Christ
is the Conqueror of the World
Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
The
Holy Gospel has preserved for us the words of the Savior, which the
Lord spoke to His apostles at the Mystical Supper as He bade them
farewell, before going to His holy sufferings. Before Him lay the
whole awful spectacle, the whole immeasurable abyss of sufferings,
which we can neither comprehend nor imagine, and He said to them:
" In the world ye shall have tribulation: but TAKE HEART, for I
HAVE CONQUERED THE WORLD" (John 16:33). Not for nothing did Fr.
John of Kronstadt, as he wrote in his journal, love to gaze upon the
image, the icon of Christ the Giver of Life, bearing in His hands the
standard of victory after His Resurrection! "What a Glorious
Victor!," wrote Fr. John. "What an evil and terrible enemy
has He conquered!" And the apostle of love writes, "This is
the victory that has conquered the world – our faith!" (1 John
5:4).
And so the
Orthodox Church triumphs in this victory of Her Orthodox faith,
celebrating it on the first Sunday of Great Lent, which is named in
its honor: "The Triumph of Orthodoxy." The Church, as though
looking back on the path She has walked, see that path’s trials and
sorrows. Persecuted from the beginning by the enemies of Christ –
the Jews, then persecuted by the pagan rulers of Rome, and then
battling various heresies, the Church walked a sorrowful path, but
overcame and CONQUERED!
Perhaps it was not
so difficult for the Church when She was subjected to bloody
persecutions, for in them the true path is reinforced; more dangerous
were the heresies that appeared, threatening to undermine the truth of
Orthodoxy. The heretic Arius arose and claimed that the Son of God was
not equal to God, not begotten of Him and equal to Him in nature, but
only created by Him. And an Ecumenical Council was needed to condemn
this heretic, and overturn this heresy. After him followed many
heresies; and the first heresies focuses exclusively on the Most Holy
Person of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, and only later did they
fixate on other dogmas.
And now in our
time, all manner of distortion and fraud – even outright rejection
– have been leveled against one of the chief dogmas of the Church
– the DOGMA OF THE CHURCH. You yourselves know that in our Symbol of
Faith we say: "I believe in one holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church." Blessed is the man who abides in this Church, for the
Lord gave His promise: "I will build my church; and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). This means
that, if you are within the Church, you will reap that joyous and
comforting promise, but if you are without, beware! Once St. Seraphim
of Sarov said to an Old Believer who came to him and began to offer
him his thoughts and opinions: "Drop your nonsense! The ship of
the Church has as its Captain Christ the Savior, and as its Helmsman
the Holy Spirit, and it traverses the sea of life which tosses us to
and fro. And what storms must it overcome! And you think you will
cross the sea of life in the little boat of your own opinions? Drop
your nonsense!"
And so, a
Christian, if he wishes to celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy as his
own, as an Orthodox Christian, let him examine his orthodoxy. Our
Orthodox faith is holy, eminent, and irreproachable, for the Incarnate
Son of God brought it to us from the heavens Himself, and the Church
preserves it. Whether any individual follows it faithfully is a matter
for his own conscience. According to his loyalty or disloyalty, let
him properly celebrate the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Indeed,
often a man may consider himself faithful, a loyal son of the Church,
but at the same time, God knows what he harbors in his thoughts.
Here I will employ
an example: once in Moscow there lived a wealthy merchant, whom many
– and even he himself – considered nothing short of a pillar of
Orthodoxy – so Orthodox was he. So much a man of the Church! Out of
his own pocket, he kept a lamp always lit in the famous Iberian
Chapel, and whenever anyone would praise him for it, he would say,
"Yes, of course – perhaps there is something on
that side after all!" Just like that, by the way! There you
have your pious Orthodox Christian, who doesn’t even believe in life
after death. But if there is no life after death, then the Gospel is a
fiction and a fallacy… And so it is with many articles of our faith,
which people dispute, even those who are strong in faith, and even
more those who refuse to keep the fasts.
From antiquity we
know of the holy example of the Maccabean Martyrs, who refused to eat
food forbidden by the rules of the Church in force at the time, and
for that they suffered and became holy martyrs. But how do modern-day
Orthodox Christians treat this rule? The Orthodox Church tells us
specifically what days are fasting days and what we can or cannot eat,
but no! Not only do they
eat what they like, but they maintain that these are ancient
prejudices not to be bothered with, and they consider themselves
Orthodox. A man can examine his orthodoxy as follows: when he sees
that something in his life does not correlate with the teachings of
the Church, then he takes care and drops it. If you will hold on and
cling to that something, then the Church will not recognize you as Her
own, and from there is it not far to that dreaded anathema, which will
be proclaimed tomorrow, and in which NO ONE condemns anyone else, but
in which the Church says: these ones are no longer ours, they are not
within the aegis of our Church.
And so, again I
repeat: examine your orthodoxy, you Orthodox Christian, you Russian
Orthodox soul! And only if you truly believe all that our Church
teaches, then the Triumph of Orthodoxy will be your own triumph, and
will be for you a great feast.
Amen.
Translated from the original Russian by Rdr. Gregory Levitsky
Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese
