The Catalog of Good Deeds

The histories of Moscow and of the icon of Vladimir Mother of God are eternally inseparable. How many times did the Mother of God save the capital city from enemies through the grace of her holy icon? This icon has linked Apostolic times to Byzantium, Kievan Rus’ to Vladimir Rus’, and later to Muscovy, the Third Rome; as it is said, “there will be no Fourth.” The kingdom of Moscow was formed by divine providence and embraced the mystical ties of ancient empires, historical experience and traditions of other Orthodox peoples. The miracle working Vladimir icon became a symbol of unity and succession.

Words cannot describe this icon; any verbal expression would be hollow compared to the gaze of the Theotokos from her image. This look contains everything – life and death; resurrection, eternity, immortality. According to ancient tradition, the Holy Evangelist, Physician, and Iconographer Luke painted three icons of the Theotokos. When the Most Pure One looked at them, she said: “May the grace of the One Who was born of me, and my grace, be with these Holy Icons.” One of these Icons is now known as the Vladimir icon. This depiction of Our Lady was kept in Jerusalem until 450 AD, after which it was taken to Constantinople. In the first half of twelfth century Luke Chrysoberges, Patriarch of Constantinople, sent the icon (together with the other image of Theotokos, known as “Pirogoschaya”) as a gift to Grand Duke Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruky, who placed it in the Vyshgorod convent (near Kiev), an area once belonging to Equal-to-the-Apostles, Grand Duchess Olga. In 1155 Vyshgorod became a possession of Prince Andrew, son of Yuri Dolgoruky.

When prince Andrew decided to return to his homeland in Suzdal, he took this Icon without his father’s permission. As he traveled, he continually served molebens before it. The people of Vladimir-on-Klyazma met their prince with joy. Afterwards the prince wanted to continue on to Rostov, but six and half miles from Vladimir their horses stopped near the Klyazma River, and refused to go any further. Even newly harnessed horses refused to proceed. The astounded Prince Andrew fell weeping in front of the Icon and prayed. Thereafter the Theotokos appeared to him with a scroll in her hand, and ordered to leave Her image in the city of Vladimir, and to build later a monastery on the place of her appearance in honor of her Nativity.

Prince Andrew left the icon in Vladimir, and since 1160 it has been called the “Vladimir” icon. In 1164 Prince Andrew Bogolubsky took this Icon on his campaign against Volga Bulgarians. After the prince went to Confession and took Communion, he prostrated before the image of Theotokos, and said: “All who put their trust in Thee, Our Lady, will not perish!” All the soldiers followed their prince to venerate with tears the miraculous icon, and went to battle with trust in the aid of the Mother of God. The infidels were defeated.

A moleben was served before the holy icon after their victory on the battlefield. A miracle occurred during the prayer of the Russian soldiers--a light from the icon and from the Holy Cross illuminated entire area.

On the other side of Christian world, at the same time and on the same day, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel saw the light of Christ’s Cross, and, being encouraged by this sign, triumphed over Saracens. After Prince Andrew and the emperor of the Second Rome related their experiences to one another, the Feast of the Procession of the Precious Wood of the Live-Giving Cross of the Lord was established on the first of August. This feast is also called the “First Feast of the Savior” by the Russian people. Many other miracles were revealed through the wondrous icon.

In 1395, Tamerlane with his Tartar horde approached Moscow. Christians had only one hope—in God’s help. The Grand Duke of Moscow, Vasiliy Dmitrievich, requested that the icon be carried from Vladimir to Moscow. The procession from Klyazma took ten days. People stood on their knees all along the road upon which the procession passed, and, stretching out their hands, begged: “O Mother of God, save the Russian Land!” The city of Moscow waited solemnly for the Vladimir Icon. All the city’s clergy took part in the procession. The Duke’s family, boyars, and common Moscovites came outside the city walls to Kuchkovo fields to meet and accompany the icon to the Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin.

This was on August 26. Later, a chronicler wrote, “The whole city came out to meet the Icon.” The Metropolitan, the Grand Duke, “men and women, youths and maidens, children and babes, orphans and widows, the little with the great came out with crosses and icons, with Psalms and spiritual hymns; everyone was in tears, and no person could be found who did not pray fervently with sighs and tears.”

The Theotokos heard the prayers of those who had faith in her. At the same time when people were meeting the icon on banks of the Moscow River, Tamerlane lay sleeping in his tent. He saw a vision – saintly hierarchs with golden staffs descending from a high mountain, and a radiant Lady in the air above them, surrounded by unspeakable rays of purest light. A countless multitude of Angels with fiery swords encircled Her… Tamerlane woke up in fear. All the Tartar wise men, elders and fortunetellers explained that the Woman whom he had seen in the vision was the protectress of the Orthodox, the Mother of God, and that her power is invincible. After this, the “Iron Lame,” as Tamerlane was called, ordered his horde to retreat. Both the Tartars and the Russians were astonished by this. The chronicler continued, “Tamerlane fled, pursued by the might of Most Pure Virgin!”

The grateful Muscovites built the Sretensky Monastery on the site of the meeting of the miracle-working icon which took place on August 26, 1395, “that the great works of God may never be forgotten.” After remaining for 242 years near the Klyazma River, the Vladimir Icon of Theotokos was taken to Moscow and placed in the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral. Thanks to its grace-filled protection, Moscow was spared in 1408 from Khan Edigey, in 1451 from the Nogay prince, Mazovshi, and in 1459 from his father Khan Sedi-Ahmet.

In 1480 Khan Ahmet advanced upon Moscow and arrived at the Ugra River in Kaluga region, while John III, Grand Duke of Moscow, was waiting on the other side. Suddenly a strong and unreasonable fear came upon the Tartars; Ahmet did not dare to fight the Russians and retreated to the steppe. In honor of this event, an annual Cross procession was instituted, from the Dormition Cathedral to Sretensky monastery. To this day, the Ugra River is called the “Cincture of Theotokos.”

In 1521, the khan of Kazan, Mehmad-Girey, advanced toward Moscow with Kazan and Nogay Tartars. Metropolitan Varlaam prayed with the people before the Vladimir Icon. Grand Duke Vasiliy Ivanovich barely managed to gather enough soldiers to meet the Tartars at the kingdom’s border, near the Oka River. He was slowly retreating to Moscow, trying hard to hold ranks.

On the night of the siege, a nun from Ascension Monastery (in the Kremlin) saw the holy hierarchs coming through the closed doors of Dormition Cathedral, carrying the miracle-working Vladimir Icon. These were saints who had lived two centuries earlier--Metropolitans of Moscow Peter and Alexei. She also saw how their procession was met by Saint Varlaam of Hutyn (near Novgorod) and Saint Sergius of Radonezh, near the Tower of the Savior in the Kremlin wall. They prostrated before the icon and pleaded the Most Pure One not to abandon the Dormition Cathedral and the people of Moscow. The Intercessor then returned through close doors into Cathedral.

The nun hastened to relate her vision to the citizens of Moscow, who gathered in the church for a heartfelt prayer. The Tartars again saw a vision of “a huge regiment in shining armor,” and ran away from the walls of the city.

Thus, the people’s prayers before the Vladimir Icon have saved the Russian land many times. To commemorate these events, the following feast days were established: May 21, in honor of Moscow’s deliverance from Crimean Khan Mehmad-Girey in 1521; June 23, in honor of Moscow’s deliverance from the hordes of Khan Ahmet in 1480; and August 26, in honor of Moscow’s deliverance from Tamerlane’s army in 1395.

One version of the Vladimir Icon bears the special name, “Tree of the Muscovite Nation.” The first of these Icons was painted during the sunset of ancient Russia, in 1668, by the royal iconographer Simon (Pimen) Ushakov, for the Holy Trinity Church at Nikitniki near Kitay-gorod. This icon depicts Saints Peter and Alexis watering a tree growing out of the Kremlin walls; the branches of the tree bear icons of Russian saints, and at center is an oval image of the Vladimir Mother of God. Another icon, called the “Laudation of the Theotokos” depicts Old Testament prophets with unfurled scrolls, upon which are written words of the Akathist to the Mother of God. The “Tree of the Muscovite Nation” icon similarly shows the heavenly protectors of Russia, who glorify and praise the Most Pure One, and pray to her to protect the Russian land.

Troparion, Tone 4

Today the city of Moscow is radiant for it receives the sunbeam of thy wonderworking icon, O Lady. As we greet it we pray to thee and cry: O wonderful Mother of God, pray to Christ our God Who was incarnate of thee that this city and all cities and countries be kept safe from all enemy assaults and that our souls may be saved, for He is merciful .

Source: http://orthochristian.com/7424.html

Let us begin with one story as an example. St. Simeon the Stylite was the first ascetic who began practicing this kind of asceticism, that is, he built a pillar and settled on its peak. In order to better understand what the pillar looked like, imagine a tall church bell tower with a narrow staircase. The entrance to the staircase would be blocked off by a wall, which would lock the person who entered inside. At the top of the tower there was no roof, and thus the ascetic would be between heaven and earth. In the winter he would be covered with snow, and in the summer burned by the sun. When Saint Simeon climbed the pillar, the other ascetics and fathers were surprised and exclaimed that they have never seen anything like it. They began to ask themselves: Are the actions of Saint Simeon the Stylite from God or not?

As a result, they decided to test his intentions directly: they went to the pillar and began shouting, scolding and humiliating him to force him leave his place, saying that his intentions are questionable, and he should not be inventing such methods of asceticism. If he listens to them and comes down without any anger, then it means that he is a man of God, because such an action will demonstrate true humility. If, on the other hand, he turns to anger or scolds them, then he is mistaken in his actions. And that is exactly what happened. As soon as Saint Simeon heard the voices of the fathers, he immediately came down, bowed down to them, asked for forgiveness and admitted that he was wrong to do what he did. This in turn embarrassed those who came to test him. After that, the fathers told him to continue his feat, with many others following his example.

A selfish person lives in deception, because he listens to himself and no one else. A person who his mistaken can not be critical of himself, and will always find an excuse. Because there is no humility in him, the Holy Spirit can not live within him. For example, if you say to him: "Instead of love you have hatred," then he will answer to you: "Yes, I hate, because my brother hates me, and it is his fault." That is, if he begins to justify everything in his favor, then there will be no Divine Grace within him.

Article from “Paraklisi” (№ 93, 2017)

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

One sometimes comes across mild debates in Orthodox circles about whether or not our Sunday Divine Liturgy should employ the archaic forms (e.g. “Thou hast”) or the contemporary ones (e.g. “You have”). Our own O.C.A. website has perhaps wisely decided not to jump into the debate and take definitive sides, but to offer the liturgical texts in both forms, so that one has a choice of downloading either the “You/ Your Version” or the “Thou/ Thy Version”. What can one say about this debate?

First of all, one can recognize that there is no such thing as an inherently holy language. Muslims declare that Arabic holds such a privileged position, so liturgical prayers must be offered in Arabic regardless of whether or not the Muslim worshipper understands the language. But Christians have never made such claims for their own faith, and accordingly liturgical Christian prayer has been offered in all languages. That of course was part of the point of Pentecost: now all the tongues of men have been sanctified by the indwelling Spirit so that one can pray with complete authenticity in one’s native tongue. This Pentecostal truth finds expression also in our Bible translations: despite the fact that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (and Aramaic) and the New Testament written in Greek, the Bible may be and has been translated into many languages, and no one suggests that the product is not actually the Bible. Of course some translations are better than others, but we do not follow our Muslim friends. They deny that Scripture can be authentically translated at all and they dub such translations as only “the meaning of the Quran” and not the actual Quran itself. Unlike them, we say that Scripture may indeed be authentically translated. The King James Version or the English Standard Version, for example, whatever their virtues and flaws, are still the Bible. All language is simply a vehicle; it is the meaning that matters.

Secondly, since it is the meaning that matters, the meaning of prayer must be comprehensible and understood by the person doing the praying. That is why liturgical prayer has always been translated from the original to the vernacular of the nation using it. Cyril and Methodius, though doubtless saying their own prayers in Greek, took pains to translate those prayers into the tongue of the Slavs for use in their later missionary endeavours. They did not insist that the Slavs learn Greek in order to commune liturgically with God. Some people in their time opined that the Church’s worship must be conducted in either Latin, Hebrew, or Greek, the three languages atop the cross of Christ announcing to the world that He was the King of the Jews. Cyril and Methodius demurred, and with them the rest of the Orthodox Church. Pentecost means that all vernaculars are acceptable, and moreover “it is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God to minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people” (to coin a phrase).

Thirdly, the importance of liturgical comprehensibility means that both the “You/ Your Version” and the “Thou/ Thy Version” are legitimate, since both are equally well understood by speakers of English. The debate over which English forms to use in North American churches pales in comparison with the debate over whether to worship in English or (for example) Slavonic. The former debate is not unimportant, but needs to be put into its proper context. For the debate over whether to use archaic or contemporary English concerns the proper amount of reverence required for worship; it is important but less important than the concern for comprehensibility. Worshipping in a very reverent Slavonic does the English worshipper no good if he or she cannot understand Slavonic. It would be like listening to glossolalia: the Slavonic speaker in tongues may give thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified (1 Corinthians 14:17)—better in such a case to speak five words that can be understood in the vernacular than ten thousand in a tongue (v. 19).

Fourthly, it is true that divine worship must be not only comprehensible, but also reverent. This debate is muddied by the fact that use of the form “Thou” is sometimes lauded as more formal and reverent than the form “You”, when in historical fact the form “thou” was intended as the familiar, not the formal. In the Anglican classic Book of Common Prayer, God was addressed as “Thou” since Christ taught us to invoke Him with loving familiarity as our abba; it is only the bishop in that book who is addressed with the formal “you”. But after all language is more than history, and what was familiar in one age may end up being formal in another age. Certainly the present use of the term “thou” does savour of a reverent and specialized usage.

Some people say that the Liturgy must be conducted “in the language of the street” while others insist that it must not be. One must be careful to define exactly what is meant by the term. If one means by this that there should be no difference between the language used when speaking to our buddies at Starbucks or the hockey game (to say nothing of the locker room), and the language used when speaking to God in church, then this is clearly wrong. People like Fr. John Whiteford have pointed out that the Church has always used the best and most elevated form of language available for its divine worship. (See his excellent fatherjohn.blogspot.ca/2016/09/king-james-english-and-orthodox-worship.html .) But if by the term “the language of street” one simply means an actual vernacular, then such a language should be acceptable, for the vernacular can still be sufficiently elevated and poetic. Take love poetry for example: a man may write elevated poems of great tenderness and beauty to his beloved without necessarily addressing her as “thee”. Language need not be archaic to be elevated and beautiful.

Take for a liturgical example the exclamation of the Prayer of the Thrice-holy recited by the priest just prior to the singing of the Trisagion Hymn. At our own St. Herman’s parish the prayer ends with the words, “for holy are You, O our God, and unto You we send up glory: to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages”. It is not much different than praying “for holy art Thou, O our God, and unto Thee we send up glory”. The former is not any more an unworthy “language of the street” than the latter. Rendering it in true “street language” would look something like “for You’re holy, God—glory to You forever”. One need only glance at this true street version to see the difference. Poetry, beauty, and an elevated spirit do not depend upon verbal archaism. A poet knows that things as simple as an inversion of words (“holy are You” instead of “You are holy”) and the use of the vocative “O” (“O our God” instead of simply “our God”) can work wonders, bringing the language away from the Starbucks tables and into the divine throne room of God. It is contemporary, but still elevated. Once again, comparison is instructive: at Starbucks I might say to my buddy, “you’re looking good, my friend”; I would not say, “looking good You are, O my friend”. If I did, he would look at me rather oddly, and perhaps ask me why I was talking like Yoda.

Finally, if both the archaic and the contemporary can be equally reverential and elevated, why choose one over the other? I would suggest that the contemporary possesses the added advantage as being closer to our speech during the time when we are not in church. There is always a terrible temptation for all of us to separate our Sunday morning behaviour from our behaviour after we leave the church. We can hermetically seal off Liturgy from life, and neglect what some have called “the liturgy after the Liturgy” so that we are afflicted by a kind of spiritual schizophrenia, with our worship split off completely from the rest of life. This can be exacerbated if we possess a special language in which we address God (not, I hasten to add, that those who opt for the archaic forms are guilty of this. I speak here only of temptations and of my own heart). As St. James long ago pointed out, out of the same mouth come both blessing and cursing—with the same tongue we bless the Lord and Father and also curse men who are made in His likeness (James 3:9-10). It may be of some help if we forego use of a specialized liturgical tongue and retain the same language for both God and men, for then the inconsistency of which James warns us can be more easily detected and avoided. Using the contemporary vernacular to bless the Lord and Father ought to carry over after the Liturgy has concluded so that we refuse to use that language to curse men made in His likeness. Liturgical language can help unify our lives and our hearts, so that the holiness of the time spent praying to God flows over into the rest of our lives as well.

One last added thought: it is important after we have made our liturgical choices to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). Both choices can be and have been made by people genuinely concerned to honour God and to please Him. As St. James reminds us, honouring Him means holding our brethren in honour as well, regardless of whether or not their own liturgical choices are the same as ours.

By Fr. Lawrence Farley

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/liturgy-language-street/