May 31/June 13, 2004
Beloved Clergy and Parishioners in the Lord, Grace and Peace be with you.
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans [§ mid 81]. Brethren:
2 10Glory and honor and peace to everyone who worketh good, both to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11For there is no respect of persons with God. 12For as many as did sin without law shall also perish without law; and as many as did sin in the law shall be judged by the law. 13For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. 14For whenever the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, who have not the law, are a law to themselves, 15who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts one with another accusing or also excusing, 16in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 9]. At that time:
4 18As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, throwing a casting-net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19And He saith to them, "Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20And they straightway left the nets and followed Him. 21And having gone on from that place, He saw two other brothers, Iakovos the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. 22And they straightway left the ship and their father, and followed Him.
23And Jesus was going around all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we celebrate the Sunday of All Saints of Russia, All Saints of Mount Athos, and every nationality commemorates all the saints of their country, so we also in America celebrate all the Saints of America. All of the Saints of America include: St. Peter the Aleut, St. Juvenaly, St. Herman of Alaska, St. John of San Francisco, St. Philaret the Confessor, and of course, there are many other righteous fathers and mothers who have adorned the Church here in America.We read today a very beautiful excerpt from the Prologue which we are going to include below.June 13th - Civil Calendar
May 31st - Church Calendar
- The Holy Apostle Hermias.
One of the Seventy, he is mentioned in the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans (16:14). A Greek by birth, he spent a long time in Rome. He was bishop in Philippoupolis, and finished his life a martyr. He compiled the very instructive book 'The Shepherd' through revelations from the angels of God. Hermias was a rich man, but fell into extreme poverty through his own sins and those of his sons. A man appeared to him, clad in white and with a staff in his hand, and told him that he was the angel of repentance, sent to him before the end of his life. The angel gave him twelve pious commandments:
To believe in God.
To live in simplicity and innocence.
To love truth and flee from falsehood.
To guard his thoughts in chastity.
To learn patience and magnanimity of soul.
To know that a good and an evil spirit attend every man.
To fear God, but not the devil
To perform every good deed and to restrain himself from every evil one.
To pray to God in faith from the depths of his heart, so that his prayer might be heard.
To preserve himself from melancholy, the daughter of doubt, and from anger.
To try true and false prophecies.
To preserve himself from every evil desire.
…
- The Holy Martyr Philosophus.
This martyr of Christ's was born near Alexandria. During a persecution of Christians, Philosophus refused to renounce Christ the Lord before the pagan princes and judges, and they therefore inflicted terrible tortures on him. After he had been tortured in various ways, they finally placed him on a soft bed, bound hand and foot, and put a harlot in with him to entice him into sin because the idolaters knew that if they could cause him to sin through the flesh, they would weaken him spiritually. (This is how the devil works also.) When Philosophus felt passion awakening in himself through the touch of the woman's hands, he took his tongue between his teeth, bit it through and spat it out in the harlot's face. His passion was extinguished and the harlot was so aghast that she fled from him at once. He was afterwards beheaded with the sword, in about 252, whilst still young in years, and entered into the Kingdom of eternal youth. (In the Greek Prologue, St Philo! sophus is commemorated on May 1st.).
FOR CONSIDERATION
This life is a spiritual battle: to conquer or be conquered. If we conquer, we shall enjoy the fruits of victory through all eternity; but if we are conquered, we shall suffer the horrors of defeat through all eternity. This life is a duel between man and everything that sets itself against God. God is the almighty Helper of every man who whole-heartedly calls upon Him for aid. Saint John of Kronstadt says: 'This life is neither a joke nor a plaything, although men may turn it into either. They fritter away the time given to us to prepare for eternity, disporting themselves with empty words. They go about visiting, sitting and gossiping, playing this or that game. They get together in the theatres and amuse themselves there. Life is, for them, amusement. But woe to those who do nothing but amuse themselves!'
Church / Monastery News:
We all have been very busy around the monastery. Vladyka poured cement bases for the columns in front of the new building. There are two more columns left.Calendar of Events for Upcoming Week:
This week we continue the Holy Apostles' Fast. God bless you all and strengthen you.
Crumbs from the trapeza table:
We are putting in the crumbs portion a translation of our ROAC Bishop Ambrose's article:
To the Upcoming Sacred Synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Bishop Ambrose (of Khabarovsk)
On the Canonical Status of the Moscow Patriarchate
For a long time now, it has been stated by the New Martyrs and by the entire membership of the Catacomb Church of Russia that the Moscow Patriarchate is not the Church, but rather a schismatic organization, which later on became a heretical entity.
Since the Moscow Patriarchate is not the Church, it cannot have grace. The grace of God is transferred to the faithful in the Holy Mysteries. Since the MP is not the Church, its "mysteries" cannot be valid.
Although the Lord does call heretics to salvation, this invitation to come to the true Church is not the action of grace, but rather the Providence of God, which calls mankind to the true Church in order to give it grace.
The goal of the spiritual life is deification. St. Athanasius the Great says that, "Man should become God, not by essence, but by grace." This grace is acquired by personal effort and through the Mysteries which are administered by the Church. People are brought to the Church by the Providence of God. Untruth can act in a parasitical way for the truth, but not for grace. This is impossible. Grace is either present or absent in a given community. Since the MP is not the Church, there can be no grace present there. Of all of the heresies, which have ever existed in history, the one in which the MP is wallowing is the most disgusting. All prior heresies, beginning with the first centuries of Christianity, were begun by heretics who had gone into error1. Even though they had gone into error as a result of their pridefulness, nevertheless, they went into error in accordance with their consciences, and for this reason I agree, that it is not possi! ble to say precisely when their communities fell away from the Body of Christ. However, the Moscow Patriarchate has not gone into error in good conscience, but has consciously decided to trample upon, not only the canons of the Church, but upon Her holy dogmas as well. Having joined together as one with all of the heretics who have ever been anathematized by the Holy Fathers of all of the Ecumenical Councils, and of the local councils accepted at the Ecumenical Councils, the MP has trampled upon the Faith of the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as well. Its faith is not a falling into error in accordance with their consciences, but rather a conscious trampling upon the Truth, and therefore there can be no talk about the existence of grace in the organization which calls itself the Moscow Patriarchate. Nor is this our pronouncement alone, but that spoken of many centuries ago by the Holy Fathers who anathematized those heresies whose contemporary adherents today pray tog! ether with the hierarchs of the MP and are called brethren by them. He re it would not be out of place to call to mind the words of the Lord, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." The holy canons and dogmas are well known to the fathers of the heresy confessed by the MP; and they have the academic diplomas to prove it. But in our age of information, it is inexcusable even for simple lay people to follow along blindly behind such fathers of lies. And if the Providence of God leads them to grace in the Holy Church, then it follows that this grace should be imparted to them through the Mysteries of Holy Baptism and Holy Chrismation and the other Mysteries, and later on, in accordance with their efforts and sincerity, to salvation.
If, because of the needs of the Church, and in order to make it easier to unite to the Church, there does exist the practice of not repeating the Rite of Baptism for converts, assuming that its outward form was performed correctly outside of the Church (8th Rule of the 1st Ecumenical Council), not because this ritual was already a grace-bearing Mystery, but in anticipation that the gift of grace would be received upon unification with the Body of the Church, nevertheless we cannot apply this practice to those who come to us from the MP since its hierarchy and clergy knowingly confess their faith in the father of lies, and therefore baptize in his name as well.2 This is the difference between the heresies of ecumenism and Sergianism confessed by the MP and the heresies of ancient times. The ancient heretics were sincere believers, albeit in error; but the ecumenists and Sergianists knowingly and hypocritically blaspheme and mock the Truth Himself! , the Holy Church, and Her teaching. According to the words of the holy Hieromartyr Damaskin, Bishop of Starodub, "Sergianism is nothing less than a conscious trampling upon the idea of the Church for the sake of its outward decoration and one's own personal well-being."
The Hieromartyr Nektary, Bishop of Yaransk, called the "mysteries" of the Sergianists abominations, equating them with the "mysteries" of the Renovationists. How much more developed has Sergianism become now, having incorporated the most refined forms of ecumenism and atheism!?!
I humbly submit for deliberation by the Sobor, that it is essential for those who convert from the MP to be baptized after completing the catechumenate, in the same way that it is appointed for those who convert from among the Jews, Moslems, and pagans.
(translated from the Russian text which appeared in the Journal of the Sudzal Eparchy, No. 17, pp. 39-40)
I.e., were actually intellectually mistaken about the rightness or wrongness of the path they were choosing and were therefore somewhat ignorant of their sin and sincere in their delusion. - Editor
I.e., those performing them are consciously doing the devil's work in their actions; if in the case of those baptized by ancient heretics according to the proper form, one could argue that the form is that of the Church, although without the grace of the Church, and therefore did not have to be repeated; here one cannot, because the action is a conscious, intentional action against the Spirit of Truth, which is the very opposite from the rite of the Church; their baptizing is comparable to conscious adultery or fornication, known sins against God, rather than a mistaken attempt at a God-pleasing marriage, albeit unwittingly outside the Church; the latter the Church does not consider equivalent to fornication, even though the union did not have God's blessing and grace. - Editor
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
In Christ,
+Archbishop Gregory, and those with me.
