The practice of living the life in Christ: fasting, vigil lamps, head-coverings, family life, icon corners, and other forms of Orthopraxy. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.
According to Abp Andrei of Rockland, there are some chief causes that he witnessed first hand prior to the Revolution in Russia that caused the whole society to fall to the depths of destructiveness and godlessness that came afterward. Abp Andrew of Novo Diveyevo shared his view on this when he said to A. Solzhenitsyn upon the latters visit to America where the two met:
In your recent address you said that you were born a slave. That means that you were born after the Revolution. But I saw everything that happened before the Revolution and what prepared it—it was ungodliness in all forms, and chiefly the violation of family life and the corruption of youth.... With grief I see that the same thing is happening here also, and indeed in the whole world. And it seems to me that your mission also is—to call people from ungodliness to godliness!
And the source of godliness is Christ!
How true it was then on July 22nd, 1975. What then of the hour in which we live?
LORD HAVE MERCY ON US, the last Christians!
I agree, Symeon. This is an excellent link, which you have provided.
Gems taken from the first essay: Restoration of the Orthodox Way
First, Orthodoxy is ... an elemental reality or power which transforms a man and gives him the strength to live in the most difficult and tormenting conditions, and prepares him to depart with peace into eternal life.
Second, the essence of the true Orthodox life is godliness or piety ... "holding what is God's in honor." ... it is the entrance of God into every aspect of life, life lived in trembling and fear of God.
Third, such an attitude produces the Orthodox Way of Life ... The shared, conscious experience of this way of life, centered on the daily Divine services, produces the genuine Orthodox community, with its feeling of lightness, joy, and inward quietness.
Fourth ... There is no "formula" for the truly God-pleasing Orthodox life; anything outward can become a counterfeit; everything depends on the state of the soul, which must be trembling before God, having the law of God before it in every area of life, every moment keeping what is God's in honor, in the first place in life.
Fifth, the greatest danger to the Orthodox way of life in modern times is ... "humanism"—a general term encompassing the whole vast intellectual (and now also political) movement which has as its ultimate aim to destroy Christianity and replace it with a this-worldly, rationalistic philosophy in which man, in effect, becomes a god unto himself. ...
Thank you both for your kind remarks. Another thought along these lines which I had is this:
The Gospel According to Luke says in chapter 23:
27And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. 28But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29“For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ 30“Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US.’ 31“For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
Look how inhuman the Soviets were in their cruelty and flouting of the basic rights simple devout Christians with their tortures, mass executions, starvation and forced labour that killed millions of them. And those times were green by comparison because they had what was only about 20 years before an Orthodox Country awash in Orthodox Truth and history and the witness of living saints. What then, in our comparatively much, much drier times? Also notice that prophetic end times reference to what the men of the great tribulation when the Lord arises to shake the earth terribly on the eve of his great second coming:
14The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
(Rev. 6:14-17) It is very interesting that the governments of the World are building huge underground cities in preparation for what they believe will be a cataclysm of one kind or another, natural or manmade--it matters not. The point is, John the Apostle foresaw that such caves would be the Last Day refuge of the sinners of that hour in history. I believe it is fast approaching and He who tarried, will not tarry much longer.
There is no "formula" for the truly God-pleasing Orthodox life;
This gave me a warning signal. I didn't read the whole thing; I skipped to his autobiography. But since Maria posted the specific quote, I see something wrong here. "There is no formula". His explanation sounds very ambiguous. I don't like it. It doesn't sound Orthodox. What about repentance? Isn't that what St. John the Forerunner was proclaiming? Didn't our Lord Jesus Christ state...Repent for the Kingdom of God is near?
So what does Archbishop Andrew of New-Diveyevo intend to explain? His explanation is ambiguous and not Orthodox.
I don't like this statement. It's wrong, by True Orthodox standards.
The "formula" is REPENTANCE. That's the formula. That's the remedy. How can he say that??? This is wrong.
Lord have mercy.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps. 50)
There is no "formula" for the truly God-pleasing Orthodox life;
This gave me a warning signal. I didn't read the whole thing; I skipped to his autobiography. But since Maria posted the specific quote, I see something wrong here. "There is no formula". His explanation sounds very ambiguous. I don't like it. It doesn't sound Orthodox. What about repentance? Isn't that what St. John the Forerunner was proclaiming? Didn't our Lord Jesus Christ state...Repent for the Kingdom of God is near?
So what does Archbishop Andrew of New-Diveyevo intend to explain? His explanation is ambiguous and not Orthodox.
I don't like this statement. It's wrong, by True Orthodox standards.
The "formula" is REPENTANCE. That's the formula. That's the remedy. How can he say that??? This is wrong.
Lord have mercy.
Since this sermon is directed toward monastics and their living the monastic life, I think his use of the term "formula" applies toward those who are living a life of repentance and embracing the angelic life.
In monasticism, each monk follows Christ as directed by his spiritual father or elder. There is no set formula. If a monk were to look at monks and try to emulate them (follow their formula) that would be folly as one monk may be able to embrace a more ascetical way of life that would kill another monk who might be more fragile. Jealousy and envy result when monks are looking at what other monks are doing rather than keeping their focus on Christ.
For example, I knew a monk who had anemia and who needed to eat meat. He lived and ate alone so as not to scandalize the younger monks. One monk was very physically able and so was given the obedience to do heavy lifting of feed bags and gardening chores while praying the Jesus Prayer, while another monk was not so muscular but had a beautiful voice, so he was given the obedience to be a chanter and made a lot of prostrations while praying the Jesus Prayer. Not all are called to be chanters, teachers, preachers ....
