The Catalog of Good Deeds

By Fr. Sergius Nezhbort

We haven't heard about iconoclasm for many centuries now. Icons are no longer destroyed, like they were in the 8th and early 9th century. Sadly, the struggle with the image of God is apparently still going on. It happens in every person's heart because a human being is made in God's image but the sin in our hearts attempts to defile and destroy this image.

If we look at the history of art, we'll discover that our civilization is rooted in antiquity. The Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman art was anthropocentric, i.e., focused on the human. Ancient artists recognised an amazing mystery in every human being and tried to uncover it. If we look at the Greek and Egyptian works of art, we'll see that they always portray humans. Unfortunately, even though those humans were created in the image of God, they had the sin living inside their hearts, and that was why icon painting could not emerge during those times.

When Jesus Christ, the God-man, came into this world, we begin to see a deified human being in an icon. It's like a bridge with God becoming human on the one side and a human becoming like God on the other side. It is in icons that we encounter the real human being, the true beauty that is ever-present in Jesus Christ. The Christian civilization has God-man, rather than just the Man, in the centre.

Unluckily, our modern world brings the sinful, defective, and crippled human being back into the spotlight. That's why we say that the struggle with the icon goes on even today, in a sense. We must be aware of the fact that in a certain sense every person, every Christian, is an icon painter. You don't have to be a professional icon painter: if you live with God, there's an icon being painted in your soul. I suppose that this icon must be visible not just to yourself but also to all other people, so that they could see that we're different and that there is Christ shining through our eyes, words, and actions. More often than not, we fail to be the example and the image of God that we ought to be.

I recall how I was invited to speak about the icon in front of some people who knew little, if anything, about the Church. It was in the Fine Arts Museum. The tour guide said, "Father, please tell them more about miracles. People like to hear about miracles." I thought, "Of course, we all know that miracles happen when people pray in front of icons. The Lord responds to their prayers and makes miracles to reward their faith. However, there is another miracle, namely, the creation of an icon. Who paints icons? A weak human being, with his personal story and his problems. In spite of that the Lord performs this amazing miracle through that poor person. It's a miracle, indeed! It is quiet and unimpressive but it "is" a miracle, it's so beautiful and so near, so close to our daily lives. This miracle happens not because that person is especially talented but thanks to the prayer of the entire Church."

I heard a priest say, "Icons are born out of people's prayers." If you go to Tretyakov Gallery and look at the 14th-15th century icons, you will see how people used to pray at that time and how spiritually advanced they were. Their spirituality revealed itself in their icons. When we look at contemporary icons, we have to admit that our prayers aren't as fervent as they used to be. We should be aware of the fact that it is our prayer that determines the kinds of images that icon painters can paint. I say so because I work in this field.

July 30, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

A friend wrote:

My kids want to know where we got the story of the fall of the devil… How he was originally an angel and chose to stray… Is this actually an Orthodox belief? I couldn’t find it in the Bible… is it?

Sometimes in the Gospels, Christ mentions something in an aside that makes us stop and remember that this is the eternal God incarnate. One of those places is in Luke 10:18, where he says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

Some of the passages the Church reads in that context are ostensibly about someone else. But just as the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea was both a historical event and a prophetic image of baptism, the Church recognizes some meaningful lessons in passages like Ezekiel 28. Here Ezekiel is prophesying the fall of the king of Tyre — but he suddenly begins talking about another proud ruler who was brought down:

Son of man, take up a lamentation for the prince of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God; “You are a seal of resemblance, and crown of beauty. You were in the delight of the paradise of God; you bound upon you every precious stone, the sardius, and topaz, and emerald… and you filled your treasures and your stores in you with gold. From the day that you were created you were with the cherub: I set you on the holy mountain of God; you were in the midst of the stones of fire. You were faultless in your days from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. Of the abundance of your merchandise you filled your storehouses with iniquity, and sinned. Therefore you have been cast down wounded from the mountain of God, and the cherub has brought you out of the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart has been lifted up because of your beauty; your knowledge has been corrupted with your beauty. Because of the multitude of your sins I have cast you to the ground, I have caused you to be put to open shame before kings. Because of the multitude of your sins and the iniquities of your merchandise, I have profaned your sacred things; and I will bring fire out of the midst of you. It shall devour you, and I will make you to be ashes upon your land before all that see you. And all that know you among the nations shall groan over you: You are gone to destruction, and you shall not exist any more.”’ (Ezekiel 28:12-19, LXX)

This is one of the passages in which the Church sees an image of the fall of Satan. The being that Ezekiel laments was “with the cherub… on the holy mountain of God… among the stones of fire.” That expression, “stones of fire”, is how Isaiah describes the presence of God the Consuming Fire, in Isaiah 33:14ff, asking who is righteous enough to dwell there?

The Hebrew version of Ezekiel’s lament, in v.14 and 16, calls this king “the anointed cherub who covereth” (KJV) which associates his original mission both with holy authority (anointing) and with the Jewish idea of atonement (covering). For more on this angelic being’s original purpose and his fall, we look at Isaiah’s prophecy, ostensibly regarding the king of Babylon:

And it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which you have been enslaved, that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: “How has the extortioner ceased, and the taskmaster ceased! The Lord has broken the yoke of sinners, the yoke of princes. Having smitten a nation in wrath, with an incurable plague, smiting a nation with a wrathful plague, which spared them not, he rested in quiet. All the earth cries aloud with joy… Hades from beneath is provoked to meet you: all the great ones that have ruled over the earth have risen up together against you, they that have raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All shall answer and say to you, ‘You also have been taken, even as we; and you are numbered among us. Your glory has come down to hades, and your great mirth: under you they shall spread corruption, and the worm shall be your covering.’ How has the dawn-bearer, that rose in the morning, fallen from heaven! He that sent orders to all the nations is crushed to the earth. But you said in your heart, ‘I will go up to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven: I will sit on a lofty mount, on the lofty mountains toward the north: I will go up above the clouds: I will be like the Most High.’ But now you shall go down to hades, even to the foundations of the earth. They that see you shall wonder at you, and say, ‘This is the man that troubled the earth, that made kings to shake; that made the whole world desolate, and destroyed its cities; he loosed not those who were in captivity.’ All the kings of the nations lie in honour, every man in his house. But you shall be cast forth on the mountains, as a loathed carcass, with many dead who have been pierced with swords, going down to the grave. As a garment defiled with blood shall not be pure, so neither shall you be pure; because you have destroyed my land, and have slain my people.“ (Isaiah 14:3-20, LXX)

English versions usually use either “Lucifer” or “star of the morning” to translate the word Isaiah uses in v.12. In Hebrew it’s hêlêl which comes from a root for praise, glory, shine, celebrate; from the root of this word we get “Hallelu Jah,” the command to exuberantly praise the Lord. This was also anciently the name for the morningstar, Venus, which shines brighter than any other “star” in the morning sky. The Septuagint renders this name with eophoros (dawn-bearer) and Jerome brought that into Latin as lucifer (light-bearer.) Lucifer isn’t a proper name, it’s just Isaiah describing how brightly this being used to shine.

In his Revelation, St. John the Evangelist presents so many figures and images at once that it’s hard or impossible to separate them into past, present, and future. Without trying to interpret too deeply, we can see in Revelation chapter 12 an image of the fall of Satan:

And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth… And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child…

John explicitly calls this fallen heavenly being “devil” (diabolos = false accuser) and Satan (Hebrew for “enemy”) and tells us the devil is on earth. He’s not in “the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 5:41) and he’s certainly not ruling in hell as Milton and popular mythology would have it.

At the end of this age we know that the devil will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10.) Until then, our “adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8) but *ldquo;greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4), so “submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

By Fr. Silouan Thompson

Source: http://silouanthompson.net/2009/02/the-devil-is-in-the-details/

Teaching children to fast is very basic in an Orthodox Christian upbringing, like teaching them to pray. The question of when and how strictly to have one's children begin fasting should be discussed with a spiritual father. If a family does not have a spiritual father and the family is involved in a parish where fasting is not encouraged, especially among the children, one should ask God to present the family with an opportunity to find a spiritual father who can guide the family in the True Orthodox Christian life.

Today many children have dairy and egg allergies and live their entire childhood without these foods. Many people do not eat meat at all, for philosophical reasons, and raise their children on a meat-free diet. There are cultures in the world whose diet have no or a only a very limited amount of meat and dairy, and in many cases, the people of these cultures are physically healthier than Americans. So, it's not a matter of depriving children--it's simply a different way of cooking.

A child's ability to fast during the Great Lent depends a lot on how the child eats during non-fasting times. If a child's primary foods are meat and dairy, then fasting will likely be difficult. But if a child is accustomed to eating a variety of legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, then in most cases, fasting will not be difficult. It is important to have your children eat a variety of legumes, grains, fruits and vegetables throughout the year, so that they will be accustomed to these kinds of foods and will not find fasting to be such a dramatic change in diet.

Yet, again, establishing a fasting rule for the children in a family must be done under the guidance of a spiritual father. It is possible to become overzealous for having our children keep a full fast, and a spiritual father would temper this and guide the family on the path that is best for the children's physical health and spiritual development.

It is helpful to educate yourself what constitutes a healthy, nutritious diet for fasting so that you and your children will not suffer any deficiencies. (Serving your family peanut butter and jelly for lunch and pasta for dinner for 40 days is not a healthy diet and will make your family--especially your husband--hate fasting.)

For children who keep a strict fast the morning of receiving Holy Communion, it is helpful to make sure that they are fed a substantial, nutritious meal the evening before. If you are in a parish where the Divine Liturgy is late in the morning and the children have difficulty keeping a strict fast for the entire morning, it can be helpful to serve the previous night's dinner or give the children an additional protein-filled snack (and water if they are able), before they go to bed the night before the Divine Liturgy.

That's Just What We Do

Our children are born into a family that fasts on Wednesdays, Fridays and during Church fasting periods. They get plenty to eat each day during those times. We are amazed at how many Orthodox Christian families do not make fasting part of their regular routine. We feel it's easier for children to grow up used to that aspect of the Orthodox Christian faith rather than having to learn to fast as adults. On the other hand, we are not "label readers" and discourage that in our children.

On Parish Life and Fasting

We understand that it is difficult to fast, and some of us many have special food requirements. Parish leaders and organizers: please, if it is a fast period and there is a retreat/youth function do not serve children non-fasting food. We are not judging you or others if you break the fast, but it is very difficult for us parents to keep to the fasting calendar and then have it broken in the church, of all places. Please have all Sunday School teachers/youth groups leaders and parishioners who cook for the parish know not to feed children non-fasting food during the fasts or to verbally criticize the fasts of the Church. Further, please do not call us "fanatics" for following the Church fasting rules.

Prepare Them for Difficult Days

The Elder (Geronda) Athanasios had personal experience with true physical hunger during WWII. Over 300,000 civilians died in Athens, Greece alone from starvation, tens of thousands more through reprisals by Nazis and collaborators, and the country's economy was ruined. He saw starvation with his own eyes, was himself truly hungry, and knew that it would always be possible for times of hunger to come to any people at any time.

"I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need." (Philippians 4:12)

In other words, when I have plenty of food, I do not eat like a glutton, and when I am hungry I have learned not to blaspheme God. I have learned the lesson to have plenty, to be rich without being attracted and attached to have plenty, to be rich without being attracted and attached to these things; but I can also go hungry without doubting God and questioning what is going to happen to me--maybe God forgot me or maybe God died. No; Saint Paul says, I have everything I need and then some. I have everything I need and I abound! (cf., Philippians 4:18). Holy Saint Paul, you were in jail for three years! Two years in Caesarea and one year in Rome and what do you have?

He says, "I have everything and I abound." Saint Paul is not lying. Do you see how a person can discipline himself, how he can be conditioned? My friends, what are you going to do when you keep filling your children up with chocolate, ice cream cakes, cream cheese and fresh butter? What is going to happen in a period of hunger? We need to teach the children to fast, to learn (even with all of today's technical means) to withstand some mild suffering, so they will be able to survive some difficult days if they happen to come upon us. If they are trained in this way of the difficult days of their lives, like Saint Paul they will say, I know how to live with plenty and I know how to survive with next to nothing.

Fasting With Joy

As to fasting before Holy Communion, we do a great disservice to our children by not teaching them to joyfully fast when they are young. Whatever you do, set a good example and do not complain about fasting in front of them. They are young but they are not foolish. Teach them why we fast.

Attention Span and Snacks

Children without health problems can go the length of a Divine Liturgy without food and drink. Please don't bring cheerios, or any food or drink (or gum) to church.

Blessed Meals

Pray while cooking or preparing food for yourself and your family. Make the sign of the Cross over your food and drinks. Always pray before eating, at minimum make the sign of the Cross; and do not be embarrassed about blessing your food in public or your children will feel the same way. (Source: Orthodox Christian Parenting. Cultivating God's Creation by Zoe Press)

Source: http://saintandrewgoc.org/home/2017/10/11/how-to-teach-children-to-fast

Saint Seraphim of Sarov is one of the pillars of the Orthodox faith in the Russian lands. Most Orthodox believers know his biography. We have also heard a lot about the miracles that he made. However, some readers of his biography might ask: what did he need all those ascetic feats for? After all, he led an absolutely chaste and pure life, didn't he?

What Does a Pious Person Need Asceticism For?

St. Seraphim himself considered fasting, alms-giving, prayer, and staying awake to be essential for acquiring the Holy Spirit.

St. Seraphim of Sarov led a chaste life since childhood years. Moreover, his entire family was known for its piety and donations to the Church. In spite of that, Father Seraphim used to say that you cannot rely solely on your good actions. You should check and see whether they bring down the grace of the Holy Spirit. He added more spiritual exercises to his everyday routines, noting, “I exhaust him who exhausts me.” It means that there are no actions that can shield us from the attacks of the enemy of the human race. We are stuck in this battle during our entire lives.

We Cannot Imitate Him Today

Apostle Paul writes, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith you should follow” (Cf. Hebrews 13:7) We know how Saint Seraphim imitated Jesus Christ and Saint Paul. How do “we” do it? We lack both the power and the desire to do so.

What we really want is to live happily. We don't want to suffer. We comfort ourselves by following the external rules and norms of a "godly" lifestyle. We always attend to our own needs and desires.

So… Are We Damned? How Can We Be Saved?

The Lord declares, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12: 9). That is why we should acknowledge our true condition and follow the Elder's advice by evaluating our actions and thoughts carefully in order to make our first step on the ladder that leads to the Heaven, to the Kingdom of God.

Admittedly, we cannot imitate St. Seraphim of Sarov today… We should at least do our best to treat the Holy Fathers' heritage respectfully and honestly and act accordingly. Apostle Paul writes, “So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Cor. 9: 24). If we can't run, let's take tiny steps towards the Heaven so far as possible…

By Pavel Davydov

St. Elisabeth Convent

My bishop recently shared the story of a young man whom he taught some years ago. He was Orthodox from Estonia. He grew up in the Soviet era and had come to hate all things Russian, including the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, he saw an Orthodox procession in the streets of his city one year, a procession that included the Russian bishop (whom he also hated and believed to be a KGB agent). However, he saw the bishop surrounded by light. It was an experience that led him into the Orthodox faith. You might hate the man, and the Church as well. But the undeniable glory of God revealed what his hatred could not see.

My bishop’s point in sharing the story was not to exonerate the Russian Church from any wrong-doing, or cooperation with wrong-doing. Nor was it to exonerate the bishop involved and declare him holy. It was a story about the glory of God and its place and work despite our faults and failures. The 12 apostles cast out demons, healed the sick and cleansed lepers. We are nowhere told that Judas did none of those things. Doubtless, he did (which makes his betrayal all the greater).

There was a heresy in the early Church that denied the efficacy of the sacraments if they were performed by sinners. The debate was largely about those who, under the pressure of persecution, had in any way denied their faith or yielded to the requirements of the pagan state. It is an easy line of thought to maintain. If we are commanded to be holy, surely there are consequences for failure to observe the commandment. There are indeed consequences within the canons of the Church, but those consequences do not include an inefficacy of the sacraments.

The scandal of the Incarnation, God-becoming-man, is the seeming contradiction of the utterly transcendent God and the particularity and limits of human existence. It is a scandal whose errors run in two directions.

First, there is an assumption that God is so displeased with sin that He can have nothing to do with it, or that sin somehow nullifies the work of God. Second, there is an equally odious belief that human beings, in their observance of the commandments, are ever righteous enough to actually be compatible with true holiness. The first is an error about God, the second an error about human beings.

I’m always troubled to hear “there is no grace outside the Church.” I can’t fathom what such a statement means. Since the entire universe is sustained by the grace of God, I can only assume a sort of heresy of secularism by such a statement – the notion that anything can exist apart from God’s grace. For His own mysterious reasons, God even sustains the fallen angels by His grace. If it were not so, they would cease to exist. Only God has existence in and of Himself.

I can say “there is no grace outside the Church” only if I also say that everything in all of creation is inside the Church. In fact, I believe this to be true. The Church came into existence when God said, “Let there be light.” The sacraments do not make us to be what we are not, but reveal us to be what we truly are. Baptism and Chrismation are indeed required of those coming to Holy Communion, for they are fundamental realities in the medicine of immortality and the path of life God has given us. But the person who is Baptized does not somehow become other than what they are. They become more fully human, more truly what they were created to be. “The Holy Spirit completes that which is lacking,” it is said in our prayers.

There are boundaries which we describe as “the Church,” but this meaning is being used to specify that which is identified with the fullness of life in Christ. “Church”, in this usage, is “that which is reconciled.” St. Paul says that the end of all things is that they be “gathered together in one in Christ Jesus.” This is the Church, in the end.

Too frequently we speak of the Church in denominational terms, in which we speak of people who are reconciled in the fullness of Orthodoxy as though their “membership” constituted the whole of the Church. But St. Paul extends the Church to “all things.” Thus, the grass and the trees (and certainly the flour and the wine) are being gathered together into Christ. The Eucharist is not a gathering meant to exclude everything else. It is a gathering that represents everything else. “Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee.” What is there within all of creation that is not God’s own? Indeed, the members of the Church who gather, are themselves but the “first fruits” of the whole Adam.

And so we have the reality of glowing bishops who might be hated in Estonia (just as many other bishops might be hated elsewhere). The transfiguration (for such was the scene in that procession) of God’s creation is simply shocking to us. It is a manifestation of the love of God that ignores all scandal, except that which does not love. It is a transfiguration that gives light and that burns.

Many take a cold comfort in the fact that the transfiguring light of God burns some. However, it most often burns the eyes of those who judge the fitness of those transfigured. They become blind in this very manner.

The Transfiguration of Christ would generally be deemed to be free of scandal. He appeared on the Holy Mount with Moses and Elijah – how could the disciples not rejoice. But the text describes a scandal.

As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Luke 9:29-31)

Christ, in turn, spoke to the disciples about His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem, and Peter rebuked Him! The great scandal is always the scandal of the Cross. There is no path to true union with God that does not go through the Cross. This is true finally of all those who are transfigured as well as for all who hope to ever see a transfiguration.

It is of note that the Greek beneath this translation does not say that Christ was speaking with Moses and Elijah about His “decease.” The text calls it His “exodus.” It is not a casual word choice. His journey into death is the Great Exodus, the path through the Red Sea that drowns the mystical Pharaoh. It is the Lord’s Passover.

That Passover is the path to transfiguration. Moses himself, after the Passover, leads the people to a different holy mountain. There he received the Law written by the very finger of God. When he came down from the mountain his face was transfigured and the people were afraid to look at him – and asked him to please wear a veil.

In Christ the veil is removed, except for those who wear a veil covering their heart (2 Cor. 3). But God is so merciful, He sometimes removes the veil so that angry young men on the streets of Estonia (which is everywhere) may see His glory and live.

By Fr. Stephen Freeman

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/08/06/the-scandal-of-the-transfiguration/

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Every Christian Is an Icon Painter!

The Fall of the Devil: Is It an Orthodox Belief?

Parable of the Day: How Is Love Supposed to Unite Us?

How Could We Teach Our Children to Fast?

St. Seraphim of Sarov: Why Did Even that Holy Man Need Asceticism?

The Main Problem of the Transfiguration

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