Archbishop Averky: Peace and Irreconcilability a.k.a. Intransigence
Author: Metropolitan Agathangel. Date of publication: November 7, 2024. Category: ROCOR
November 7th according to the new style (October 25th according to the old style) was considered by the Russian diaspora to be the Day of Irreconcilability. We must not forget this.
The fortieth anniversary of the terrible bloody Bolshevik Revolution on October 25, 1917 was marked by the Russian emigration in all five parts of the world by organizing so-called "days of irreconcilability." The custom of organizing such "days of irreconcilability" has long been part of the lives of Russian people who left their homeland, which the godless Bolsheviks had turned into a kind of antechamber to hell. These "days" were organized everywhere, and especially in large centers of concentration of Russian people irreconcilable to Bolshevism, every year. The evil caused to the Russian people by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is so great that the organization of such "days," from a purely human point of view, is completely understandable and justified.
But from time to time we also have to hear some objections. They say, for example, this: “Is this feeling of irreconcilability a Christian? Can a Christian be irreconcilable with anyone? Are we not commanded to always forgive one another? Didn’t Christ teach us to love even our enemies?”
Based on such considerations, persons with such a mindset consider the organization of "days of irreconcilability" to be incompatible with Christian dignity, and participation in them, especially for pastors of the Church, to be reprehensible and unacceptable. Many of these persons (including clergy), for the same reasons, have a very conciliatory attitude toward the God-fighting Soviet government and justify the behavior and conduct of the hierarchs of the Soviet Church. Some of them are ready to consider the Soviet government "a government from God," as if closing their eyes to the fact that this government sets the "struggle with God" and the eradication of religion as the main goal of its existence. Others, less decisive, say only that "Bolshevism is the punishing sword of the Lord," and therefore one cannot be irreconcilable toward it and call for a fight against it, since this means going against the will of God.
Is all this so?
First of all, it is necessary to remember that in order to correctly understand the genuine Gospel teaching, one should under no circumstances imitate the sectarians who snatch individual texts from the Holy Scriptures that are advantageous to them in order to base their biased false teaching on them. Individual texts of the Word of God must certainly be compared with the context and with parallel passages, which alone provides the key to their correct understanding. In addition, the highest authority for us should be those people who undoubtedly correctly understood and interpreted the Word of God, since the holiness of their lives is attested to by the Church, which has canonized them as saints of God, as true Christians who have realized the Gospel teaching in their lives and can be an example for others.
What is the true teaching of the Word of God on the issue that interests us?
Christianity is undoubtedly a religion of peace, and not of enmity and hatred — irreconcilability.
Christ Himself, according to the definition of the Word of God, is the "Author of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). He, as St. Apostle Paul teaches, is "our peace," having destroyed the barrier of enmity between God and man, erected by the fall of the first people. He came to earth in order to "preach the gospel of peace" — to reconcile fallen people with God and call them to peace with each other (Ephesians 2:14-17; 1 Corinthians 7:15). That is why the Angels sang at the moment of Christ's Nativity: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14).
"My peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you" — such a solemn testament was made by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself at the Last Supper to His disciples, and in their person to all His true followers. At the very beginning of His public ministry to the human race, sending the Apostles to preach, He commanded them, entering a house, to greet it with the words: "Peace to this house!" (Matt. 10:12). "Have peace among yourselves," He taught His followers, who constantly surrounded Him (Mark 9:50). Following the testament of their Divine Teacher, the Holy Apostles "preached peace to people through Jesus Christ" (Acts 10:36) and taught "to seek peace and strive for it" (1 Pet. 3:11). The Holy Apostles begin and end almost every message to Christians with a wish for peace: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:3 and others). And the Holy Apostle In his letter to the Romans, Paul especially insistently exhorts: "If it is possible, as far as lies in you, have peace with all men" (Rom. 12:18), and advises "to pursue the things that make for peace" (Rom. 14:19), striving "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:3). "Be at peace with one another," he also urges the Thessalonians (5:13), and he instructs his beloved disciple Timothy, whom he appointed bishop in Ephesus: "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with all who call on the Lord from a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:22). And to his fellow countrymen, the Jews, St. Paul writes: "Strive to have peace with everyone" (12:14).
The Holy Apostles repeatedly call Him "the God of peace" in their epistles (Rom. 15.33; 16.20; 1 Cor. 14.33 and many other places).
And the holy saints of God — the Holy Fathers of the Church, the great ascetics and mentors of the truly Christian, spiritual life, both by word and example, taught and continue to teach us through their inspired writings the same great truth, that is, that peace is the main inalienable property and quality of the soul of a true Christian. Especially figuratively, as if summing up everything said before, our greatest Christian ascetic of recent times, St. Seraphim of Sarov, speaks about the meaning of peace for a Christian: "Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved"; "there is nothing better in Christ than peace, by which every battle of air and earthly spirits is destroyed"; "Whoever walks steadily in a peaceful order draws spiritual gifts as with a spoon."
This is the teaching of our Christian Church about peace and its significance for a Christian.
But if so, can a true Christian cherish in his heart any kind of irreconcilability towards anyone? Is the very feeling of irreconcilability compatible with the title of a follower of Christ the Savior, who brought peace to earth and preached peace?
We can get an answer to this question only by carefully examining whether the above data exhausts everything on this issue.
It turns out that it does not.
In addition to the teaching about peace, we find in the Word of God and in the Holy Fathers a clearly expressed teaching about irreconcilability.
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth” — this is what Christ the Savior Himself taught: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword; for I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” And then it is explained in what sense this is said: "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:34-38). The same teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is expressed in even more decisive tones by the Evangelist Luke: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
The highest commandment, which, first of all, a Christian must fulfill, is the commandment to love God. And therefore it is completely natural and understandable that everything that goes against this first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-38), that prevents a Christian from fulfilling it, should be hateful to him: a Christian should be absolutely irreconcilable with all this.>
Thus, a Christian must be irreconcilable to the enemy of God and the enemy of human salvation, the devil, and to all his accomplices and servants.
A Christian must be irreconcilable to "this world lying in wickedness," that is, to all evil that comes from the devil and manifests itself in all sorts of sinful passions and vices that war in the world, about which St. Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, speaks so clearly and simply: "Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God" (James 4:4).
A Christian must be irreconcilable to his own sinful will, since it prevents him from fulfilling the will of God, which is why everyone who wants to be a follower of Christ is commanded to "deny himself and take up his cross," that is, to be ready for any deprivations, sorrows and suffering for Christ, even to the point of martyrdom for Him (Mark 8.34-37).
A Christian must also be irreconcilable to the evil, sinful will of other people who seek to divert him from serving God and following Christ.
He must be irreconcilable, as is evident from the words of Christ cited above, even to his closest relatives in the flesh — father and mother, son and daughter and others — even to the point of "saving," in the words of the Holy Fathers, "hatred for them," if they distract him from love for Christ.
All the more so should a true Christian be irreconcilable to all obvious God-fighters, blasphemers, persecutors of the faith and the Church, apostates, heretics and schismatics.>That this is so is clearly testified to by the Word of God.
"If (anyone) disobeys the Church, it will be to you as a heathen and a publican" — said the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Matthew 18:17).
"What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? or what part has a believer in with an unbeliever?" — says the Holy Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians: "... therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing" ... (2 Cor. 6:15,17).
"If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine (the true teaching of Christ), do not receive him into your house or greet him; for he who greets him is a partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 1:10-11) — teaches none other than the beloved disciple of Christ, St. Paul, called the "Apostle of Love." Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian.
"Whoever does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be excommunicated until the coming of the Lord" ("Anathema Maranatha"), that is, Christians should not have any communication with him — instructs St. Apostle Paul.
"A heretic, after the first and second admonition, turn away" — he instructs his disciple Titus, whom he appointed bishop on the island of Crete (3.10).
Thus, Christianity does not preach indiscriminate peace in relation to everyone, but on the contrary — it instills irreconcilability towards evil and wickedness and warns against friendly communication with the bearers of this evil and wickedness.
That this is so, the great father of the Church and ecumenical teacher St Paul speaks about this especially vividly and intelligibly in his 6th "Word on Peace. Gregory the Theologian, who himself gave a high example of peace-lovingness by his refusal of the see of the Archbishop of Constantinople:
"Let it not be thought, however, that I assert that every peace must be treasured. For I know that there is a beautiful division, and the most pernicious unanimity; but one must love good peace, which has a good goal and unites with God ... But when it comes to obvious impiety, then one must rather go to fire and sword, not looking at the demands of the times and rulers and in general at everything, rather than partake of the evil leaven and join the infected. The most terrible thing is to fear something more than God, and, because of this fear, for a servant of truth to become a traitor to the teaching of faith and truth" (Part I, p. 192).
And here is another, remarkable testimony of the also great Father of the Church, St. Isidore Pelusiotes, who decisively rejects any idea that Soviet power can be recognized as "power from God." Having indicated in advance the order of subordination of some to others, established by God everywhere, in the life of verbal and speechless creatures, he concludes:The Soviet power, by its very essence, is a power that fights against God and is anti-Christian, and therefore there can be no talk of recognizing it as established by God.
"Live in peace with your enemies, but with your enemies, and not with the enemies of God" — another great pillar of the Universal Church, St. John Chrysostom, teaches us.
The third of this praiseworthy trinity of great ecumenical teachers (who occupies the first place in their ranks), St. Basil the Great, teaches us by his own example what our attitude should be toward these "enemies of God," the enemies of the Church of Christ. When the fierce enemy of the Church, Emperor Julian the Apostate, set out on a campaign against the Persians, threatening that if the campaign was successful, he would finally destroy Christianity upon his return, St. Basil the Great prayed fervently before the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and the holy great martyr Mercury that he would not return from the battlefield alive. And the saint's prayer was heard.
From all that has been said above it follows that we must be absolutely irreconcilable with the God-fighting teaching of our time, which has dared to proclaim for all to hear that "religion is the opium of the people," and with its insane fanatical followers, who blaspheme God, desecrate and destroy the temples of God, slander and persecute believers in Christ and strive for the complete eradication of faith and the destruction of the Church. We cannot have any communication with them, not to mention any friendly relations, cooperation or compromise. If such is the idea of our "days of irreconcilability," then there is nothing in them that is contrary to true Christianity. But all those who for some other reasons are truly irreconcilable with Bolshevism are our allies. It is necessary, however, for everyone to fully and completely understand and realize that true and reasonable irreconcilability to Bolshevism is by no means merely political irreconcilability -— just as the struggle against Bolshevism is not merely an ordinary political struggle. For the fundamental essence of Bolshevism lies precisely in its God-fighting, in its hostile attitude toward faith and the Church. And therefore -— let us delve into this more deeply! — every opponent of faith in God, every blasphemer, enemy of faith and the Church, by that very fact, is a fellow traveler of the God-fighting Bolsheviks, even though he may consider and proclaim himself a fighter against Bolshevism.
Let all the organizers and participants of the "days of irreconcilability" realize this and understand that the truly blessed irreconcilability to Bolshevism is nothing other than irreconcilability to the devil in the Name of God, irreconcilability to the Antichrist in the Name of Christ! In our terrible times, it is felt with particular force that there are only two paths in this life — the path of life and the path of death, the path of blessing and the path of damnation (Deut. 30.19-20) — the path of serving God or the path of serving the devil.
There is no third way!
And therefore let us firmly remember the remarkable saying of St. John Chrysostom that only "when we are at enmity with the devil, are we at peace with God." Only such truly Christian irreconcilability can lead us to true peace.
+ Archbishop Averky
Modernity in the Light of the Word of God. Vol. I, pp. 277-284.
The text has been adapted to modern Russian language standards.
Комментарии
# RE: Архиепископ Аверкий: Мир и непримиримость — Alexej 07.11.2023 21:17
The modern Russian government is off the charts in the amount of open, blatant and outright lies, connecting absolutely incompatible historical facts. At the same time, the Soviet amorphousness of the population of the Russian Federation allows them to painlessly swallow this vomit and not think about existing further. The consequences will be inevitable and catastrophic. A. I. Solzhenitsyn wrote in "The Gulag Archipelago": "On the entire planet and in all history there was no regime more evil, bloody and at the same time cunning and dodgy than the Bolshevik one."
# RE: Архиепископ Аверкий: Мир и непримиримость — Митрополит Агафангел 07.11.2023 13:56
The Orthodox opinion of an Orthodox person, directly contradicting the ideologists of the modern Russian Federation, who allegedly reconciled historical Orthodox Rus' with the gravediggers of this Holy Rus'. As long as there is at least a share of veneration of the Soviet "grandfathers and fathers" in the Russian Federation, who built "a bright future for all mankind", as long as the land there is filled with idols of inhuman godless fighters - this land and people remain Soviet, shepherded by the Soviet false church, Soviet false ideologists and "elders". In the Russian Federation, instead of Russian people, there are Soviet people, and the Russian Federation itself, by the fact of its coexistence with the Soviet past, disgraces both the Russian people and its history and culture. This was well understood in the Russian diaspora by its best representatives, such as Archbishop Averky and many others.
original Russian:
http://internetsobor.org/index.php/novosti/rptsz/arkhiep-averkij-taushev-mir-i-neprimirimost
https://web.archive.org/web/20240802163004/http://www.internetsobor.org/index.php/novosti/rptsz/arkhiep-averkij-taushev-mir-i-neprimirimost
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