Orthodox Christians Facing the 1980's

Lecture  Fr. Seraphim Rose

St. Herman Summer Pilgrimage, 1979

     https://podtail.com/fr/podcast/homilies–of–fr–seraphim–rose/

transcribed by Cristian for the benefit of all

     https://mega.nz/folder/ip4wjA6L#iumzDDcQNyY_dqfg-hufjA

The paranormal experiences

The paranormal experiences are, what are called by some people, miracles, and I question that since not all them are miracles actually, that is such things as moving or bending objects without touching them.  As of the power of mind over matter traveling to distant places out of the body, foretelling future events, speaking in strange tongues, levitating, entering into contact with extraterrestrial intelligences, going for rides in flying saucers and such things.  Such experiences which were associated with far out occultism or Pentecostalism have now become so respectable that they are studied in the parapsychology laboratories of some of our leading universities.  I think Stanford has a large laboratory of this kind.  In fact recently in the last few years they studied this Israeli young man Uri Geller who is able to concentrate on rings and the spoons and things and they simply go limp in front of him and bend.  He gets this from those beings up there for giving him power

The human heart is made for God

The cause of this phenomenon is first of all the spiritual vacuum which exists in men who are uncommitted to Christianity.  That is the same cause which produces in other people the spread of Communism.  Thus, it is very interesting to see how some types of men are attracted because their hearts are empty of Christ.  Some are attracted to joining an underground group that blows up bridges and destroys capitalists and all kinds of things like that; and others, on the other hand, are attracted to some kind of movement where you can attain meditation and levitate, fly in the air and have all kinds of strange experiences.  But the foundation of both is the same thing: the emptiness of the heart which has not God.  The human heart is made for God and if it is deprived of God or rejects him it will sooner or later be attracted to false religions.  That's also why Communism has the power of a false religion.  People give to it the enthusiasm that should be given to Christ.  This religious interest, by the way, is also present in the USSR and parapsychologists are even more active there than in the United States.  They have many magicians and sorcerers in the Soviet Union and they are examined – witches and all kinds of strange people and the Soviets place them in those laboratories and tell them:  please start concentrating; make that plant die and make the spoon bend and so forth.  They examine this particular witch which makes things float through the air and they examine how heavy the object was and so forth.

As Christianity retreats – and it is obvious Christianity is retreating – such phenomena are bound to multiply in the 1980s.  They go hand-in-hand with the advance of Communism.  Both come from and themselves produce coldness in men who have rejected God, and they produce a callused self-centeredness and those who do not know the God of love.  Because Communism has no higher principles to guide it and it is based on the negative emotions of hatred and revenge.  

Various currents of Eastern thought have already tried to set themselves up as the wave of the future. 

 

The religion that will take over from Christianity

The Maharishi founder of Transcendental Meditation said that his goal, several years ago, is to initiate every person in the world.  In fact he set up a goal of establishing thousand centers – or ten thousand of centers – and each one has a certain number of thousands to initiate and then all the 4 billion people of the world will be initiated.  And then a new consciousness comes and the world enters into a period of harmony.  He set up a worldwide University, in Switzerland someplace, and educates these people who are able to initiate people into his religion.  Other cults have similar aims, but none of these cults by itself is the religion of the future.  They are all only signs of the spiritual vacuum in modern man.  

The reality of the paranormal experiences

While many of these paranormal experiences are probably only natural and others are obviously fraudulent – just as many of the mediums around are quite fraudulent – many of them undoubtedly involve reality, and this reality comes from no place else but demons.  The kind of things that happen to people in close encounters with unidentified flying objects, flying saucers, and out-of-body experiences and such things clearly indicate the presence of demons.  This demonic activity is bound to increase in the 1980s, because once they have gained a foothold, and men are receptive to them, demons do not go away.  And we can see how receptive people are to these kind of events – there is almost a fascination among a large segment of society today for these strange experiences which are far from Christianity.  

But even such activity of demons has for a conscious Orthodox Christian who is trying to find out what is what, what is life, how can I react, it has a positive side because the variableness of the activity of demons can awaken men to the reality of the demonic world, and up until the last few years most people had no idea that demons are real.  Demons are [mistaken for] something in the subconscious or some kind of bad impulses in man – anything else but real beings who wish to destroy us.  And all of a sudden all these events occur which cannot be explained by something that was in man – something outside which is doing and it looks miraculous.  Therefore, to become aware of this demonic realm, in the case of Christians, can arouse one to spiritual vigilance and struggle.  And if one reads the lives of saints throughout the history of the church we will see that these lives are filled with incidents of demonic activity and the saints were very much aware of it.  Those that are more aware of spiritual life are more aware of those who try to destroy us: the demons.  And it is even possible, in the case of unbelievers, for them after seeing the reality of demonic activity to get so scared that they come to Christ, to come to religion.  

The coming decade of the 1980s will undoubtedly be one that is less lukewarm and indifferent than the past decades as more people choose either for a fervent Christianity or to do the work of the devil.  We ourselves must be very clear in our choice and be prepared to help others who are confused by occult ideas, and this again is the realm of apologetics; because we know the true doctrine of the religious world and is occult ideas have false ideas, false doctrines of the religious world that we can explain to them what these experiences mean.

The mass suicide in Jonestown, South America

On the eve of the 1980s, some months ago, late 1978, there was a spectacular religious event which stunned the world.  A mass suicide of nearly 1000 people at Jonestown, South America.  The secular press, unable to find an explanation for something which was so out of harmony with the century of progress, finally decided that the leader Jim Jones was simply a madman and his followers were sometimes somehow hypnotized.  But this is no explanation: such enormous evil cannot be explained apart from the activity of demons, and in fact Jim Jones quite explicitly said that he was in contact with beings from outer space who told him what to do.  Nowadays, it should be noted when demons have become out of fashion that, when they want to act on men, they present themselves as being from outer space, quite often, in order to gain acceptance and influence men.  Actually, Jim Jones was quite in harmony with the times both in his communist politics, because his Jonestown was actually a Marxist commune, and all the property after the commune was destroyed, because everybody died, all the property was willed to the Communist Party of the USSR.  He was therefore in harmony in his Communism and in his occult religious views.  And I'm afraid to say that the in the 1980s we should rather expect to see some more events like that because both Communism and occultism are on an increase, and the number of souls who are empty, who have either rejected Christ or somehow don't know him, and they want something else, is increasing all the time.  

The situation of Orthodoxy in the next decade

Further resources

Now before I come towards the end, I’ll talk about the situation of Orthodoxy in the next decade will have a little intermission to allow us to breathe.  

Before going to the next half of the lecture I’d like to mention one point: those people that are going to be here for some time for these courses, today or tomorrow or whatever, it is also possible between times to make profitable use of the times between lectures and, as for example, you discovered a new publication from our local printers across the mountains from us.  Here’s a little Orthodox publication on the Metropolitan Innocent of Moscow.  That’s a very good reading because in fact we had the lecture about his life so this is a very good collateral reading for the lecture.  And then the other books like this: Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future.  It goes into much more detail about occultism, about the UFOs and so forth.  And in the latest Orthodox Word, in many of the Orthodox Word, which are over there, have, what I mentioned before, the lives of people like the new martyrs.  And there is one here: Archbishop Seraphim of Ogvitch.  We don’t know too much about his life – what we have is a first-hand account of how he was living in this prison camp.  That's one little glimpse which is very valuable, it gives us a first-hand account of what is like.  So these materials will also be available for people to be studying at various times, when they’ll have the chance.  

The things to come

Now going further into the 1980s.  We discussed the first two rather frightening aspects of the increase of world Communism and the increase of occultism; and I don’t want to make any spooky predictions about what it's all going to end in, so, and we shouldn’t necessarily think, because these tendencies are going on, that for example America must definitely fall to Communism or will be taken over by demons from outer space, or something like that.  Because these things happen according first of all to the emptiness of hearts and the more a person is struggling in Christianity, the less one is affected by those things.  And the more one is able to face them and not be affected by them.  And secondly, one, in talking about this general tendencies, as I mentioned in the beginning, it's really quite impossible to make some kind of prediction that by 1988 Communism will take over the world or something like that.  And in fact there are all kinds of things which one cannot calculate.  For example, if there were to be a world war, or something like a world war, then all calculations would be out and there is no idea what's going to happen in such a situation, whether world Communism might fall; there’s totally incalculable what's going to happen.  So what I'm talking about is of the tendencies of what is in the air, which we should be aware without being too concerned about specific predictions as what's going to happen.  

The situation of Orthodox Christianity in the 1980s

The next aspect comes a little closer to home.  I’d like to speak about the situation of Orthodox Christianity in the 1980s.  The first aspect I’d like to talk about concerns what I already mentioned in the beginning, the spirit of worldliness, the watering down of Orthodoxy, the loss of the sense of difference between Orthodoxy and heterodoxy.  These have produced the ecumenical movement in our times, which is leading to the approaching union, the Unia with Rome and the western confessions.  And such a thing could very well happen the 1980s.  Just in the last year or so, the new Pope of Rome has made overtures to the east and the Patriarch of Constantinople has said how much he welcomes them, and could very well be within a few years that there’ll be communion between the Pope and Orthodoxy, that is the Orthodox jurisdictions that follow the Economical Patriarch.  

For us, of course, we will be outside that and it would not concern us directly, but it's something we have to face.  This will probably not be a spectacular event because most Orthodox people in most jurisdictions have become so unaware of their faith and so indifferent to it that they will only welcome the opportunity to receive communion in a Roman or Anglican church and would not even know what's wrong with it.  This spirit of worldliness is what is in the air and seems natural today.  In fact, it might be said to be the religious equivalent of the atheist, agnostic atmosphere, which is in fact the spread of Communism in the world.  

Strictness and zeal

What should be our response to this movement towards watering down the faith, uniting it with the western confessions?  Fortunately our bishops in the Russian Church Outside of Russia have given us a sound policy to follow.  We do not participate in the ecumenical movement.  Our Metropolitan has warned other Orthodox Churches of the disastrous results of their ecumenical course if they continue it.  In the same time our bishops have refused to cut off all contact and communion with the Orthodox Churches who are involved in economical movement, recognizing that the ecumenical movement is still a tendency that is not yet to come to its conclusion, which is the union with Rome; and that at least in the case of Moscow Patriarchate, and other Churches behind the Iron Curtain, the ecumenism is a political policy which is enforced upon the Church by secular authorities.  But, thus, our Russian Church Abroad suffers attacks both from the left side, from ecumenists who accuse us of being uncharitable, behind the times, and all those things which up-to-date modern people are not supposed to be.  And from the right side, by groups, especially in Greece, that demand that we break communion with all other Orthodox Churches and declare them to be without grace.  If one looks at the state of the Orthodox Church in Greece, we can see that there the ecumenical movement has produced a reaction which has often become excessive and sometimes is almost as bad as the disease it seeks to cure.  The more moderate of the old calendar groups in Greece, those that have broken off from the mainline Church, the Church in Athens and Constantinople, has a position, this old calendarist Church, has a position very similar to that of our Russian Church Abroad, but among these old calendarists there has been schism after schism, over the question of strictness.  I’d especially like to direct our attention to this question of strictness which seems such a good thing to be strict and zealous, but it has a very negative side if we do not approach it the right way.  For example, I know one monk at Mount Athos, living in a monastery, who is in communion with only 10 other monks in the whole world and nobody else in the whole Orthodox Church.  And he is a moderate.  He has one priest, is a very good man – Fr. Herman met him – and if this priest were to die, he would have nowhere to receive holy Communion.  I asked him some years ago, what he would do in that case, and he replied I just don't know.  I'm stuck.  And the reason he is a moderate is that he recognizes that there is grace in all the other Orthodox Churches.  That he is so strict in this policy that because the Patriarch of Constantinople is already speaking about being soon in union with Rome and is already going away from the faith.  Therefore, he is fallen, and anyone who is in communion with him, or is in communion with someone who is in communion with him, or is in communion with someone who is in communion with someone who is in communion with him, is out.  And therefore, being strict he finds that this network he’s established of strictness includes the whole Orthodox Churches everyplace in the world, except in this one little corner of Mount Athos.  This is a very good man: very sincere, very zealous, sort of simple, and has no answers for other people who are stuck with having to live in the world and things like that.  He is very interesting and in some respects, very childlike.  But the strictness of his has placed him in such a position that he kind of pitted himself into a corner and has no opportunity to be in fellowship and contact with other people who are actually of the same mind as he is, but just not having this particular point about not being in communion with those who are in communion and so forth… 

The correctness disease 

Other groups in Greece have a more austere spirit, something close to what one might call fanatical.  A few years ago one of these groups excommunicated our Russian Church Abroad because our bishops refused to declare that all other Orthodox churches are without grace.  This group now declares that since 1924, only it had grace and only it is Orthodox.  This group has recently attracted a few converts from our Russian Church Abroad, so we should be aware that this attitude is a danger to some of us, American and European converts, with our calculating, rationalistic Western minds it is very easy to think we are being zealous and strict while actually we are chiefly indulging our passion for self-righteousness.  One old calendar bishop in Greece has written us that incalculable harm has been done to the Orthodox Church in Greece by what he calls the correctness disease.  When people quote the canons, the fathers, the typikon, in order to prove that they are correct.  This correctness disease, which occurs when people quote the canons, the fathers and the typikon, the Church services in order to prove that they are correct and everyone else is wrong.  Correctness can truly become a disease when it is administered without love and tolerance and awareness of one's own imperfect understanding.  Such a correctness only produces continual schisms and in the end it only helps the ecumenical movement by reducing the witness of sound Orthodoxy because now in Greece the new calendar Church laughs at the old calendarists because there's so many different groups: at least five different jurisdictions.  Therefore, the first fact about Orthodoxy today, and into the 1980s, is the worldly spirit by which Orthodoxy is losing its savor.   Orthodox Christians are ceasing to be the salt of the world as is expressed in the ecumenical movement together with the excessive reaction against it, which becomes excessive because it has the same worldly spirit, which is present in the ecumenical movement.  

Orthodox missions and converts

Converts are coming to Orthodoxy in increasing numbers

But there is a second fact about Orthodoxy today, which will become even more important in the 1980s.  This is a positive sign of the world ahead of us.  That is that converts are coming to Orthodoxy in increasing numbers.  Some of them are fleeing from the modernism of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism and other Protestant sects, some of them are running away from contact with the demonic world of occultism.  Some of them are running away from Communism, from unbelief and there are many converts in Russia that come from atheism.  We must be aware that one of the chief things by which these new converts to the Orthodox faith will absorb the teaching, and above all the spirit of Orthodoxy, will be the living contact with us, who are now Orthodox Christians.  Therefore, the way we live our Orthodoxy itself has a missionary function.  The Orthodox missionary movement in the West is, and will probably remain, a rather small one but there is one area today where the Orthodox mission is a major movement.  This is East Africa.  Especially in the last 20 years or so this mission has gained many thousands of converts in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, the Congo and other African states.  

A letter from Uganda

We have a whole issue of the Orthodox Word and half of an issue several years ago devoted to these missions in Africa.  We send our Orthodox Word into these places especially into Uganda and especially from Uganda we receive replies from Orthodox people, usually young people that are looking for pen pals or scholarships, or other kinds of things like that.  Lately we have become quite known throughout East Africa, and West Africa, also, in Ghana and Nigeria that if you want to get some free picture books, your write to the Orthodox Word, and they send you picture books and Bibles.  We are sending Bibles now to Nigeria and Ghana, to various places like that.  These letters we receive are very touching because they're extremely simple and they show how deeply and how simply the people in East Africa are accepting the Orthodox faith.  I’d like to read here one letter which we received just two weeks ago, which is an appeal from our Orthodox brothers in one town in Uganda.  And this is a very moving text which we’ll print in the next issue of the Orthodox Word.  [#87 Jul-Aug 1979]  It is handwritten – they have no typewriters there and we never get a typewritten letter from East Africa – and reads as follows.  They all speak a little English but their English is such, as you have to translate it back into American English because of this.  

From the Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Anoonya Degeya, Box 238 Bombo, Uganda.  

Written to the directors of the Orthodox Word, Platina.

Dear fathers, 

On behalf of the Degeya Parish Council, Rev. Father Mulunga, a Parish leader, and the congregation: 

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

[all letters from Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, always begin in a very pious way.  In fact, some of them sound lke the epistles of St. Paul.]

We send our peaceful and joyful greetings to all of you brothers and give our thanks to God Who loves us and unites us into one brotherhood. 

Though you live far away from Africa, yet by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father, and the unity of our Lord Jesus, we have been put into one room, one Orthodox Church, with one Father.  We feel for one another, we pray as one person.  Thus we communicate our human condition with distant people, and in this relationship we ask you to join us in praising God and glorifying His name, alleluia, for His most wonderful deed and His miracles among the nations. 

Fellow churchmen, we want you to know the wonderful miracles which God has done in Uganda this year; they ought to be known by all the churches and be written for future history. This message may be sent to all churches in your country.  In short, the story is this:

Uganda has been in a bad political situation for about eight years, under the leadership of a Sudanian minority President, Idi Amin, a man who has been mentioned on the radio around the world for his rudeness, and as the worst murderer in the world.  He imposed hard laws upon the people.  He interfered with the churches by changing Sunday services to Friday.  He appointed Moslems to be chairmen of Synods.  Bishops were to be appointed by a State body. Some churches were forbidden, and all churches were in the end to be closed.  This government that was anti-church put all Christians in grave danger.  He declared that Uganda is only a Moslem state.  Many priests and Christians were killed; some went into exile; a few of us, poor men who had nowhere to go, with no hope of receiving help, were left in Uganda.  We lifted up our hands and called on our Lord to save His poor, and to allow the work of the churches to survive.  We sent so many messages around the world to pray for us and for God’s work in Africa. 

Through the prayers of the nations, God listened and heard the voices of his creatures, and He answered them. 

In a wonderful manner, like the story we read in the Holy Bible of Moses in Egypt, God saved us.  This miracle was done before us, and we got peace, freedom in worship and prayer.  Please, nations, join and coordinate your prayers with us.

God brought the force of President Nyerere from another state (Tanzania); He gave him the strongest armies, and they came down into Uganda and dismissed the anti-church President.  This was done, and Amin was cast out of Uganda.  We are now free and have peace and freedom of worship.  We ask all the Churches to praise Him and send this message everywhere. 

Dear brothers: through the war of liberation many churches, schools, and houses were bombed.  Many people were killed; there are so many widows; we are without schools, and helpless.  Our people are in need of food, milk, blankets, shirts, coats, shoes, plates, books, icons, and so forth. 

We then call on all good Christians to open their hands and give support to the poor; also, the Degeya Parish Council is applying for your church magazines.  Thank you.

May peace and love survive among all the Orthodox Churches.

Yours,

Azaria Mwanja, Chairman

Efcusi Nakillo, Secretary

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Mulunga, Parish Priest

Address: 

The Transfiguration Orthodox Church

P. O. Box 238, Bombo,

Degeya, Uganda.  

We have a photograph of this father, Emmanuel Mulunga, in the Orthodox Word, ten years ago with his daughter.  He was a deacon then.  He was receiving the Orthodox Word all these years. 

 

A very moving letter.  Very simple people and they got to this tremendous experience in Uganda which is very much like the Soviet experience.  Now they're giving thanks to God and the images from the Old Testament, Moses in Egypt, and they want people to share to help them.  It is a very touching thing.

The Orthodoxy of the heart

Now, some who wish to be correct will remind us of the Orthodox Church in Africa is under the Patriarchate of Alexandria.  The Patriarchate of Alexandria is under the new calendar and they might even think they do not want to have any contact with them.  

About this, I would like to say a word.  To preserve the ancient traditions and canons of the church is a good thing, and those who willfully and needlessly depart from them will be judged by God.  Those who introduced the new calendar into the Orthodox Church in the 1920s and later, and thereby brought division and modernism into the church will have much to answer for.  In fact only a few years ago, the Patriarch of Alexandria, before this patriarch, was thinking of going back to the old calendar but he died before he could do it.  But the simple people of Africa understand nothing of all this, and to preach the correct old calendar to them could produce nothing more than a squabble over theoretical points.  It would only interfere with their simple reception of Orthodox faith.  Western converts are often skilled in debating such theoretical points even to the extent of writing whole tomes and treatises on the canons and their interpretation.  But this is an Orthodoxy of the head full of the spirit of calculation and self-justification and what is most of all needed especially in the perilous days ahead is the much deeper Orthodoxy of the heart, which this simple letter from Uganda reveals.  In fact, almost without exception, the letters we received from Africa have the same spirit of simplicity.  That even when they try to trick us into giving them money for something is not quite right – we can see it – but it is done so simply that it's actually very touching.  They have the same faults of people in the West, but for their simplicity, God will surely forgive much of their deeds.  While the letters from Western converts very seldom have anything like this simplicity.  I believe we can learn much in this respect from our African brothers, in accepting Orthodoxy they have accepted Christ first of all, and with their whole heart.  And this is also what we must do.  There will undoubtedly be an increasing number of Orthodox converts in America and Europe also in the coming decade and we must strive that our missionary witness to them will help to produce not cold, calculating, correct experts in the letter of the law, but warm, loving, simple Christians, at least as far as our calculating Western temperament will allow us.  And if we truly believe in Christ and truly accept his church then this cold, rationalistic temperament we have should gradually begin to soften, to change.  

So this is something on the situation of the Orthodox Church today.  We should strive for more simplicity and now in fact many thousands of people are being converted in places like Africa and coming with the utmost simplicity.  Just a few years ago there was a mass baptism in Kenya, where 5000 people in one day were baptized, so obviously this is a very big thing.   Orthodoxy is now the third religion in these countries.  

The religious awakening of Russia

The final event of the 1980s, which I would like to point to is instructive for us is one that has a few more questions than the other ones and is more difficult to predict what could happen.  That is the religious awakening of Russia.  No one can deny that there is a religious revival going on in Russia today.  Adult converts are being baptized by the thousands in the Orthodox Church, not to mention Protestants, Pentecostals, and in some parts of Russia Roman Catholics.  The samizdat, underground press, is filled with discussions of religion.  In fact, even the official government press begins to talk about religion.  Of course, from its atheist point of view, but even the press allows interest in old churches, icons and things like that.  But so far there is very little indication of the depth and Orthodoxy of this religious revival.  Undoubtedly much of it is more psychological than spiritual; a natural reaction against decades of enforced atheism and materialism.  And much of the material that feeds this revival is not very Orthodox at all – for example, the writings of Berdiaev, Bulgakov, and various Orthodox modernists who’ve been in the West in the past sixty years.  Therefore, we cannot say for certain that this is the beginning of the restoration of Orthodoxy in Russia, which some prophetic voices in 19th–century Russia have foreseen is occurring just before the end of the world.  That, (if by God's will occurs), will be something quite different from today's revival, which is still very much in the human level.  Of course, it is obvious in many places that God's grace is operating in converting people.  

Fr. Dimitri Dudko

But there is one voice in Russia today which is very authentically Orthodox and has much to say to us.  This is Fr. Dimitri Dudko.  Several of his books, which are collections of his sermons and talks, have been published in the past few years and they speak directly to the heart of Orthodox believers in the free world.  What he has to say is very simple.  Atheism has ruined Russia.  We must return to our Orthodox Christian roots.  We must stand together against the common foe of atheism.  We must love everyone and know the resurrection of Christ in our hearts.  It cannot be that the blood and suffering of Russia's new martyrs will not bear fruit in the resurrected Russia.  God is with us. 

 

All this of course very sound very deeply Orthodox.  One may well disagree with father Dudko’s various opinions on subjects but just as in the case of our African brothers for the sake of his warm loving Christian heart we can overlook much when it comes to theoretical points.  It is obvious that the very fact of suffering in the Soviet Union – Fr. Dimitri himself spent eight years, I believe, in concentration camps and is under constant threat of arrest.  Three or four years ago there was a special accident prepared for him.  He was going to Moscow, and the bridge was suddenly closed before his car got there, he noticed a secret police car – looked like a secret police car in front of him – the bridge suddenly closed and a detour arranged – a detour of one hundred and 50 km around on dirt roads – and in the middle of this detour a car suddenly came out the side road and crashed into him, and both his legs were broken and instantly from nowhere an ambulance appeared and was prepared to take him to a hospital in Moscow.  And so happened that his doctor was with him in the car.  The doctor said to him: if you go to Moscow you're a dead man.  Don't go and I'll take care of you!  And somehow they managed to not take the ambulance.  The doctor took care of him although he had two broken legs and obviously was in pain.  The doctor took care of him and brought him to his own place and he was gradually nursed back to health.  That’s a kind of things that one has to go through if one is going to speak bold in the Soviet Union. 

 

Since that time they transferred him out of his parish where he was, but did not try to kill him and not put him into a prison camp yet.  But he’s been declared enemy of the people in several Soviet newspapers.  This is the kind of conditions under which a person has to live if he is going to speak the truth in the Soviet Union.  This suffering which people like him go through gives strength to his words which is not present in the words of most Orthodox speakers in the free world.  

Spirituality with comfort

Once, Fr. Dimitri in his book, which I don't see here.  We should have it somewhere.  It is called, as translated from his talks into English, Our Hope.  These are simply talks which he gave after the all-night vigil on Saturday nights in his parish near Moscow.  He would give little talks, he would ask questions, all kinds of questions like what’s the difference between atheism and Communism, atheism and Orthodoxy, and should we be Catholic, what’s wrong with Baptists and why should I believe in the Trinity.  All kinds of questions like that.  Very ABC level.  And he gave various answers, very heartfelt answers, very good to these people.  And once he was asked by one of questioners: they began by saying how much better off religion was in the free world, because there they are free, they have churches which are open, and many priests, and have no problems like we have in Russia.  And he gave an answer which is something like the following: he said that it is true that in the West there is freedom, they have many churches; but, he said the religion of the West is a spirituality with comfort, and we, in Russia, we have a different path.  A path of suffering that can produce real fruit, and emphasized that the blood of our martyrs must be the seed of Christianity in Russia. 

 

We should remember this phrase: spirituality with comfort, when we look at our own feeble Orthodoxy in the free world.  Are we content to have beautiful churches and chanting, do we perhaps boast that we keep the fasts in the Church calendar, that we have good icons and congregational singing, that we give to the poor, and perhaps have ties to the Church, do we delight in exalted patristic teachings and theological conferences, without having the simplicity of Christ in our hearts?  Then, in this case, ours is a spirituality with comfort and we will not have the spiritual fruits that will be exhibited by those without all these comforts who deeply suffer and struggle for Christ.  It is very important for converts to bear in mind that when you come to Orthodoxy the important thing is not the icons, that they be in the good style, that the church be a replica of an ancient church, and that the singing is all proper and so forth.  The important thing is that we are converted to Christ and all of these external aspects help, they can help if we use them right to worship Christ, but if we are captivated or fascinated by them we will be totally superficial.  And we come across someone like Fr. Dimitri we will dismiss him, will not understand him, and think that we are better than he is. 

 

The life of the church and of Christians in Russia

So in this sense we should take our tone for our Orthodoxy from the suffering church in Russia and place the externals of the churches worship in their proper place.  To do this you must learn more about the life of the Church and of Christians in Russia as I mentioned above.  Here again, someone who wishes to be correct might object: Fr. Dimitri is in the Moscow Patriarchate.  How can we take our tone from him.  We have no communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.  In fact, one convert wrote not long ago, after leaving our Church and going to one of the Greek old calendar Churches, because we were not strict enough.  He said that Fr. Dimitri should be told to quit the Moscow Patriarchate and join the Catacomb Church or else he will lose his soul.   And if you don't tell him that you are just fooling him.  This again is the answer of the Orthodoxy of the head, of calculation and correctness.  The answer of the heart is very different.  If you ask any bishop or priest, especially a priest of our Russian Church Abroad, what he thinks about Fr. Dimitri, probably almost without exception, you will hear nothing but warm praise of him.  Even the strictest of our bishops with regard to the Moscow Patriarchate, has written an article in appreciation of him, recognizing that he speaks for Orthodoxy in the way that we, in the West, we don't.  Of course, it is understood by everyone that there are differences between us and that at the present time we could not have communion with him, because whether he wills or not, he is part of a Church organization which is bound up with the Soviet government.  But his warm, heartfelt Christianity, is so real that it cannot but be felt by any true son of the Orthodox Church, and it can be of immense benefit to us who live in the cold rationalistic West.  We know from members of the Catacomb Church themselves that they do not judge Orthodox people who receive holy Communion from Patriarchate priests, like Fr. Dimitri, given the fact that the Catacomb Church has so few bishops and priests and in many places it is simply not to be found at all.  And recently Fr. Dimitri was in the last issue of this particular magazine, which is not a religious magazine, but has religious news.  That is Fr. Dimitri Dudko.  It has religious news – often it has letters of Fr. Dimitri.  In the last issue there is a letter from Fr. Dimitri, an article in which he talks about the Catacomb Church a little bit.  And he mentions something about what can we do, what kind of Orthodoxy do we have.  He mentions the two kinds in the Moscow Patriarchate.  One is Patriarch Poemen and the people who want to keep the externals going at any cost: he says they do good work because they are conservative, they keep the rituals of the Church.  Of course, they have to live to do it because they have to say there's no persecution in the Soviet Union, they have to go abroad to these conferences and speak about Communism, praise it, say it does much more for Russian than capitalism does for the rest.  So they have to lie.  

That’s one kind of thing we are faced with.  Another thing is the movement of reform, which apparently is very strong in the Russian church now.  That they wish to do away with – it is the Living church spirit of the 1920s – they wish to do away with all kinds of rituals, reform the church, renovate it, make it up to date.  And he says these people don't care who they lie to or how much the secret police they have to use.  They’re just concerned to block the church and that's all they care about.  Make it new.  And he comes to what can we do.  Now, some people say there is a Catacomb Church and he says well yes there is a Catacomb Church, and he greatly respects it.  But he says there's so few of them and many of you cannot possibly get into contact with them, because they hide themselves, and therefore it cannot be an answer for us at the present time in Russia.  And he says he knows several people.  In some places the spirit is not too good because they get very narrow.  There are some places where nuns run the services because there is no priest and they’re convinced everybody is a heretic but themselves.   It is as bad as the spirit in some places in Greece.  And in other places there is a very different feeling, because we have letters, rather whole articles, from people in Catacomb Church which have a very moderate tone to them.  

Judging by the spiritual needs of the present moment

But he says he even talked to one person from the Catacomb Church and this person is totally cut off from the sacraments because there's no more church – even the Catacomb Church is totally absent.  And he's sort of surviving keeping up the faith, being loyal, and he had a spiritual talk with Fr. Dimitri.  And when he got finished talking to me he received communion for me.  And if you'd look at the strict point of view, the Catacomb Church at all costs, you could say he shouldn't have done that.  But from the pastoral, spiritual point of view, you can see that in this particular circumstance this is what was best for him, meaning, at least receive the sacraments – because in the Catacomb Church they don’t deny there are sacraments in the Moscow Patriarchate – at least receive the sacraments, receive God's grace and have strength to keep struggling.  And Fr. Dimitri said at once he came alive.  Before he was a sort of just struggling, just his own will, and has no access to the sacraments, and now had the sacraments, and suddenly came alive, felt that he received a new life inside of him.  That is how the grace of God acts.  So in this case that was the best thing for him.  He could even, he could’ve continued without communion, who knows.  He might've gotten in discouragement, fall away from Christ altogether.  So in this case we cannot judge by the letter of the law.  We have to judge according to…  but that's what Fr. Dimitri is constantly doing: judging by the spiritual needs of the present moment.  

The hard times ahead of us

In the future, when we're going to have situations much worse, probably, in regard to the Orthodox Churches than today, and we’ll be seeing communion with the Patriarch of Rome, that is the Pope of Rome, the fallen away from Orthodoxy and others, you won't even know who the priest is, might be a very confused situation.  We will not be able to have some kind of, memorize some kind of a rule that will save us.  We have to be spiritually prepared and spiritually opened to understand what's going on, or else we won't be able to know where to receive communion or anything of this sort.  

What will happen to the Russian religious revival and what is Fr. Dimitri's final word?  After describing these two people in the Patriarchate who have to live to survive, and the Catacomb Church which is almost invisible, he says what can we do?  Well, let's just keep going forward the best we can and trust in God.  That's the best they can do in that situation.

What will happen to the Russian religious revival in the 1980s and beyond, we do not know.  Much will also depend on the political situation.  The fall of the Communist government during the war or similar catastrophe would produce of course results which we cannot possibly calculate and it's obvious the thing which the Russian people expect, the thinking Russian people expect, more than anything else, that is the invasion from China.  If that occurs, will of course awaken some tremendous thing in Russia.  We can't possibly calculate what it might be site.  […]  Something totally new 30 years later – who knows what might happen if there is this invasion or a world war!?  Is at times like that that tremendous events happen and we know from people who come out of Russia that nobody in Russia believes in Communism but there's no possible way to overthrow Communism because the dictatorship is so strong, and the police are so entrenched you never know who's spying on you.  It is simply impossible to get a group of more than three people going without having the Communists bring it down.  Whatever big change will occur in Russia will be as a result of some kind of event like an invasion or war and this we cannot predict.  That's in God's providence and according to conditions which we can't calculate from.

The recovery of faith in Russia

But we should be discerning and aware regarding voices which come from Russia because many of them are very liberal and do not have right Orthodox ideas at all.  But also we should be open and tolerant, fearing lest we reject spiritual truth in the name of theoretical correctness.  That is, whenever we read anything that comes from Russia we should read it, not according to the letter of the law but according to the Orthodoxy which comes from Jesus Christ, the true Christianity, and judge on that basis.  Do they have love for Christ, are they doing the best they can?  There's a consensus that's where we should look at.  

The recovery of faith in Russia is perhaps the most alive thing in the Orthodox world today and it can inspire us to treasure our own faith all the more and inspire us also to increase the talent which God has given us to speak the truth of Orthodoxy in the conditions of freedom.

The importance of the 1980s

Now, for our conclusions.  Up to now I’ve discussed some of the religious tendencies which we should be seeing in the 1980s but I had not mentioned what particular importance these years may have.  I think I should mention a word about this.  Why the 1980s are important? 

I think it is no exaggeration to call the 1980s a pre-apocalyptic period.  Most of the tendencies I've mentioned above are those one should expect to see completed near to the end of the world.  The worldwide triumph of Communism would surely make the reign of a single world ruler, Antichrist, that much closer.  The increase of occult phenomena and demonic activity is a preparation for the age of demonic miracles, which will come with Antichrist.  The restoration of Orthodox Russia, if it occurs, will be only shortly before the end of the world.  

I had not mentioned many of the disasters which many are now predicting for the 1980s.  If you read any religious, especially fundamental publications, and in fact many secular newsletters, also, you’ll see predictions of widespread famines, world depression, world war.  These are specific events which may also occur in these years, but we cannot perceive them with great accuracy.  In any case, our primary concern must be not with the external side of what lies before us, but with the spiritual side.  Some religious groups even now are storing up food for the disaster they feel lies just ahead for America. 

 

We, on the other hand, should be storing up Christian love and knowledge, without which we will not survive spiritually, even if we do have enough food.  In fact, if we have that Christian love and knowledge God is going to give us the food.  

The essential qualities for our spiritual survival

In conclusion I would like to repeat a few of the qualities which I think are essential for our spiritual survival and fruitfulness in the dangerous days ahead.  

Our most important task perhaps is the Christian enlightenment of ourselves and others.  We must go deeper into our faith, not by stating the canons of the ecumenical councils and the typikon, although they also have their place, but first of all by knowing how God acts in our lives.  We must read more the lives of those who pleased God.  The Old and New Testament, for example, and in fact we read the Scriptures much too little – the Old Testament has many instructive accounts.  We see that the Africans do read the Old Testament, they know about Moses and about Egypt and they are often giving examples from the Old Testament.  We should be reading the lives of saints, the writings of the holy fathers on practical spiritual life according to our level.  Beginning with the ABC's, like St. John of Cronstadt, the Unseen Warfare.  We should be learning about the sufferings of Christians today and in recent years, in places like Uganda , places like Russia.  And in all this learning our eyes must be first of all, not on the suffering aspect, not on the terrible things that happen.  Our eyes must be first of all on the kingdom of heaven which makes all these things tolerable.  Because if we have in our heart the fact that we are made for another world, and this life is short and soon we will be facing the other world, then all the things in this life will be as Fr. Nikon said, all these tortures were to him a great joy.  He sees that through this he is getting the kingdom of heaven.

  

The missionary work

Secondly, after the importance of enlightening ourselves, we must not close ourselves in and preserve our talent without multiplying it for others.  If we do this, our Orthodoxy will become a sect, not the true Christianity.  We must be open and prepared to help and enlighten others and will find opportunities for doing this in every hand.  Because there are people today who are looking for Orthodoxy.  In terms of numbers, you look at America with his 240 million people.  The numbers of those who are looking for Orthodoxy might be very few, but it is enough.  Every place you look, like every person here will have the opportunity to be in contact with someone who is looking for the true church of Christ, and they come from surprising places. 

 

We know about the mission in Uganda, for example, that for many years they struggled after finding out, the two Anglican seminarians, finding out that Orthodoxy must be the Church and they went through such difficulties, and found a false Orthodox priest who was some kind of sectarian.  They went to the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was an ecumenist, and he said go back to the Anglicans, we don't have anything you want.  And they still didn't give up, they just kept knocking on the doors and after 20 years they found their way to the Orthodox Church.  That kind of struggling God sees.  He sees that they know that there is a truth which is true no matter how many bad people there are in the Church.  No matter how many people are going against the tradition of the Church.  The Church itself is the truth and they want to find a way to get to the true Church.  And they're coming from all different directions, from the various Western confessions, from unbelief and occultism, and we should be prepared when we see a person who is involved with some kind of wrong belief.  Our first attitude to them must be not to say you're a heretic, you're no good.  Look how bad he is!  Our first attitude must be to see that there is a person who needs enlightenment and whatever way we can give it we should give it.  Often we don't need to say anything.  Often the person himself starts to open up and begins to ask.  

Preaching the Orthodox faith

I was myself coming back, I had to hitch a ride because one of our trucks broke down in one early morning, and one ordinary person, who lives in Platina or Redding or some other place, he put the radio on because he was not willing to talk; and all of a sudden he closed the radio in the last five minutes before I got to Platina, he turned to me and said can you explain the Russian Orthodox faith in five minutes or less.  And I had a chance, right then, unexpectedly, to say some words about the truth.  And this kind of thing is going to happen to many of us, in fact everyone here will have these opportunities.  So as you can spot people like that, that they're interested and you can begin to offer something.  We should not throw our pearls before swines.  That is, begin to preach Orthodoxy in the streets where people are not going to discuss and they trample on it – they do not appreciate it.  Unless we should be open to find opportunities to give the word to other people because we have the truth we do not possess it as our own.  We have it as like alone and have it in order to save our own souls and to give to others. 

 

If our hearts are warm and loving, God will show us the way to do this even if we do not know how to do it intellectually.  Therefore, if we don't know how, we ask God.  

The conscious Orthodox philosophy of life

Next, our Christian enlightenment, finding out about our faith, how people are suffering today, should blossom in a conscious Orthodox philosophy of life.  A conscious Orthodox philosophy of life.  Our Christian enlightenment should blossom in a conscious Orthodox philosophy of life.  This means that we should know what we believe and what it means for our life.  Our Orthodox Christian tradition contains the answers to all the searchings and all the legitimate questions of man's mind and all the questions that are being asked today.  If we consciously steep ourselves in it and keep ourselves reading in Orthodox sources, we can communicate these answers.

I’ll give only one small example.  There are today many evangelistic fundamental Protestants who are becoming aware of these things that I'm talking about.  For example, the activity of demons.  They write books about unidentified flying objects and how the demons are related to them, and if you read these books they write, knowing Orthodox Christian literature on this subject, you will be astonished at how naïve they are, that they do not have the faintest idea what demons are, how they act, they guess.  They read the New Testament and they sort of guess from that.  In fact, one of them I read recently said the New Testament doesn't really have a doctrine of demons, so we have to sort of make it up.  And that means they haven't read the life of Anthony the Great – because anybody who reads the life of Anthony the Great will have, he will know what's going on in the world today.  They’re the demons appearing to him in all kinds of shapes.  And one of the big problems the Protestants have, and the Western investigators is, for example, how demons can appear in solid form.  How come they appear in a flying saucer which is real.  Sometimes it disappears, it's true, but it's there, it's real.   Sometimes it goes on radar, it leaves marks in the ground and the beings, they can touch you sometimes.  How can a demon, or an invisible being, become visible and solid, it is an impossible question to answer.  From their point of view.  

The demons in the lives of the Saints

In the life of St. Antony the Great you’ll find this is the way demons always appear.  If you read the life of any Christian ascetic or saint, they do fantastic things: they throw people in the air and knock them down.  If God gives them power to do that.  The reason we don’t see it is because we are so week and God doesn't allow such things to happen to us.  But to the real strugglers, about whom we read, these things happen all the time.  Demons are appearing in solid shapes and leaving visible things behind, like this cape, which was left to the disciples of St. Martin, the demon left a cape to prove that he was actually an angel and as they went dragging it to saint Martin to see if it was really an angel or a demon, the cape disappeared.  While it was there, it was real, and they examined it, it felt like silk, but they couldn't find the fabric, the threads.  They couldn’t find quite what it was, it was real, but then it vanished.  The demons are constantly doing things like that.  

The non–human beings of outer–space and the Orthodox doctrine

The same thing, with flying saucers.  So we, if we have these Orthodox sources we know we have the Orthodox doctrine of, for example, the demons and those who do not have these sources have no idea how to explain and therefore they can go into fantastic errors.  Like the one fundamentalist group, called McIntire group who thinks that flying saucers are some kind of nonhuman beings from outer space who are going to come to help us out.  Some kind of angels, some kind of nonhuman beings who live on other planets and are actually coming to help us out – and they heal you and do all kinds of good things to you.  

Of course, if you believe that you are in deep trouble.  But this very concept of the conscious Orthodox philosophy of life is one which will be developed more in the courses which are going to be given, beginning the next two days and throughout next week, because it's a very big thing.  You don’t want to develop this conscious Orthodox philosophy of life from one lecture, overnight.  It’s a lifetime task.  

Know the true Christ

Finally, our Christian life and learning must be such that it will enable us – because this is the test of it.  The test is not whether we are faithful to some canon of the sixth ecumenical council.  The test is whether this learning in our life will enable us to know the true Christ and therefore to recognize the false Christ, Antichrist, when he comes.  It is not theoretical knowledge or correctness that will give this knowledge to us.  Vladimir Soloviov, in his parable of Antichrist, has a valuable insight when he notes that – in his fictitious account, which is, however, true to life – Antichrist will build a museum for the Orthodox, of all possible Byzantine antiquities.  That is all ancient icons, all ancient chants, all ancient church architecture, ancient vestments, everything will be according to the ancient traditions, Byzantium.  If only they will accept him, bow down to him.  And so also near correctness and Orthodoxy without a loving Christian heart will not be able to resist Antichrist.  In fact, even those who recognize intellectually Antichrist will bow down to him if their hearts are cold.  We will recognize him and will be firm to stand against him, chiefly through the heart and not the head.  We must develop in ourselves the right Christian feelings and instincts, and put off all our fascination with spiritual comforts.  The spiritual comforts of the Orthodox way of life is external things which are good in themselves, but are secondary.  Or else we will be, as one discerning observer of present-day converts observed, will be Orthodox but not Christian.  We are called to be true and fervent Christians in these terrible times and thereby to show the world that Orthodoxy is the true Christianity, which even in these terrible days is still, exists for the salvation of mankind.  Amen.