October 13/26, 2003
Beloved Clergy and Parishioners in the Lord, Rejoice!
Greetings in Christ from Dormition Skete. We hope and pray that you are all well, advancing in the grace of God, day by day growing in love for God and each other.
THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE SEVENTH ŒCUMENICAL SYNOD
The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 334]. Brethren:
13 7Be remembering those who lead you, who spoke to you the word of God, whose faith keep on imitating, observing attentively the end of their conduct: 8Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and to the ages. 9Cease being carried about by various and strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be confirmed by grace, not by foods, in which those walking therein were not profited. 10We have an altar from which those serving the tabernacle have no authority to eat; 11for the bodies of those animals, "whose blood is being brought into the holies for sins" by the high priest, "are being burned outside of the encampment [cf. Lev. 16:27]." 12Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered outside of the gate. 13Let us be going forth therefore to Him outside of the encampment, bearing His reproach; 14for we have no abiding city here, but we seek the coming one. 15Through Him, then, let us b! e offering up a "sacrifice of praise [Lev. 7:2(12)]" continually to God, that is, "the fruit of the lips [cf. Hos. 14:3(2); Is. 57:19]," giving thanks to His name. 16But cease being forgetful of doing good and of contributing; for God is well pleased with such sacrifices.
THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE SEVENTH ŒCUMENICAL SYNOD
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 56]. At that time:
17 1Jesus lifted up His eyes to the heaven, and said, "Father, the hour hath come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son might glorify Thee, 2"even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, in order that all whom Thou hast given Him, He should give to them life eternal. 3"And this is the eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou didst send forth. 4"I glorified Thee on the earth. I finished the work which Thou hast given Me that I should do. 5"And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thyself, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world came to be. 6"I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were, and Thou hast given them to Me, and they have kept Thy word. 7"Now they have come to know that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are from Thee. 8"For the words which Thou hast given Me, I have given them; and they received them, and kno! w truly that I came forth from Thee; and they believed that Thou didst send Me forth. 9"I make request concerning them. I do not make request concerning the world, but concerning these whom Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine; 10"and all My things are Thine, and Thy things are Mine, and I have been glorified in them. 11"And I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep in Thy name those whom Thou hast given Me, in order that they may be one, even as We. 12"When I was with them in the world, I was keeping them in Thy name. Those whom Thou hast given Me I guarded, and none of them perished, except the son of the perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13"And now I come to Thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy made full in them."
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we commemorate the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. My, how many times does the Church put before us the commemoration of the holy fathers and the councils in which they participated. This is to impress upon us the importance of the Faith. Saint Paul says in the epistle we read today, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and to the ages. 9Cease being carried about by various and strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be confirmed by grace…" And so, this is one of the characteristics of the Faith. As Christ is the same yesterday, today, and to the ages, so is the Orthodox Faith. When through the ages, impious men devised means to distort the Faith, this led, of course, to denial of God. There have been, in those times, faithful bishops who have stood up for the truth and proclaimed Orthodoxy in the holy councils. They are obeying, of course, the commands! of Saint Paul not to be carried about by various and strange teachings.
Do you see that accepting the strange doctrines separates a person from truth, separates a person from the oneness that has been continuous in Christ's holy Church? Our Saviour prayed that this oneness may be preserved when He said, "Holy Father, keep in Thy name those whom Thou hast given Me, in order that they may be one, even as We." Oh how offensive this passage, and so many other passages in the Holy Scriptures, must be to the present day ecumenists who call themselves Orthodox. Where is the oneness which is characteristic of Orthodoxy with the deceivers? One of them, the arch-ecumenist of the Greek Archdiocese, Archbishop Iakovos, in his ecumenical mindset, said of the New Martyrs under the Turks, that their martyric struggles were only were cheap theatrics, and even now from the same Greek Archdiocese, a book was printed in the year 2000 where the author states that the New Martyrs had a superficial, ignorant, ! and distorted view of Islam, and that the lives of the New-martyrs are just polemical literature. They have no concept that the Faith is preserved by the martyrs, for they did not deny Christ. The Faith is watered by the blood of the martyrs because they did not consent to change it in the slightest way.
How appropriate it is today that this Sunday we also commemorate so many great martyrs. From the early centuries of Christianity, the age of persecution, we commemorate Saint Carpus and those with him who were tortured and wounded so many times by the pagans, and Christ came repeatedly at night and healed them so there was no trace of wounds at all on them, not even scarring, the next day. Also we commemorate the glorious Bulgarian New-martyr Zlata, who was martyred by the equally pagan Moslem Turks at the eve of the nineteenth century. She was imprisoned and tortured for about a year, to deny the Faith, and Christ came to her and comforted her in all her afflictions. Truly, as Saint Paul says, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and to the ages." Whether we have martyrs in the first century, or martyrs in the last century, Christ comforts them all. Below is the abbreviated life of the holy New-mar! tyr Zlata, and we congratulate our faithful in Bulgaria on her feast day.
- The Holy Bulgarian New Martyr Zlata of Meglin.
Born in the village of Slatina in the Meglin region, of poor peasants who had three other daughters, St Zlata was a meek and devout girl, wise with Christ's wisdom and golden ('zlata' means 'gold') not only in name but also in her God-fearing heart. When Zlata went out one day to get water, some shameless Turks seized her and carried her off to their house. When one of them urged her to embrace Islam and become his wife, Zlata answered fearlessly: 'I believe in Christ, and know Him alone as my bridegroom; I shall never deny Him even if you put me to a thousand tortures and cut me into pieces. Her parents and sisters arrived, after she was imprisoned for six months, and said to her: 'O our daughter, have mercy on yourself and us. Deny Christ publicly, that we can all be happy. Christ is merciful: He will forgive your sin, committed under the pressure of life.' Her poor parents and kinsfolk wept bitterly, for they were threatened also that if they did not convert her to I! slam, they themselves would be punished. But Zlata's heroic soul would not be overcome by devilish seduction. She replied to her parents: 'When you urge me to deny Christ, the true God, you are no longer parents or sisters to me; I have the Lord Jesus Christ as my father, the Mother of God as my mother and, for brothers and sisters, the saints.' Then the Turks threw her into prison, where she lay for three more months, and they took her out every day and flogged her until her blood flowed onto the ground. Finally, they hanged her upside-down and made a fire to choke her to death with the smoke. But God was with Zlata, and gave her strength in her suffering. At the very end, they hanged her from a pear tree and cut her into small pieces. Thus this martyr-maiden gave her soul into God's hands, and entered into the realm of Paradise, in 1796. Pieces of her relics were taken by Christians to their homes, that they might bring a blessing to them.
We have proof-read/corrected and slightly expanded the life of our Metropolitan Valentine. We are including it in the Crumbs section because there are many who receive this sermon who have no access to our website, where it will be posted.
Monastery News:
Finally, after so long a time, we finished the outside of the house - putting on the siding and the roof. Now we are concentrating on putting up the interior walls.
Lazarus Keithley is moving from Alabama to settle in the Colorado area. He will be staying at the monastery for one week to help us with the construction work.
Please pray for:
Our Vladika Metropolitan Valentine, and Father Dionysios' daughter, Helen.
There have been tremendous fires in the southern California area lately. They were deliberately started, and have caused enormous damage. Thousands of acres have been destroyed, and as we write this sermon, over five hundred homes have been destroyed. Our Father John Claypool in Running Springs, California, has been ordered to evacuate. We ask our faithful to please pray for him and his family, and the faithful with him.
Calendar of Events for Upcoming Week:
On Saturday, the Church celebrates the Feast of Saint John of Kronstadt. It is also the day that our country has a holiday called Halloween. Truly, this is an indication that our country is not at all Christian, for what Christian would have a holiday dedicated to the demons, where all deceit and hypocrisy and lawlessness will be tolerated for a day. As the years have gone by, this day has become more and more wild. Of course, we as Orthodox Christians do not participate in such foolishness. Orthodox Christians do not participate in Halloween by trick-or-treating, or by giving candies to those who come to trick-or-treat, nor do we dress up in costumes and go to parties and such. Halloween is a pagan festival, which no Christian should have anything to do with.
Crumbs from the trapeza table:
His Eminence, Vladika Metropolitan Valentine
Metropolitan of Suzdal and Vladimir, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, and Chairman of the Hierarchal Synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal and Vladimir (in the world Anatoli Petrovich Rusantsov) was born on March 3, 1939 in the town of Belorechensk, Krasnodar region. Because his father died from war wounds and his mother became seriously ill, Anatoli was sent to an orphanage, from which he was adopted into the family of Ekaterina Buriak (in the city of Maycop, Krasnodar region), members of the Catacomb Christian Church.
In 1952, during a pilgrimage to the sacred places of the Georgia region in the former USSR, the young Anatoli met monks who gave a new direction to his life. In 1956 he left for the Holy Dormition Monastery in the city of Odessa, where he met Archbishop Nestor (Anisimov). Well-known as a missionary to Kamchatka, the Archbishop for a considerable length of time served one of the Far Eastern eparchies of the Russian Church Abroad. Together with him, Anatoli departed for the Novosibirsk eparchy and was appointed as a psalm-reader in the village of Great Uluj in the Krasnojarsk region.
In 1957, Archbishop Nestor sent Anatoli to the Holy Spirit Monastery in the city of Vilnius. There, in 1958, he became a monk and took the name Valentine. He was tonsured by Archimandrite Seraphim (Smykov), who had been ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). In 1960, Monk Valentine was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Archbishop Anthony (Romanovki) of Stavropol and Baku, who was made a bishop by the Holy New Martyr, Patriarch Tikhon. Hieromonk Valentine then applied himself to the fulfillment of his pastoral duty in the Stavropol and Vladimir eparchy. Hieromonk Valentine became the superior of the Cathedral in Makhachkala (an Islamic center), where he revived Orthodox Christianity, saving the Cathedral from closure.
In 1970, he obtained a diploma from the historical faculty of Dagestan University. He graduated from the Moscow Theological College in 1973 and in 1979 he obtained a Ph.D. degree from Moscow Theological Academy.
In 1973, Archimandrite Valentine came to serve in Suzdal as superior of the magnificent Kazan church, which for the previous five years had been left without Divine Services. He revived the parish and attracted young people to the Divine Services, while using his diplomatic abilities and influence to protect church life from the interference of the atheist authorities. In 1977, however, disgruntled by the revival taking place in Suzdal, the authorities forced the community to leave the church, which was situated on the city's trading square, and move to another, less prominent location. From that time until the present, Metropolitan Valentine has carried out Divine Services in the Saint Constantine church of the city of Suzdal. He has passed all these years in unceasing labor to administer church life despite ongoing struggles both with the atheist authorities and the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP), which has zealously attempted to h! inder Metropolitan Valentine in his efforts to create a strong community of believers both in Suzdal and abroad, rather than a "showcase" for tourists.
In 1987, the authorities and the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate initiated a persecution against Archimandrite Valentine that lasted for almost three years, primarily for his frank remarks concerning the lack of religious freedom in the USSR during a lecture tour to America. In spite of numerous protests by believers, Archimandrite Valentine was retired, and it was proposed that he be exiled to a remote village. In view of the cynicism and mendacity in the highest ranks of the Moscow Patriarchate during these events, coupled with the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent presence of the Russian Church Abroad in the former USSR, Archimandrite Valentine decided to leave the Moscow Patriarchate, considering it a graceless entity, a tool of the Soviet regime. He was followed by the believers and clergy of his parish. On April 7, 1990, the departure of the Suzdal believers from the Moscow Patriarchate was completed. On April 11th they were received under the omophorion of the Russian Church Abroad, and on October 4th, Archimandrite Valentine was appointed exarch of the Russian Church Abroad within the territory of the USSR.
On February 10, 1991, by the decision of the Synod of Bishops, in the church of St. Job the Much-Suffering in Brussels, a memorial church dedicated to the memory of the Holy Royal New-Martyrs, Archimandrite Valentine was consecrated Bishop of Suzdal and Vladimir. The consecration was carried out by the following bishops of the Russian Church Abroad: Archbishop Anthony of Geneva, Archbishop Mark of Germany, Bishop Barnabas of Cannes and Bishop Gregory Grabbe, who had for many years assisted the great first hierarchs of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitans Anthony, Anastassy and Philaret, and who rendered priceless assistance in years to come in the formation of the Russian [Rossijskaja] Autonomous Church.
From this time onward, Bishop Valentine directed his labors towards strengthening the Russian Church, building up her internal life, and asserting the firmness of his opposition to the Moscow Patriarchate. He thus attracted both the hatred of the patriarchate, the atheists and political operatives, and the envy of many of his brethren in the episcopate of the Russian Church Abroad, who had lost their former spirit of zeal for God. When the Russian Church Abroad in the person of Bishop Barnabas became involved in the fascist organization "Pamyat" and sent a letter to the Ukrainian "Patriarch" Vladimir with the request to receive the Russian Church Abroad into communion, Bishop Valentine issued a strong protest. Immediately thereafter the canonical territory of the Suzdal Diocese was subjected to a series of invasions, aimed at tearing parishes away from it while compromising its president in preparation for a union with the Mo! scow Patriarchate. Communion with the Ukrainian Patriarchate would open the door to communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, just as communion with the Romanian Old-Calendarist Church helped the Russian Church Abroad bring about a union with the Synod of Resistors under Metropolitan Cyprian of Fili. Archbishop Mark became an irreconcilable struggler against the bishops in Russia, and most of all against Bishop Valentine. Fueled by desire to unite with the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Church Abroad Synod, under the covert instigation of Archbishop Mark, strove to remove Bishop Valentine, as an obstacle to this longed-for union. Therefore, the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad began to search for any denunciations that they might find of the most absurd content directed against Bishop Valentine by individuals from the Moscow Patriarchate. This laid the groundwork for recognition of the Moscow Patriarchate as a grace-filled entity, since the canons stipulate that in eccles! iastical tribunals of a moral nature, the witnesses must be morally up right and members of the Church. These types of canons were laid down to protect righteous hierarchs from being attacked by the heretics. Finally, the Russian Church Abroad Hierarchal Synod found their "canonical justification" to retire Bishop Valentine in July of 1993, based upon his alleged ill health. The Synod illegally disregarded the adequate physical condition of Bishop Valentine, and neither did they ask if he wished to retire. Such a course of action would be used again and again against various hierarchs in the Russian Church Abroad, notably the late Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles, as the Russian Church Abroad juggernaut cleared the path of all "obstacles" to union with the Moscow Patriarchate.
Under these circumstances, Bishop Valentine worked with great energy to protect the resurgent Russian Church from destruction. Without interrupting his efforts to re-establish full communion with the Russian Church Abroad, he created, in March, 1994, the Higher Church Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church (as stipulated by Ukase #362 of Patriarch Tikhon of All Russia), which entity acted to regulate the situation in the dioceses which had been abandoned, in effect, by the clerical leadership of the Russian Church Abroad. These measures were ardently supported by the faithful of the Russian Church, who saw in Bishop Valentine their reliable and wise leader. In the words of Archbishop Theodore of Borisovsk, it took much time and many uncanonical actions by the Russian Church Abroad hierarchs for the deep respect and love the Russian hierarchs had for them to begin to be replaced with the recognition that the Russian Church Abroad was striving by all possible means to crush the revival taking place in Russia.
In the winter of 1994, a temporary truce with the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad was effected at the Council in the Lesna Monastery, France, due to the readiness of Archbishop Valentine (who, as a result of the turmoil he experienced at this council, fell seriously ill) to make substantial compromises in the name of ecclesiastical peace. It was at this council also that Archbishop Valentine attempted to raise the question of the Russian Church Abroad's new union with the Greek Old Calendar Synod of Metropolitan Cyprian, whose Orthodox ecclesiology was questioned by all the Bishops in Russia who had not participated in the vote for this union. The Council, however, would not let Archbishop Valentine bring up this topic for discussion! Soon, however, the insincerity of the foreign bishops became apparent, and in February of 1995 they imposed uncanonical bans on the Russian hierarchs. Therefore, the Temporary Higher Church Administration (THCA) of the Russian Church was re-established in June, 1995, under the leadership of Archbishop Lazar (Zhurbenko). At such a difficult moment in the history of the Russian Church, the THCA resolved to end its administrative and canonical submission to the Hierarchal Synod of the Russian Church Abroad in view of the numerous canonical violations that had been introduced into the system, considering that obedience to this entity was tantamount to handing their flocks over to the Moscow Patriarchate.
It was at this time, by decree of the THCA, that Bishop Valentine was elevated to the rank of Archbishop.
In 1996, the Hierarchal Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church was created, under the official name of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC). In this manner, the Russian Church finally defined its independent canonical existence as a self-governing part of the local Russian Church. At the Synod meeting of March 2/15, 2001, it was decided that the head of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church should have the rank of Metropolitan.
Despite poor health, Metropolitan Valentine administers all matters subject to his jurisdiction as ruling bishop of Suzdal and Vladimir, as well as all matters pertaining to his position as First Hierarch. He defines the general course of the Church; supervises parish life and the selection of worthy candidates for the priesthood; protects the heritage of the Church from the scheming civil authorities; pays the most careful attention to the development of spiritual education, specifically in the Sunday School attached to the Saint Constantine Cathedral Suzdal; teaches his flock by means of instructive epistles; and watches over, and often personally takes part in, the restoration of dilapidated church buildings restored to the Church. Vladika carries out Divine Services in the churches of Suzdal and regularly carries out pastoral trips throughout Russia and beyond its boundaries, including America.
Vladika is also known as an authority on the history and architecture of Suzdal, and is the author of several books about the city. He was proclaimed an honorary citizen of Suzdal by the City Council.
In the year 2002 another wave of persecution started against the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church. Many churches were attacked by arsonists, and some were broken into and vandalized, while clergy were beaten and the faithful were terrorized, in order to incite them to leave the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church and join the Moscow Patriarchate. All this was instigated by the Moscow Patriarchate because the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church is the only alternative in Russia to the Soviet-started, ecumenist Moscow Patriarchate. This persecution was also directed at Metropolitan Valentine in a most vicious manner through slanderous accusations attacking the First-Hierarch's morality. All of these false attacks proved ineffectual, for the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church has not lost one of its four hundred churches; but on the contrary, more have been added, and the Church grows day by day.
In Christ,
+Bishop Gregory, and those with me.
