Matushka Elizabeth’s Neighborhood

"Where there is no guidance, they fall like leaves; salvation exists in much counsel." Proverbs 11:14

From a recent Orthodox online forum discussion:

Speaking of formal/informal, I've heard many english-speakers address their
priest by his diminutive. For example Fr. Tom instead of Fr. Thomas or Fr. Bob
instead of Fr. Robert. How common is this? Unless a Russian wants to be mocking,
he'll never address a priest as "Otets Sasha" or "Otets Vanya." Granted, the
degree of intimacy between Tom and Thomas is much less than between Vanya and
Ioann, but still... it's sounds very odd to Russian ears. Does anyone know if
this form or address is a common practice among other orthodox (non-slavic)
nationalities?
A----

Sadly, yes, I have observed it almost universally in the OCA and GOA.

Ironically, this is based on an archaic idea -- that the priest is such an
intimidating figure that he has to be made 'more approachable' by the adoption
of familiar address (and other familiarities, for that matter). It has been a
long time since clergy in the West have had such societal clout as to be figures
of fear, but the popular mythology appears to persist in seminaries. Many
Protestants and RCs went down this path first, and the 'modernist' Orthodox
followed.

There is a certain seductiveness to this familiarity for the priest. Priests
are by nature isolated in their role, and it is always a temptation to step away
from that role, in one way or another, and to be more a 'regular guy.'

The reality, however, is that besides the respect due to the grace of the
priesthood, contemporary society in the West is starved for figures who are both
loving and authoritative. When the priest adopts an excessively 'familiar'
persona and becomes a 'buddy', he loses something as a priest.

The Russians, I think, have done a much better job of maintaining the proper
balance for their priests between being authoritative and approachable.

in IC XC,

Priest J--

   People do indeed seem starved for a return to being more "old-fashioned". In private conversations with both Priests and parishioners of jurisdictions with modern leanings, more than one expressed a wistful desire for more formality. Clergy caught in the catch-22 of familiarity should know that a certain expectation of formality from the laity is not unreasonable or prideful. Warmth or aproachableness is not a necessary trade-off. I think people need to hear that it is not only "OK", but a good thing to have some of the formality of older times. We all benefit from it; it functions as a protection from our own passions. "Familiarity breeds contempt."

   I have found, personally, that the moment I begin to be "buddies" with someone with whom formality is proper, that it does not take long for me to say something inappropriate. *That* is when disturbance, isolation and resentment can enter! [This says more about me than people in general, but the adage holds true nevertheless]

   Equating formality with severity, respect with slavishness, courtesy with falsehood and decorum with pompousness is a recent development. Fearfullness surrounding these ancient core values has become stamped (indelibly, it seems) on the society's consciousness, even to the degree that Christians begin to reject them as evil.

   The Berkeley Cultural Revolution changed the world, and was the beginning of the New Age. It was this event that was the culmination of the rejection of God's ultimate Authority, which began with Descartes' declaration that "Cogito, ergo sum." Any here who has had the benefit of listening to Fr. John Ocana describe the devolvement of Western philosophy knows the stunning impact the New Age had on Western society, which has now spread to the entire world. What we see today--legal murder, illegal prayer, the meanings of words turned upside-down, the great apostasy--could not have come about without first destroying the philosophical pillars of Judeo-Christian society. Already, the moral memory of mainstream society has been all but lost. Grandma and Grandpa were the Revolutionaries of the New Age.

 
   In today's society, especially among the youth, there is an impatience to feel familiar and relaxed with someone as soon as possible; formality just "gets in the way". I posit that formality is a buffer of sorts, protecting the Christian soul from taking part in the core values of the New Age: emotional openness in lieu of reserve, moral permissivity instead of reverence, humanism in place of love. In short, spiritual coldness, ripe for prelest. This is quite similar to what must be firmly in place for the antichrist to establish his kingdom (II Thes. 2: 3-4, 9-12).

   I know: this is taking it to the extreme. But think...by a thousand such little cuts, Christianity became the confused myriad of heterodoxy we see today. If we have been given the gift of right belief, but allow our brethren to excise what is proper to Orthodoxy without sounding the alarm, who are we to be the wards of it? Being "nice" will not preserve the faith, love and honesty will.

 "Let us live, even as true Christians of all times have lived, in expectation of the end of all things and the coming of our dear Saviour..." ~Fr. Seraphim Rose

 Or, more to the point:

 "Let all things be done decently, and in good order." (I Cor. 14: 40)

 in Christ our Hope,

 Sdn. Martinian

 PS- I'm a hypocrite, having grown up in Berkeley, and formed a sense of socialist outrage congruent to my surroundings...but I'm trying to overcome this. Pray for me!

Today I was forwarded this email from a friend:

My dear K! I can only tell you the answer to your questions from an Eastern Orthodox perspective. This is, however, an Eastern perspective, a mystical perspective, and one that is the most ancient in Christianity, having been kept unchanged for over 1,700 years. No other Christian denomination can claim this; it is historical fact and even Catholic priests will admit this is true. Orthodoxy means "right belief" in essence; from the Greek words "orthos" (right, true, straight) and "doxa" (belief, understanding, proclamation) which is itself derived from "dokein" (to think). This right, true and straight belief, understanding and way to think was given to us by Christ himself. The details of what it does and doesn't mean, leading to its final formation as we have it today, was established by the Holy Fathers of the Church over several centuries. The particulars of the choices they were faced with and how they decided are not my point here.

The point is that every single point of dogma, what we believe as Orthodox Christians, was not ever decided by one man, nor was it done without much deliberation, prayer and fasting. The bishops, monks and others in these councils are why we have the Bible that we do (there were many different books, they decided which would be in the Bible) and how we are to UNDERSTAND what is written in it. This understanding of the Holy Fathers, also called Patristics, is inseparable from the Holy Scriptures themselves. Without it, the Bible can be interpreted to say almost anything by anyone, and we see the dreadful and deeply wrong results of this flawed interpretation every day and throughout the last 2000 years.

Your understanding and use of the word "God" in connection with Vedic, Hindu and other religious contexts will not work well in this conversation. I say this not in an unkind way--I am familiar with the reverence associated with the Hindu understanding of God, and appreciate it for what it is--but to be sure of the context in which we speak about God, any talk of God (in this conversation) must come from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and more particularly, the Patristic understanding. Why is this? Well, the Hindu/Zoroastran/Gnostic/Buddhist understandings of God are completely different and unrelated to the Christian understanding, although they may seem to agree, in some basic, rather foggy way, on some points. The Mohamedans claim the One True God as their own as well--but this is an impossibility; on this, both Jews and Christians agree. It was God who blessed Abraham and his offspring, Isaac, who was the father of Jacob. The Arab and Palestinian tribes are all descended from the bastard child (Ishmael) of Abraham and his wife's maidservant, Haggar. Haggar, an Egyptian, did call on the God of Abraham, and Ishmael was blessed by God, but he did not recieve the Covenant--that is, the Promise--of The Messiah, i.e. He who would come to save mankind. See Genesis chapter 16 and 17 for the whole story, but the most important part is Ch. 17, verses 19-21. Without that Promise, those tribes' understanding of God has gone so awry that there is little resemblance left of the God of the Old Testament. Moreover, it is outwardly hostile and opposed to the Christian understanding of Jesus as Emmanuel ("God with us") and Christ the Savior. 

Islam is another very large discussion in and of itself, but it is enough to say that both Christians and Jews--and I am both, by faith and by bloodline--know that Allah is not the One True God as proclaimed by Mohamed, the false prophet. Any devout Moslem would kill me for saying this, but they have done this to Orthodox Christians for over a millennium, so that would be nothing new. A true Martyr is one who is murdered by unbelievers after being told to renounce their beliefs. A Christian is martyred for the sake of their love for Christ. How can one who blows himself up to kill and maim others for the sake of hatred, and some fantasy about having a massive orgy with virgins in "heaven", be compared equally? Here, the absolute baseness and falsehood of their god and prophet is clearly shown.

You wrote: "I know God loves for us to suffer but WHY? I know it HAS 2 be like this but it's kinda a bummer..ya know?"

The question of suffering is a common one. First and foremost: God does NOT love for us to suffer. This idea is completely foreign to the Patristic understanding of God. God is LOVE. If any idea of what God "wants" seems to conflict with this love for us, it is a flawed understanding. Most modern interpretations are flawed and have no basis in the Holy Fathers--they are just thoughts that occur to someone and gain popularity in modern culture. Popularity never indicates that something is true, K. I think you might remember me telling you this in High School. :-)

So. All this just to answer the first part of your first question in what you wrote! If you truly care about the answer, I will answer it as fully as I can, without watering it down. This is the Orthodox way. We don't treat these questions with anything less. If you want the answer, the Orthodox Christians have kept the answer safe for just this reason: so that all people can hear the Truth as Christ gave it to us, and have the opportunity to follow Him. The answers to such questions face us with a choice: to believe or not believe. If this is a choice you feel you may not want to make, then it may not be time for this discussion. I do seem to remember you having a deep hunger for the Truth many years ago. If you are still hungry, Christ gave Himself for us to be filled.

I want to give you the opportunity to ask questions about what I wrote so far, but if you want to get to the answer about the second part of your question, WHY, you should try to avoid asking too much, or it will take even longer to get there! May God grant us wisdom.

In Christ our Hope,

M.

Drank one too many espresso shots today
Trying to improve what I haven't the power to change.
I believed bitter could be sweet;
Heaviness, light.
 
So I ground finer. Tamped harder. 
Boiler ran hot, so I cleared the head.
It sighed, passionless
Steam floated away.
 
Some shots don't change
No matter what you do.
You don't have to take a sip to know it
But you drink it anyway

You drink it anyway.
The perfect shot
Bittersweet at best
You drink it anyway.

Bitter beats nothing at all.

For those who don't know, I'm currently in Gunnison, Colorado, and will be until next Wednesday. I, along with 10 other physics students, are here using the observatory to study exoplanets (planets around stars besides the sun). On the side we are using the CCD's to take pictures of other astronomical objects, and also possibly studying a bit of cataclysmic variation. 

CHRIST IS RISEN! Christos Voskrese! Christos Anesti! Al-Masih-Qam! Cristo Ha Resucitado!

From Nana Agafia's 1998-2001 Journal: and my thoughts concerning them.

As the moments of time and God's word rain down upon us, who is it that we are conceiving? The father is not decided at the last minute, but the fruit shows whom it's been all along. What is fallen is fit for judgment.
26th Sunday after Pascha, '01

So God's Word--could be Christ Himself, could be The Gospel--is shed on us like rain, and, likewise, "moments in time". Which moments is she talking about, though? The ones that lead to the birth of something good in us, the fruit? Moments that teach us something? Moments that plant a seed? Then we wonder at the conception that takes place. But this is not a conception without seed. The fruit bears witness to the father that co-created it. "By their fruits shall ye know them" When the fruit is ripe, it falls, and is therefore to be judged on it's qualities, whether it is fit to be gathered or not? Or is it fruit that is Fallen, fit only for The Judgement? Are we the ones who judge the fruit? Do we gather? Or is it God? Or is it both?

Christianity only "works" for us when we "work" with It, the way it really is, with what it fully offers; when we give up on what we trusted, in ourselves or other persons, places or things, in exchange for the Christian counterpart: intellect, riches, love, understanding/knowledge, comforts, bliss, companionship. 4/17/01

What are Christian counterparts to all our "loves" our things we trusted? Note that the trust is in the past, not now. The trust has been betrayed? I think so. She could depend on less and less...in NASA terms, the mission was "far outside the normative"...which could mean anything from a pre-flight hiccup, to a catastrophic failure. Crash and Burn. All those things listed were no longer a source of comfort, security or trust. So how to find their counterparts?

From Oct. 6th NC
On the way there [trip to Columbia Gorge] I had asked in my mind, "HOW do people weep for others in prayer?" casually, I thought. That night, transferring some car notes to another notebook [story of her waiting for the French family to arrive and meeting Vladika Kyrill, waiting for the Kursk Root Icon at the airport] I got such an answer: A chord from "Akafist" struck me, I thought of BLV with pain and sorrrow, and it went on from there to others; sometimes I couldn't even tell what I was "saying" or "asking" but I could "hear" some communication.
"I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT HURTS JUST LET ME LOVE WITHOUT SINNING IN IT "

and the next entry, Eve of Protection (Pokrov)

Trying to turn into Love any other "love" is a pain of death, a live sacrifice that only one not dead to the world would have to make. These turnings are the path to that death.

Couldn't resist this one. This is a kid who has just had a procedure done at the dentist, and thus is simply pumped with medication.

Incidentally, this is the exact same way Jeremy acts in the morning and after drinking coffee (. . . . combined)

I finally have gotten around to pasting my one entry from MySpace to Vox. Here you are.

It was the winter of 1981 when my mom and I came to Platina for Nativity. When I say Platina, I really mean the monastery, but we all called it Platina, and still do... It was also the first time I had tried fasting. We had visited once or twice since that first time, I believe, and during my last visit one of the Fathers--probably Fr. Herman, I can't remember for sure--had asked me if I might be ready to try to fast in some way, and I had been game. My first fast, I drank no milk. That was it.

    You have to understand, that when it came to whom I loved most, it was certainly Father Herman, and if you had known both, chances are it would have been the same--particularly if you were 10 years old at the time. When I went there, it was always Fr. Herman I was most longing to see and talk to, or even just be in the same room with. We hung on his every word, loved to hear his stories of Russia and the Saints; we drank in his explanations of the sacred language of Orthodoxy, formed by 1000 years of Christianity-steeped culture: Blagochestiye. Oblajeniye. Staretsi. Palomniki. Podvig.

    Fr. Herman created energy; Fr. Seraphim grounded it. The one's fervor was balanced by the other's focus. Fr. Herman could impart the savor of Orthodoxy like none other I have ever met--the struggles, the deprivations, the prayer, the fasting, the suffering--and inspire you to long for it. Fr. Seraphim gave it flesh, tying in the why and how and when using the Scriptures, the Holy Fathers, the Tradition of the Church and the praxis of the Saints. Father Herman was the one who got you excited about whatever it was that needed to be done next; Father Seraphim told you just how it must be done for the maximum spiritual benefit.
 
    You can see how Father Herman was a Pastor that any child loved instantly. He would draw you in with his love and jolliness, and with great facility use his powerful perceptive abilities to then draw you out. Soon, the crux of the matter would be laid bare, and he, with sincerity, and reverence, would show the correct path or frankly treat the matter at hand. Then, having awakened a response in your heart and the inspiration to do good, he would send you off on a little errand: "of the utmost importance" if you were young in the faith, but a more weighty obedience for those who were able. At these times, he showed what an Orthodox Pastor is capable of, at his best.

    Fr Seraphim was a quiet, strange and emotionally-distant figure to many  of us children, until we came to know him--and this took much longer than with Fr. Herman. He was a mystic, with all the strangeness and alien behavior this imparts, in the eyes of the world. Being a worldly little boy, his quiet solemnity and disregard for social behavior was very intimidating if your only experience of him was from afar.  However, when you approached him, in a spirit of sincerity and meekness, his gentleness and sincere love shone from his clear, direct gaze. It was like a deep well that, as you look into its depths, it looks back into you to the same depth, and sees farther than you think.

    I remember feeling a shock at how much love and tenderness I felt the first time he glanced at me in this way. The shock went deeper still. My soul still vibrates from it, in a way, because it was the first time, I think, that I met the undeniability of God's revelation to the human heart. I know it may sound trite to say this, but he chose this phrase perfectly; no other fits so well. I had avoided him for some time before I had this real interaction with him...I avoided him for some time following it. Even now, I'm reeling a bit...I have not thought about that gaze for many, many years.

    Where before I felt fear because I didn't know him, now I was afraid because of what I had seen--a Priest of the Almighty God. Even at 10, I understood to my core the awesome immensity of what he represented--not because I was special in any way, because it was apparent to anyone--and it was scary, but only because it was so beautiful, so noble and so holy.

    Just as I had very quickly come to love and be attracted to Father Herman through his pastoral love, I came to understand very suddenly and deeply the spiritual nature of the Priesthood from Father Seraphim--and be attracted to it, as well. Here was a man for whom the reality of his power to let loose sins and retain them, to prepare the divine gifts, to literally hold God in his hands, was fully present and in remembrance. I wasn't ready to have those things uncovered to me more than what I caught in his single penetrating look. It was like too much light, or jumping into cold water--it was a shock that I had to allow some time to sink sink in.

     Most of the time he was distant, as I said, but not emotionally distant with the cold aloofness that such a description generally implies. He seemed like he was somewhere else, much of the time, and you could see it in his eyes when he was looking at you. There was a certain look he had--and you can see it in many of his pictures--where you could see that he was not truly seeing what his eyes looked upon. It was like his gaze bent around in midair and entered back into himself, without seeing more than an impression of the world. Just enough to get by.

    There are some who say he was often in some kind of devine trance. I don't think so, at least not the kind of divine trance I imagine, with sparkling lights or a vision of the Theotokos. I think that in one way or another, it was death he saw. His flat gaze seemed to echo the utter nothingness of the void from which Christ is the only escape. Of course, when I knew him, he was often ailing in health, and sometimes in pain, so this may have been part of it.

    I remember at one meal, as we listened to the reading of the Lives of Saints, I watched Fr. Seraphim for some time before realizing he had not actually eaten more than a bite or two of his food. He had simply picked it up with his fork, moving it to this pile or that on his plate, and pushing the little piles around, but rarely ever bringing one to his lips. Now he sat quietly, his head tilted a bit to the side, his hands in his lap. I remember thinking "I don't think he's listening to the reading at all!" with some indignation.

    I don't remember when I learned what this peculiar habit of his meant, sitting with his head inclined to one side, but I can see it now, vividly, like it was just last week. His body is still, his head tilts slightly to the left and he looks toward the floor with a different distant look, one not so veiled, not so inward. He sometimes clears his throat or makes a quiet comment, but without looking up, returning to stillness. Do you know how a child looks at their feet, off to the side a bit, when they feel sad, or their feelings are hurt? This look of his was, in a certain way, kind of like that. Preoccupied by pain of heart? Perhaps. In his lap, half hidden by his riassa, he thumbed his old, worn prayer-rope.

From Fr. Herman, I learned what it is to be a Pastor.
From Fr. Seraphim, I was shown what is is to be a Priest.

Glory be to God!
O Lord, make his memory to be Eternal!

Forgive me,

SDn Martinian