MEMO
To: All aspiring to ascend the Ladder to Heaven
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: April 4, 2011
Subject: St. John of the Ladder
***** ***** ***** **** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
It is often the case that I learn from my memos AFTER I have written them! Such is the case here. I find I have fallen victim to the “Palamite theology” mentality that I have just been criticizing! Preoccupied by my attempts to get a good grip on the writngs of the saint, I was blind to the reason why the Church “advertises” the heroic sanctity of some of her children, by canonizing them, and even dedicating to them a week of Lenten instruction and meditation – namely, to present them as a most personal example for us to follow! We should climb the ladder with the saint – not subject him to the “textual criticism” which has usurped wisdom in contemporary academia – as I myself know only too well!!!
Nevertheless, I invite everyone to learn with me from my mistake, as I belatedly take my cue from the sermon on St John of the Ladder that Fr. Mark Hodal, Rector of St Andrews in Ashland Virginia gave us yesterday, which addressed my question in my previous e-mail as to what john of the Ladder would have to say about discernment – St. John being the prototypical practical guide to day to day, moment to moment living of the teachings we have seen expounded as we move through Great Lent. I want to express Vladika Pavel's and my appreciation of Fr. Mark's elucidation of St. John -- and I recall a previous Lent when I had a question about John of the Ladder and he addressed it in his sermon - this is the kind of pastor he is, solicitous of the personal needs of each and every soul in his flock.
I express thanks to Fr. Mark together with Vladika, because the lack of such a spirit of concern within the OCA -- which seems fixated on pursuing unbelievably petty and self-serving personal animosities -- threatens to destroy the Orthodox Church in America at this time. And this despite warnings from those shepherds who like our own Bp. Tikhon of Philadelphia are genuinely concerned for the good of the Church, Christ's own Body.
These are critical times - I was shocked by a couple of Interfax reports on individuals in the Moscow Patriarchate fearfully anticipating unspecified FUTURE trials threatening to destroy the world!!! I mean, it has never, ever been said that God is going to destroy the world – which He created with such loving care and, gazing upon His handiwork, “saw that it was good”!!! According to Interfax, the Russian bishop prudently reprimanded his spiritual child with an admonition to read the New Testament to get his head straightened out. So let us also follow this prudent instruction.
St. Paul tells us to use the things of this world as if we used them not, because the form of this world is passing away. 2Cor 7:31 This can mean that the world in its present form is passing away, as the form of the child passes away to become an adult, or that it is the very nature, the “form”, of the world, indeed of the entire finite order, to be ephemeral, passing away. In the book of Revelation, this is cause for rejoicing!
”Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’" Rev 2 1:1-5
I also do not see how anyone in their right mind can anticipate tribulation more diabolically fiendish than what we have endured in the century just ended, in which were raised up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions of the Christians, culminating with the last year of the century and of the millennium in which the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tried to bomb Orthodox Serbia to smithereens and ethnically cleanse it of Orthodox Serbs, culminating with imposing upon Kosovo a totally unscrupulous Albanian warlord who captured Serbs to market their livers! And did the OCA use the political clout Mr. Kondratick so assiduously solicited to raise a voice??? I even had to prod the Serbs themselves in the US – and the voice they raised was feeble in the event. I tell you, old Mr. 666 didn’t fool me, hiding behind 1999!
Since Barack Obama has been president, it’s starting to be rolled back. I said he would be our Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, but who made good and rose to a position of considerable political clout. And when his brothers, recognizing him, feared vengeance, “Joseph said unto them, ‘Fear not: for am I in the place of God as judge? As for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is doing this day, the salvation of many people.’” Gen 50:19f
As for John Climacus – I finally got on the right track, recognizing that his book is not really the point, but rather that he attained deification, he reached the top of the ladder, and he left us an instructive account of what to avoid so that we may, in turn, be open to God’s action within ourselves:
“Ascending from the dark sorrow of material things, O holy John, thou hast gone to dwell in spiritual light; give me light through thine intercessions to the Lord.”
Nevertheless, my struggle to make head or tail of what I found to be a very obscure text was not -- in God’s providence -- wasted time, because this problem is to be found in our biblical translations, and nowhere more than in the epistles of St. Paul! It is inevitable when the translators have little or no understanding of the texts they are charged with translating. Which is why the Russian translation, in addition to being from the Leningrad Codex, recognized as the most accurate in existence, is best there is.
In Paul's case, his language is already strained because he was preaching something absolutely unprecedented at the time he was writing: that God would become man that man might become God!!! I see that St. Ignatius of Antioch, who is usually credited with being the first to put it into just those words, was a contemporary of the Apostles - yet the statement as such is not in the New Testament canon, and it seems probable that not everyone really caught on at the time.
Thus Paul did not have the nuanced vocabulary that later writers on theosis had at their command - notably, of course, St. Gregory Palamas whose role it was to craft just such a vocabulary in the face of a concerted attack from within the western Church on this truth - which nevertheless constitutes the underpinning of the correct understanding of the Incarnation. Still today - as my search for relevant scriptural texts bore out, this Mystery is viewed in the western Church as God the Word incarnate only in Jesus Christ as an individual -- who Paul nevertheless refers to as the first of many brethren, these brethren being ourselves, but how can we be brothers without having the same parents: Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit!!!
Without that parentage, it’s hard to see how we could be even kissing cousins once removed, or such. Theology for types with this mindset is nothing but metaphors -- as I discovered when I submitted to the St. Vlads Theological Quarterly something I had written on the relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity - you can read the gist of it in my "Manifesto", http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/MANIFESTO.PDF -- scroll down to the heading: The purpose of Christ's Incarnation.
The St. Vlads Quarterly rejected it on the basis that they are a "theological journal" and therefore do not accept articles on "psychology". Orthodox brothers and sisters, please tell me this: What good is a disembodied "theology" which serves only to exalt the academic status of our theologians in the west by reducing it to the norm of western non-theology, which has long since been reduced to zilch - or, more properly, to the Devil's Delight – by the onslaught of atheistic western secularism!
But I consider myself in good company as St. Vlads also rejected Fr. Georges Florovsky, whose oversight of the development of their theological curriculum led to the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York granting the Seminary an Absolute Charter in 1953 …… BUT who was fired as Dean in 1955 – cf. Andrew Blane, ed., George Florovsky—Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), pp. 109ff. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Florovsky
In case you haven’t already guessed, this issue came to light as the by-product of my searches on John Climacus.
It is worth noting that the – uh, unsavory aspects of St. Vlads’ treatment of Fr. Florovsky are stated without comment on wikipedia; the really down and dirty criticism of him is on Orthodox sites, notably:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Georges_Florovsky, and: http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/florovsky.aspx, the site of
Bishop [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos of Etna, who writes:
“Father Florovsky was not a Saint. [I mean who made him the judge of whether anybody is or is not a saint? This is the province of the Church, not any of its members --- not even a Bishop, now da-da-da (sound of trumpets) Archbishop!!!] He was a brilliant thinker who left a rich theological legacy, but who also made errors in judgment that are today unfairly exploited. I hope that my respect and admiration for this great man of the Church are not lost in my attempts to point out the breadth of his thought and his repentance for some wrong thinking, and to protect him thereby from exploitation.” [We used to have a name for this tactic: killing with faint praise] From Orthodox Tradition, Vol XI (1994), No. 2, pp 28-29.
The fact of the matter is that Florovsky never fit into the Schmemen “set”, whose Orthodoxy was already eroded by the westernizing influences rampant in Russia’s northern capital cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, in the 19th century – as we learn especially from two prominent saints of that era, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov and St. Theophan the Recluse. The latter’s 26 year reclusion was dedicated to rectifying the corruption of the true faith by correcting erroneous translations of spiritual classics – notably Unseen Warfare, the Paulist edition of which is prefaced by a very scholarly textual analysis identifying the changes he made to the western original – which unwittingly shows us how expertly Theophan expunged the westernized text of the pelagianism which still tainted the work despite the earlier efforts of St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain.
He also produced a prodigious corpus of original writings. The most significant of these was surely the letters he wrote in response to letters he received, as many as 30 – 40 daily, all of which he answered personally. A forerunner of e-mail which reached out all over the huge expanse of Russia, and prepared Russia for the atheistic onslaught to follow in the 20th century. I read his scathing critique of those who, amid the western influences then swirling, derided the traditional teaching of the Church on the “toll-houses” the departed must pass through. Well, we will just wait until those who scorn devils as but the figment of outmoded imaginings will inevitably confront them in the tollhouses themselves, he scoffed!!!
I also had another interesting experience with a book to which Fr. Peter Gilquist had written a forward, “Raising Them Right: A Saint's Advice on Raising Children”. I read it with interest – few works by St. Theophan being then available in English – but it came across like any basic manual for parents and Sunday School teachers, how to set up an ikon corner and other such ways to teach small children. I thought it curious that St. Theophan would put out such a book! It was a few years later when I managed to get the full translation of the Russian original, Duhovni Put – the spiritual path (loosely translated!). The “advice on raising children” was a preface of practical pointers leading up to the main corpus which read like St. Teresa of Avila’s Mansions or some such!!! Theophan’s book is a classic among classics, but Conciliar Press published only this preceding sketch, its text left off precisely at the point where St. Theophan begins his exposition of what this devout path consists in!!!
I found this note on Theophan’s canonization of interest: “He was canonized by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1988. The act of canonization declared that his ‘deep theological understanding of the Christian teaching, as well as its performance in practice, and, as a consequence of this, the loftiness and holiness of the life of the sviatitel' [Saint Theophan] allow for his writings to be regarded as a development of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, preserving the same Orthodox purity and Divine enlightenment.’” His feast day is celebrated January 6 or January 10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophan_the_Recluse
I have a special devotion to St. Theophan, since my Mother reposed on Jan. 6, the feast of Theophany – at an early age by reason of which her inheritance came directly to me, and shortly thereafter I met Herbert and was able to put my money at the disposal of our community. It was then still small and ragtag, but thanks to my funds, we were able to grow quickly into the equivalent of one of those villages such as Clinton details in her book “I Takes a Village to Raise a Child” – we had our own school, even our own business which supported our village when my money ran out.
Returning to the role of Fr. Georges Florovsky, who was from Odessa, hence not aboard the “philosopher’s ship” (on Sept. 28, 1922, more than 200 dissident theologians, writers, poets, journalists and the like were banished from Russia by Lenin, aboard the German steamer Oberbuergermeister Hacken) nor did Florovsky associate himself with the set who were so exiled, as Schmemmen clearly did. The point to be made is that after being fired by St. Vlad’s, Fr. Florovsky ended up distinguishing himself by his founding role in the World Council of Churches as well as by his remarkable academic career, teaching at Harvard until retirement - and then launching out anew at Princeton, as a Distinguished Fellow. Significantly, while Fr. Hopko keeps on whining that Orthodoxy is America's "best kept secret" -- in actual fact Fr. Florovsky's outstanding proteges in Ivy League circles made him very well known in our more intellectually and culturally sophisticated circles; one of my searches yielded a syllabus for a course at Andover which “will introduce the students to the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Soloviev, Sergii Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdiaev, Georges Florovsky, and Alexander Schmemann, among others.” I have seen mention of -- and even met, personally -- others influenced by Florovsky in addition to Congressional Librarian James Billington, who has spread Orthodoxy – not through the St. Vlad’s teaching which, if my experience is any pointer, they would do well to keep a deep, dark secret (see my previous memo) -- but through the Russian culture: its music, art, literature, architecture, its beautifully “green” cities (and this was before “green” had an environmental connotation outside of Russia), even its national cuisine (think borschst!). This Russian culture is so profoundly religious, so imbued with the presence of God, even Russian Judaism is Christ-oriented (think of the crucified Christ in the works of Mark Chagall) that Bilington has done vastly more -- through his books and other extensive cultural efforts, to spread THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX RELIGION THAT RAISED UP MORE MARTYRS THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE THE EARLY PAGAN PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS – than the ones who currently claim leadership in the Orthodox Church of America!!!
Especially inasmuch as my searches and other efforts indicate that neither the OCA nor anyone else around here has tackled the job of making the point that the Incarnation refers not only to Christ Jesus, the Nazarene, but also to US, TO YOU AND YOU, AND YOU, AND ME AND ALL THE OTHER OF CHRIST’S MANY BRethren, of whom he is the first-born!!! Cf. Rm 8:28
Paul wrote: I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:20) Romans 8 is also very persuasive, especially: "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Rm 8:9-11
And Jesus Himself prayed, and in that High Priestly Prayer to the Father on the Eve of the consummation of his earthly mission in His resurrection and ours with Him, as He prophesied in His raising of Lazarus:
“I am not praying for the world but for thosewhom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name,which You have given Me,that they may be one, even as We are one. I do not ask for these only, but also for thosewho will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be inUs, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as you loved Me.“ Jn 17:9-11;20-23
If it doesn't all add up to God becoming man that man might become God --- then what does it add up to??? You tell me.
"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence,by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." 2Pet 13f
This s what we learn from St. John of the Ladder.
To: All aspiring to ascend the Ladder to Heaven
From: Laura Jones - http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com
new site - http://how-soon-jerusalem.weebly.com
Date: April 4, 2011
Subject: St. John of the Ladder
***** ***** ***** **** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
It is often the case that I learn from my memos AFTER I have written them! Such is the case here. I find I have fallen victim to the “Palamite theology” mentality that I have just been criticizing! Preoccupied by my attempts to get a good grip on the writngs of the saint, I was blind to the reason why the Church “advertises” the heroic sanctity of some of her children, by canonizing them, and even dedicating to them a week of Lenten instruction and meditation – namely, to present them as a most personal example for us to follow! We should climb the ladder with the saint – not subject him to the “textual criticism” which has usurped wisdom in contemporary academia – as I myself know only too well!!!
Nevertheless, I invite everyone to learn with me from my mistake, as I belatedly take my cue from the sermon on St John of the Ladder that Fr. Mark Hodal, Rector of St Andrews in Ashland Virginia gave us yesterday, which addressed my question in my previous e-mail as to what john of the Ladder would have to say about discernment – St. John being the prototypical practical guide to day to day, moment to moment living of the teachings we have seen expounded as we move through Great Lent. I want to express Vladika Pavel's and my appreciation of Fr. Mark's elucidation of St. John -- and I recall a previous Lent when I had a question about John of the Ladder and he addressed it in his sermon - this is the kind of pastor he is, solicitous of the personal needs of each and every soul in his flock.
I express thanks to Fr. Mark together with Vladika, because the lack of such a spirit of concern within the OCA -- which seems fixated on pursuing unbelievably petty and self-serving personal animosities -- threatens to destroy the Orthodox Church in America at this time. And this despite warnings from those shepherds who like our own Bp. Tikhon of Philadelphia are genuinely concerned for the good of the Church, Christ's own Body.
These are critical times - I was shocked by a couple of Interfax reports on individuals in the Moscow Patriarchate fearfully anticipating unspecified FUTURE trials threatening to destroy the world!!! I mean, it has never, ever been said that God is going to destroy the world – which He created with such loving care and, gazing upon His handiwork, “saw that it was good”!!! According to Interfax, the Russian bishop prudently reprimanded his spiritual child with an admonition to read the New Testament to get his head straightened out. So let us also follow this prudent instruction.
St. Paul tells us to use the things of this world as if we used them not, because the form of this world is passing away. 2Cor 7:31 This can mean that the world in its present form is passing away, as the form of the child passes away to become an adult, or that it is the very nature, the “form”, of the world, indeed of the entire finite order, to be ephemeral, passing away. In the book of Revelation, this is cause for rejoicing!
”Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’" Rev 2 1:1-5
I also do not see how anyone in their right mind can anticipate tribulation more diabolically fiendish than what we have endured in the century just ended, in which were raised up more martyrs than at any time since the early pagan persecutions of the Christians, culminating with the last year of the century and of the millennium in which the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization tried to bomb Orthodox Serbia to smithereens and ethnically cleanse it of Orthodox Serbs, culminating with imposing upon Kosovo a totally unscrupulous Albanian warlord who captured Serbs to market their livers! And did the OCA use the political clout Mr. Kondratick so assiduously solicited to raise a voice??? I even had to prod the Serbs themselves in the US – and the voice they raised was feeble in the event. I tell you, old Mr. 666 didn’t fool me, hiding behind 1999!
Since Barack Obama has been president, it’s starting to be rolled back. I said he would be our Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, but who made good and rose to a position of considerable political clout. And when his brothers, recognizing him, feared vengeance, “Joseph said unto them, ‘Fear not: for am I in the place of God as judge? As for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is doing this day, the salvation of many people.’” Gen 50:19f
As for John Climacus – I finally got on the right track, recognizing that his book is not really the point, but rather that he attained deification, he reached the top of the ladder, and he left us an instructive account of what to avoid so that we may, in turn, be open to God’s action within ourselves:
“Ascending from the dark sorrow of material things, O holy John, thou hast gone to dwell in spiritual light; give me light through thine intercessions to the Lord.”
Nevertheless, my struggle to make head or tail of what I found to be a very obscure text was not -- in God’s providence -- wasted time, because this problem is to be found in our biblical translations, and nowhere more than in the epistles of St. Paul! It is inevitable when the translators have little or no understanding of the texts they are charged with translating. Which is why the Russian translation, in addition to being from the Leningrad Codex, recognized as the most accurate in existence, is best there is.
In Paul's case, his language is already strained because he was preaching something absolutely unprecedented at the time he was writing: that God would become man that man might become God!!! I see that St. Ignatius of Antioch, who is usually credited with being the first to put it into just those words, was a contemporary of the Apostles - yet the statement as such is not in the New Testament canon, and it seems probable that not everyone really caught on at the time.
Thus Paul did not have the nuanced vocabulary that later writers on theosis had at their command - notably, of course, St. Gregory Palamas whose role it was to craft just such a vocabulary in the face of a concerted attack from within the western Church on this truth - which nevertheless constitutes the underpinning of the correct understanding of the Incarnation. Still today - as my search for relevant scriptural texts bore out, this Mystery is viewed in the western Church as God the Word incarnate only in Jesus Christ as an individual -- who Paul nevertheless refers to as the first of many brethren, these brethren being ourselves, but how can we be brothers without having the same parents: Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit!!!
Without that parentage, it’s hard to see how we could be even kissing cousins once removed, or such. Theology for types with this mindset is nothing but metaphors -- as I discovered when I submitted to the St. Vlads Theological Quarterly something I had written on the relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity - you can read the gist of it in my "Manifesto", http://www.mamaleh-larisa.com/MANIFESTO.PDF -- scroll down to the heading: The purpose of Christ's Incarnation.
The St. Vlads Quarterly rejected it on the basis that they are a "theological journal" and therefore do not accept articles on "psychology". Orthodox brothers and sisters, please tell me this: What good is a disembodied "theology" which serves only to exalt the academic status of our theologians in the west by reducing it to the norm of western non-theology, which has long since been reduced to zilch - or, more properly, to the Devil's Delight – by the onslaught of atheistic western secularism!
But I consider myself in good company as St. Vlads also rejected Fr. Georges Florovsky, whose oversight of the development of their theological curriculum led to the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York granting the Seminary an Absolute Charter in 1953 …… BUT who was fired as Dean in 1955 – cf. Andrew Blane, ed., George Florovsky—Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), pp. 109ff. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Florovsky
In case you haven’t already guessed, this issue came to light as the by-product of my searches on John Climacus.
It is worth noting that the – uh, unsavory aspects of St. Vlads’ treatment of Fr. Florovsky are stated without comment on wikipedia; the really down and dirty criticism of him is on Orthodox sites, notably:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Georges_Florovsky, and: http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/florovsky.aspx, the site of
Bishop [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos of Etna, who writes:
“Father Florovsky was not a Saint. [I mean who made him the judge of whether anybody is or is not a saint? This is the province of the Church, not any of its members --- not even a Bishop, now da-da-da (sound of trumpets) Archbishop!!!] He was a brilliant thinker who left a rich theological legacy, but who also made errors in judgment that are today unfairly exploited. I hope that my respect and admiration for this great man of the Church are not lost in my attempts to point out the breadth of his thought and his repentance for some wrong thinking, and to protect him thereby from exploitation.” [We used to have a name for this tactic: killing with faint praise] From Orthodox Tradition, Vol XI (1994), No. 2, pp 28-29.
The fact of the matter is that Florovsky never fit into the Schmemen “set”, whose Orthodoxy was already eroded by the westernizing influences rampant in Russia’s northern capital cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, in the 19th century – as we learn especially from two prominent saints of that era, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov and St. Theophan the Recluse. The latter’s 26 year reclusion was dedicated to rectifying the corruption of the true faith by correcting erroneous translations of spiritual classics – notably Unseen Warfare, the Paulist edition of which is prefaced by a very scholarly textual analysis identifying the changes he made to the western original – which unwittingly shows us how expertly Theophan expunged the westernized text of the pelagianism which still tainted the work despite the earlier efforts of St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain.
He also produced a prodigious corpus of original writings. The most significant of these was surely the letters he wrote in response to letters he received, as many as 30 – 40 daily, all of which he answered personally. A forerunner of e-mail which reached out all over the huge expanse of Russia, and prepared Russia for the atheistic onslaught to follow in the 20th century. I read his scathing critique of those who, amid the western influences then swirling, derided the traditional teaching of the Church on the “toll-houses” the departed must pass through. Well, we will just wait until those who scorn devils as but the figment of outmoded imaginings will inevitably confront them in the tollhouses themselves, he scoffed!!!
I also had another interesting experience with a book to which Fr. Peter Gilquist had written a forward, “Raising Them Right: A Saint's Advice on Raising Children”. I read it with interest – few works by St. Theophan being then available in English – but it came across like any basic manual for parents and Sunday School teachers, how to set up an ikon corner and other such ways to teach small children. I thought it curious that St. Theophan would put out such a book! It was a few years later when I managed to get the full translation of the Russian original, Duhovni Put – the spiritual path (loosely translated!). The “advice on raising children” was a preface of practical pointers leading up to the main corpus which read like St. Teresa of Avila’s Mansions or some such!!! Theophan’s book is a classic among classics, but Conciliar Press published only this preceding sketch, its text left off precisely at the point where St. Theophan begins his exposition of what this devout path consists in!!!
I found this note on Theophan’s canonization of interest: “He was canonized by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1988. The act of canonization declared that his ‘deep theological understanding of the Christian teaching, as well as its performance in practice, and, as a consequence of this, the loftiness and holiness of the life of the sviatitel' [Saint Theophan] allow for his writings to be regarded as a development of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, preserving the same Orthodox purity and Divine enlightenment.’” His feast day is celebrated January 6 or January 10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophan_the_Recluse
I have a special devotion to St. Theophan, since my Mother reposed on Jan. 6, the feast of Theophany – at an early age by reason of which her inheritance came directly to me, and shortly thereafter I met Herbert and was able to put my money at the disposal of our community. It was then still small and ragtag, but thanks to my funds, we were able to grow quickly into the equivalent of one of those villages such as Clinton details in her book “I Takes a Village to Raise a Child” – we had our own school, even our own business which supported our village when my money ran out.
Returning to the role of Fr. Georges Florovsky, who was from Odessa, hence not aboard the “philosopher’s ship” (on Sept. 28, 1922, more than 200 dissident theologians, writers, poets, journalists and the like were banished from Russia by Lenin, aboard the German steamer Oberbuergermeister Hacken) nor did Florovsky associate himself with the set who were so exiled, as Schmemmen clearly did. The point to be made is that after being fired by St. Vlad’s, Fr. Florovsky ended up distinguishing himself by his founding role in the World Council of Churches as well as by his remarkable academic career, teaching at Harvard until retirement - and then launching out anew at Princeton, as a Distinguished Fellow. Significantly, while Fr. Hopko keeps on whining that Orthodoxy is America's "best kept secret" -- in actual fact Fr. Florovsky's outstanding proteges in Ivy League circles made him very well known in our more intellectually and culturally sophisticated circles; one of my searches yielded a syllabus for a course at Andover which “will introduce the students to the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Soloviev, Sergii Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdiaev, Georges Florovsky, and Alexander Schmemann, among others.” I have seen mention of -- and even met, personally -- others influenced by Florovsky in addition to Congressional Librarian James Billington, who has spread Orthodoxy – not through the St. Vlad’s teaching which, if my experience is any pointer, they would do well to keep a deep, dark secret (see my previous memo) -- but through the Russian culture: its music, art, literature, architecture, its beautifully “green” cities (and this was before “green” had an environmental connotation outside of Russia), even its national cuisine (think borschst!). This Russian culture is so profoundly religious, so imbued with the presence of God, even Russian Judaism is Christ-oriented (think of the crucified Christ in the works of Mark Chagall) that Bilington has done vastly more -- through his books and other extensive cultural efforts, to spread THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX RELIGION THAT RAISED UP MORE MARTYRS THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE THE EARLY PAGAN PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS – than the ones who currently claim leadership in the Orthodox Church of America!!!
Especially inasmuch as my searches and other efforts indicate that neither the OCA nor anyone else around here has tackled the job of making the point that the Incarnation refers not only to Christ Jesus, the Nazarene, but also to US, TO YOU AND YOU, AND YOU, AND ME AND ALL THE OTHER OF CHRIST’S MANY BRethren, of whom he is the first-born!!! Cf. Rm 8:28
Paul wrote: I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:20) Romans 8 is also very persuasive, especially: "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Rm 8:9-11
And Jesus Himself prayed, and in that High Priestly Prayer to the Father on the Eve of the consummation of his earthly mission in His resurrection and ours with Him, as He prophesied in His raising of Lazarus:
“I am not praying for the world but for thosewhom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name,which You have given Me,that they may be one, even as We are one. I do not ask for these only, but also for thosewho will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be inUs, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as you loved Me.“ Jn 17:9-11;20-23
If it doesn't all add up to God becoming man that man might become God --- then what does it add up to??? You tell me.
"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence,by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." 2Pet 13f
This s what we learn from St. John of the Ladder.
