On this, the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, we commemorate the Holy and Glorious Great-martyr Demetrius the Myrrh-gusher of Thessalonica (306), St. Cedd, bishop of Northumbria (644), St. Eata, bishop of Hexham and abbot of Lindisfarne (686), St. Athanasius of Medikion Monastery (814), St. Theophilus of the Kiev Caves, bishop of Novgorod (1482), Martyr Ioasaph of Mt. Athos (1536), St. Anthony, bishop of Vologda (1588), St. Demetrius of Basarbov in Bulgaria (1685). We also remember the Great Earthquake at Constantinople in 740 A.D., in the reign of Emperor Leo the Isaurian, the first of the Iconoclast emperors.
Through the intercessions of Thy Saints, O Christ God, have mercy on us and save us!
Thanks be to the All-Highest we are blessed to come together again as a diocese for a couple days of thanksgiving, converse, deliberations and good fellowship up here in the lands watched over by St. Spiridon, St. Herman, St. Nicholas, St. Anne, St. Catherine, Archangel Gabriel, St. Elizabeth, and the Holy Apostles in the conditions of spiritual freedom announced to mankind at the Annunciation, and in the unfading and everlasting joy of Christ's Resurrection.
Reflecting on all the blessings the same All-Highest has showered down upon us as a Church since the coming of the first Missionaries sent by God from Holy Russian in the 18th century, we make note with thankfulness that our Church has ripened and flourished. We, together with other holy Dioceses form the Orthodox Church in America, under the guidance of the Holy Synod and the Holy Synod's Primate or First-Hierarch, Metropolitan Herman, a holy autocephalous Church of God. The only mark of ecclesiastical holiness lacking in the history of our Church is a real persecution. Lacking such a real persecution, it would be easy to feel that we are not threatened. But persecution and the martyrdoms proceeding from it are benefits, while the fabulous wealth and comfort which we enjoy, the ease, these threaten our true life and if we succumb to them and their fruits, our resurrection could be unto judgment, unto true death.
We know that all our blessings and fruits deserve our constant thanks and gratitude, but we confess that we have often been remiss in just that giving of thanks. If we bring nothing back to our parish homes but thankfulness, we will have built together a wonderful diocesan assembly this year!
I ask that you always think of our Diocese and of each of our parishes as our true spiritual family. Our Church, our Diocese, our parish, these are neither democracies, anarchies, nor dictatorships, but family. In families we do not harp on conciliarity or sobornost, because they are a given, a fact of life, and if we have to work to achieve conciliarity and sobornost then, we are already not a family, but an institution like others, but trying to enhance the institution with some Church characteristics. We have to allow the spirit of love, of trust, openness, modesty and obedience to prevail. We must be a family willing to offer our homes and hearts to all who are seeking spiritual support or guidance. People around us are so obviously seeking spiritually for that Church which is in this world, but not of it. They want a fortress, they want the pillar and ground of Truth, they want kindness, warmth, care, true spiritual concern from us. Let's be sure our church doors are always open to them and that what awaits them inside first of all is not a pledge card but a helping hand.
When strangers visit us, are they not only thankful for the help we offer them, even if they are not needy, but also grateful to God that they have been among the pious People of God? Do they find this pious People of God piously standing in the hope of the Second Coming of the Lord? Do they find a people spiritually fasting, and by spiritually fasting I mean people that fast in order to have the means to give to others, do they? Are they told that we need them or are they told that here is what they need and we want to share it with them? Do they find people already in the Church before them, as if they couldn't wait to be in it, at the beginning of the Hours before Liturgy? Do they find a people prepared on the Lord's day by their corporate worship during the previous evening, not to mention still glowing with the spirit of the morning and pre-communion prayers? Do they notice that there are people that have come to enjoy the charity of the parish, because they know they will not find squinting, but smiling faces? Do they find people worshiping as if time did not exist or people who are nervously consulting their watches and clergy and choirs chanting as fast as they can without tripping over the words?
The morning prayers in the prayer-books of the Russian Old Believers open with these words, "Having risen from the bed and washed your face, stand before the holy icons and looking upon them, turn your thoughts to the invisible God..." Do we find this care in our parish worship? Does a stranger find people prepared for worshipping Love with modest and undistracting clothing? Do we dress in order to put our best foot forward in the community of which we are privileged by God to be a part, or do we turn our attendance in Church into a demonstration that no matter what fellow Christians may find or regard as offensive, God sees into our hearts and pays no attention to our clothing, and therefore others are wrong and sinful in daring to notice our clothes, our run-down levis, torn t-shirts, long skirts slit up to the hip and so forth?
What about our glorious youth? Are we throwing money and programs at them and wondering why they desert in such vast numbers when they leave the home to marry, or to go to college, or to get married, etc.? Shouldn't we really devote more of our time not to so-called "activities that get the youth involved," but to devising events that are directed to and focused on their spiritual growth above all. Are they constantly reminded that they are of the world but called out of it? Are they misled into believing that the Church is chasing them in order to build up the Church, rather than to rescue them from destruction? Might they be misled into thinking the Church is another of the many entities that have been bombarding them with sales pitches, gimmicks, commercials, prizes, all in order to get something from them, in this case to get from them their allegiance to the Church? Do they know, do we know, that we are not here to build an institution, because Christ It is Who builds the Church and our diakonia (ministry) in this process of building is to help and serve each other, to rescue one another, to clothe those of us who are naked, to visit those of us in all sorts of prisons, whether with iron bars or with bars made up of peer pressure and the norms advertised in the media, to feed those who are hungry, including those with credit cards and more than three square meals a day, including those of us who are scandalously obese, but spiritually starving? Do they perceive us as helpers or consumers, blessed by God?
If they are seeking an institution with which to identify, there are institutions much better at being institutions than the Church is. The Church is only incidentally an institution seeking institutional health. There are those who excuse their preoccupation with institutional health by stating that without it we cannot do Gospel works of Charity, etc. How wrong that is. Do we ignore these words, "seek ye first the kingdom of heaven?" Do we ignore these words, "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back to you an hundred-fold?" Do we ignore them because we say we are not ready yet? We need to prepare to do good and to communicate? All this requires cooperation, paying attention to one another as spiritual beings, as rational sheep, it requires counsel. It is counsel that our youth need above all. Solomon rightfully said "There is salvation in much counsel."
Around us in this prosperous country we see a horrible disintegration of morals, a spiritual desolation. The country?s leaders are often those who are not only heretics in their beliefs, but heretics in their lives. The Orthodox prays to be delivered from foreign invasion and civil war: the heretic is the foreign invader who invades in God's name as a reaction to the hostility of other lands, other peoples than the ones he invades.
We must be more charitable with others and less charitable with ourselves. With ourselves we must be strict and unyielding, not self-indulgent. We do not want to greet the stranger searching for his salvation with a display of "Oh, look how wonderful we are here...we have everything...a beautiful temple, a flourishing youth program, a great choir, and we are working on a great youth center in order to hold onto our youth who are the future of our Church." What is wrong with that picture? What if he wants to know why good people are suffering and dying? What if he wants to know why he feels so alone even in the midst of many people? What if he wants someone to explain why his son or daughter died before he did? Will he ask these questions after a greeting like that? Or will he maybe think, "Hmm. Do they think they are the first and only people to have a beautiful temple, a great choir, a flourishing youth program, a young-married's club and a glorious youth center in the offing? I bet if I ask any of these questions that are depressing me, they'll tell me to see the Priest when he's not tied up with... the beautiful temple, the board, meetings, pushing the youth program and relating to them like one of them, and looking at the plans for the new youth center."
Let's think about how we can look immediately like a refuge and a place where a man, woman, or child can find immediate attention to his real needs, rather than find a so-called "going concern" that is concerned with keeping going.
We need more effort, more prayer, and more zeal for God. Let?s see our beautiful temple as beautiful because it is a place where we are saved. . . .
+ We were created for eternal life by our Creator, we are called to it by the word of God, and we are renewed by holy Baptism. And Christ the Son of God came into the world for this, that He should call us and take us there, and He is the one thing needful. For this reason, your very first endeavor and care should be to receive it. Without it everything is as nothing, though you have the whole world under you.
- St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (+1783)