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Book Review

by St. Gabriel of Seven Lakes Monastery, Kazan (†1915)

 

This "book review" is in the form of a letter written by the Elder Gabriel to someone who had sent him the book believing it to be inspiring.  The elder did not think so.  The letter is unsigned, but we know that it was composed by Elder Gabriel and his disciple, Archimandrite Symeon, who was of the same mind and who served as his secretary and wrote down the elder's dictation.  Interesting to us is that even though this book was 100 years ago in Russian, the same warning about this book can be said today about books from world-orthodoxy.  Choose your reading materials carefully from an approved list of publishers and authors.  That would be:

     St. Herman, Platina, before the death of Fr. Seraphim Rose in 1982.

     St. Job (Holy Trinity), before the ROCOR-MP union 2007.

     St. John Kronstadt Press before the death of Fr. Gregory Williams in 2016.

 

The Hierarch

by Hiermonk Tikhon (Barsukov)

popular fiction book 

first published early 1900s Russia

and reprinted after the fall of Communism

19. A Critique of the Book The Hierarch, by Hieromonk Tikhon

Batiushka and I send you a blessing and our most sincere thanks for your letters, greetings, and good wishes—in general, for all your love . . . 

Taking our grace-endowed corporeality into consideration from this standpoint, we did not find in the book you sent us — The Hierarch, by Hieromonk Tikhon — those merits that struck you in your first impression.  It is, of course, impossible to deny that it expresses the somewhat unusual hope that "Christianity will heal man from the wound."  This news might have interested you and moved you to struggle against "the wound," and might have given you inspiration and shown you the direction and path of your activity.  But, at the same time, it would have given you a fundamentality false path.  This book considers every suffering and illness on earth as an absolute, unconditional evil, as a sin!  But this is incorrect.  All suffering and illnesses are not sins, but the result of sin, as is death itself, to which they lead.  Death is also the result of sin.  The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), says the Apostle Paul.  From this standpoint, both sickness and suffering are evil only in a relative sense, that is, they are sometimes an evil for the body.  But for the soul, they are a means or occasion for purification and salvation.  And if suffering is a sin and evil, then by what kind of "sin" could Christ save us from sin??  But He suffered for us as one being punished, and took our punishment upon Himself, and made us partakers of His sufferings (pay attention to that!) making them salvific for us.  Therefore it is said, He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin (I Pet. 4:1).  Meanwhile, this book, establishing its point of view on sickness and suffering, leads us into unsolvable contradictions with Holy Scripture, and therefore, it naturally takes refuge in compromises with ideas (for instance, with the teaching on the incorrupt relics of righteous ones).  Thus, this is our general impression:  The book inspires us to struggle against people's sicknesses and sufferings as if against sin, and points to Christianity as the weapon for this fight against "sin," but does not establish the relationship of real sin to these sicknesses, as first causes, and does not give us an indication of what to do if all of our efforts do not lessen people's sufferings and illnesses.  It advises us to fill the world with hospitals but won't our lives start to smell too much of iodoform?  There is no gratitude in the book.  It inspires us with "prospects" of a good that comes from our own strength—but when we have no strength, we are gripped by despair and emptiness, for in this book God and repentance, suffering and salvation, are separated one from the other.  There is no reconciliation with suffering (nor could there be, if suffering is a sin, and it is wrong to reconcile oneself to sin!).  Hence, this book leads us along the surface of life, but does not teach us the very essence of life.  In general, it is full of contradictions, from which even the thoughts that are at times true do not save the author.  He does not understand Christianity and does not understand grace; for him doctors and apostles are the same thing, since they both heal, and heal from the wounds of sin, to which he even ascribes the common cold and an upset stomach.  This is laughably absurd!  And for him this relates to the whole world, the whole present life, all the stinking pits and other necessary places that spoil the air.  This is both funny and wrong, for how in this "hell" could there be the joy of life, and even the grace-filled joys that the  author does not repudiate in the saints.  How could the most sacred sacrifice of the Eucharist be offered, and give life and salvation?  Incomprehensible.  It's a lie.  In conclusion, it is so wordy, that it is hard not to get lost in tbe labyrinth of words.  It would be better to throw it away and not be guided by it.  And if it does not impoart something good, all of that would be from God, since it is by His grace that good comes about, enlightening the heart and mind.

Forgive us, that our response concerning the book has been written in such a reprimanding way, but it seems to us that following it would lead to making Christianity into something material rather than comething ideal, although the author set out to do the latter,  He does not believe in Christianity and does not teach about grace and cleansing of sins, although he recalls the great representatives of Christian sanctity with pleasure.

May God grant you to draw strength directly from the Gospels and from Christ, nad not through the anesthesia of your own or someone else's temporal human enthusiasm.

Of course, one should receive treatment when possible, but not everything can be treated, and the source of strength is not always the pharmacy.

source: The Love of God, The Life and Teachings of St. Gabriel of Seven Lakes Monastery, 

by Archimandrite Symeon Kholmogorov, Platina 2016, pp.287-290,    $19°°  

(Please let me know if this book goes out-of-print or otherwise becomes unavailable for a fair price.~jh) 

(See caveat in book review on this website. ~jh)