love, then everything what happened was because of our sins and crimes. The Lord is looking for salvation for every person. Looking back at the past 100 years of our Motherland’s history, we can say: “O Lord, You are really merciful, You are the Loving Father, You want to give every person a possibility to save their souls”. With all those exiles and sufferings, some people redeemed their sins. At the same time, those people, who committed all those horrifying crimes and murders, became the instruments of the judgement of God. If we study our history thoroughly, we can notice that many of the people, who had killed clerics, monastics and simple people after the October revolution, were exiled or executed during the 20-30s; those of them who participated in murders during the 30s, died during the Great Patriotic War; and those of them who survived, suffered much during the years of collectivization and after-war period. God gave everyone an opportunity to go through the way of purifying fire and sufferings to save their souls.

I had an opportunity to communicate with many clerics. Fr. Leonid, a well-known local archpriest, with whom I had very good relations, died in Moscow last year. He passed away in his old age. During the last years of his life he told me: “Your Grace, how much our Lord loves His children! If only you knew, how sincerely all those people, who had mocked the Church, repented before their death. We, priests, do not repent as those people did! I guided many of them in the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, I also performed the burial services for many of them. If only you knew, how sincerely they repented! How great if our Lord! He wants everyone to be saved!”

Maybe not all people know about this… Maybe many people condemn them. But the Lord knows everyone and knows the feelings of any person: why did they reject God? Why did they leave the Church? The Lord wants every person to be saved and knocks at every person’s heart. We only need very little: to feel this knock inside and hear the appeal to salvation and open the heart for Christ and say: “O Lord, I want You save my sole, too, and bring it to the Kingdom of Heaven. But I am unworthy of it, so You forgive me and be merciful upon me!” Then the Lord, as the Loving Father, will forgive anyone who wants to be with God.

I would like to wish that the lesson of the 20^th century becomes an example for those who wants to live according to their own will, passions and human desires. May this lesson be a precaution for other people, so that they do not repeat the mistake of the previous generations. Thank God, today we are not persecuted, tortured or exiled. We live in a free country, where you can believe in God, come to a church and pray, do good deeds of love and mercy. The doors are open for every one of those who wants to devote his life to serving God in our holy monasteries and churches. So, I would like to wish that this God’s grace always remains on our blessed land! Amen.

An excerpt from the sermon by Metropolitan Paul of Minsk and Zaslavl

on the feast day of the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God

March 15, 2017

St. Elisabeth Convent

We met with Eugene Prokofiev, the young precentor of the Brothers’ Choir of St. Elisabeth Convent before their performance at the Lenten Concerts. Eugene is 22. He is just a little older than the choir he has directed for the last three years. These three years have become very special for him.

Yulia Krukovskaya, the past precentor of the choir, taught in Minsk Theological College. It was her who invited her student to work with the Brothers’ Choir. Neither Yulia nor Eugene knew that it would change the young man’s course of life.

With the blessing of Father Andrew Lemeshonok, Eugene moved to stay permanently in the Convent. His job of a precentor became his main duty.

— When I came to the Convent, my life changed drastically! — Brother Eugene says. — I can’t imagine myself without the Convent… Living side by side with the nuns and having a close spiritual contact with them all the time, it’s like sitting on a cloud. I seldom leave the Convent now because when you live here, most of your habits and desires go away.

— Brother Eugene, do I get it right that you are a postulant?

— Yes, formally I’m a postulant. However, I’m a postulant who does not plan to proceed any further yet. The longer I live in the Convent, the more often I catch myself thinking of taking the next step and becoming a novice.

You know, when I first came to the Convent, I thought I would stay here for just a couple of days. Nun Susanna told me to take few clothes to the Convent. I came here to stay. And I’m still here (smiles).

— What are the qualities that a person who wants to be a precentor must possess, in your opinion?

— I can share my own opinion and observations. It seems to me that one must possess a precentor’s charisma and feel the process. You conduct the choir and therefore con-celebrate with the priest. It is not just a job. It is an obedience, especially here in the Convent. It is something you must hold on to tightly. Interestingly enough, there are people who never went through any special training but they can conduct choirs… It depends on that person’s inner state to a great extent. It can only be explained by referring to spiritual things. A person who does not go to church cannot learn to be a precentor. It seems to me that church music is discovered little by little as long as your heart becomes pure and meek…

— Do you believe that spiritual experience is more important for a precentor than professional experience?

— This is what I have come to assume now. When I studied in the college, many of my fellow students used to think that being a precentor meant earning money. It is wrong because who is it that you sing for? The people who come to church are not your audience: they come to pray, not enjoy choir music. A church choir is not just a regular choir; it is specifically designed to facilitate worship. It is God who we sing for during a worship service. This is the basis we have to stand on. The rest comes next… They may pay you or not, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m not getting any money for services. I could’ve been paid but why would I need that money? I live in the Convent and, frankly speaking, I don’t need money at all. Other members of our choir don’t get paid, either. It’s our ministry.

Singing in the Convent during services is very comforting for me and for other singers. We took turns with the Monastic Choir singing the nocturnal liturgy on the Nativity of Christ and the Theophany. We couldn’t imagine that it was possible! The Monastic Choir is distinguished by its singing manner. The nuns sing quite low. We sing high in comparison with them, and our choir has a distinct singing manner, too. We tried to unite totally disparate manners, so to say. If reactions of the faithful are something to judge by, it was great! We were told that it would happen again. We will sing these nocturnal services together with the sisters at least once a year. It isn’t easy to sing together with another choir. It is a growth factor for the brothers and me. We are honoured by it. The nocturnal antiphonal (responsorial) Liturgy was a hallmark event in the life of our choir.

— Let’s talk about two other important event in the life of your choir. One of them is your first concert appearance. The Brothers’ Choir takes part in the Lenten concerts. What will your repertoire consist of?

— The slogan of the Lenten concerts is “Reviving Cultural Traditions”. That’s why aside from church chants we will include two rare canticles in our programme. One of these canticles was composed in the 16th century. It is an artful narrative about numbers. It explains what each of the numbers means in the Orthodox world. The other canticle, “When I Was Young,” resembles the famous “Haze Over Water,” but its main character is male. Plus, due to the fact that the concert will take place in the hall of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University on March 2, I believe that the secular audience will be interested to hear the chants that we sing in the Convent.

— The second event is the release of the first album by the Brothers’ Choir. What pieces will it contain?

— We would like to showcase the chants that the choir does not always sing during Liturgies. Some of the chants are little-known. There is a demand for this album: people often come to me after the services where we sing and ask me where they could find our recordings and sheet music. We have already recorded half of the album. We will record several other tracks on March 8. The album will hopefully be released by autumn.

— When does your choir perform live in the Convent?

— Several singers of our choir sing during church services on Monday evenings and Tuesday mornings. The entire choir sings during the second (sometimes the third) Liturgy on Sundays. We also sing during Liturgies that are celebrated in the Boarding Home every Friday. We use Valamo obikhod chant. I write to Father Diodor and Father Ambrose who conduct the choirs of Valaam Monastery, asking them to send me their sheet music so as to make sure that our singing corresponds to the authentic chant as closely as possible.

I make musical treatments of some chants for the Brothers’ Choir, too. I add few changes to the original tune, though. I listen to many little-known choirs and record by ear numerous chants that we perform during services. I reckon that church singing is a creative process. If you have printed scores, it doesn’t mean you can’t move them around. Sure, you have to follow certain guidelines and not trespass them but you have the right to add minor changes here and there if the final result sounds better after treatment.

— Eugene, most of your singers are older than you. Could you please share what you as a precentor and just as a person have learned from the brothers in these three years?

You know, when I conduct the choir during a church service — a young boy among twelve bearded men — I don’t want to behave like a child. I have to comply with the standards set by those men: I mean the way they behave and their spiritual maturity. Each brother has a certain quality that I would like to imitate, and I try imitating them. All singers treat me with respect and sympathy. Even if I do or say something wrong due to my young age or lack of experience, they accept it humbly. I’m very grateful to all the brothers!

Yulia Krukovskaya was the second precentor in the history of the Brothers’ Choir. She conducted this choir for a decade:

— I had to move to another city. That was why I was looking for someone to be my successor as the precentor of the Brothers’ Choir. I thought that one of my students at the theological college could be the perfect match for this job. It seemed more appropriate if the new precentor was male. I offered this post to Eugene Prokofiev. I was hoping that he would prove worthy of my trust, and so he did. Eugene was afraid that he would not cope with the choir but he agreed to give it a try. He started coming to our rehearsals. Eventually, I realised that I had made the right choice.

Nun Juliania (Denisova), the Precentor-in-Chief of St. Elisabeth Convent:

— Our Brothers’ Choir is a unique phenomenon. These amateurs have already magically turned into professionals, without even knowing it.

To a large extent, it happened thanks to Eugene Prokofiev, who is amazing! Although he is young, he can listen properly and has his own concept of singing. He is able to insist on his own handling of various pieces. He can sing very well and shows how to sing with his own example. All singers follow him. It’s evident that God helps him.

It is very exciting to talk with Eugene and to look at what he does. I am curious to see how the choir develops its professionalism and how the choir members trust Eugene — and they do trust him indeed; otherwise, the choir wouldn’t sound so good. They sing very well, like the Valamo choirs! They have a unique sound, if we speak of church singing. Our professional choirs can’t attain this kind of sound. Eugene is in constant search of new music to add to the choir’s repertoire. He keeps asking me for new sheet music and showing me his treatments and harmonisations. That is why it has become clear that the choir needs to participate in concerts and record its own album.

Interview by Brother Vadim (Yanchuk)

Design by Sister Maria (Ivanova)

March 1, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

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