Protopresbyter
Alexander Kiselev’s Eulogy at the Funeral of Metropolitan Philaret
In the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Today we escort
the third Metropolitan of our Orthodox Russian Church Abroad to the
eternal life. It is not now time for us to make some kind of
comparisons between these three hierarchs. I will allow myself in my
allotted time a short word on the spiritual character of our reposed
Metropilitan Philaret – that is, how he seemed to me to be.
I think that the
words of the Savior, spoken at one time to children, "Of such is
the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 19:14), apply to him fully. Our
Metropolitan had those particular character traits that are particular
to those people who preserved them from their childhood – preserved
that openness, that kindness, that tenderness, that, which favorably
disposes one man to another. Vladyka possessed these traits in great
measure, and this was felt foremost by the children and youth beloved
by him.
And so Vladyka
lies in his coffin. He departs for a life inhabited by the righteous.
Vladyka, with
these especially gentle traits of his, led what one might consider a
very difficult life, combining these traits with those of a man
standing at the head of the Church.
And I would like
to straightway speak my mind, and say that we are all guilty in his
struggles. We all, who in one way or another relied on him, multiplied
his already difficult duties, particularly strenuously coupled with
his gentle and, in the best sense of the word, virginal
characteristics, the sustainment of which for adults is often less
than simple. We are all guilty of this. Those who transgressed, and those who did not stop the
transgressors, and those who thought their business was to come to
church from time to time and considered themselves Orthodox, let alone
Orthodox members of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, as something
special in Orthodoxy.
All of us, in one
way or another, are guilty of not helping him, quite the opposite: we
complicated the already difficult ways of Church life, that Church
life which cannot be separated from all of the terrors of this world
that occur around us. It is impossible that all of this will not
penetrate the Church, and in some degree it has penetrated, for
everyone who lives outside of the Church, like it or not, is to some
degree filled with that atmosphere in which the modern world finds
itself, and upon entering the Church, brings that atmosphere into the
Church. How then is it to live as the First Hierarch of the Church in
such circumstances?
And then, forgive
me another candid word. The words of the Gospel come to mind, the
words of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who said once: "You
have made my Father’s house a den of thieves" (Matt. 21:13). Do you and I not do the same thing? Of them I am chief. We clergy, we lay people, and everyone – each
in his own right – have we not sinned before the departed First
Hierarch and before our Church by our unworthy life, which carries on
far from how it should, far from how we would like it?
Therefore, today
it is proper for us not only to repent for our sins before the Church
and Her First Hierarch. I think this insufficient. It isinsufficient to repent. We must promise, give an oath, that we will attempt to defend our
Church and, consequently, ourselves as well; we must defend our
internal selves, in every manifestation of our lives, from that which
sullies the Church, which stains the Church, which makes Her, even in
the smallest way, reminiscent of the words of the Savior, which I have
brought just now to your attention.
For this reason we
here, escorting the departed, stand in the doorway, awaiting a new
head, a new First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of
Russia. Whoever he may be, he will need what our departed hierarch
needed. Let us give him of our help. Let us not say, this is not my
responsibility, I am no priest; while the priest says, this is not my
responsibility, I am no bishop; while the bishop says, this is not my
responsibility, I am not the First Hierarch.
Who is responsible then? One man? No
matter what grace may be visited upon this man, it is beyond the
strength of any one. It is the responsibility of the whole Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of which we are the members.
Let us then not
just call ourselves such, but let us right ourselves, for the sake of
the Church, for the sake of our own salvation, for the sake of not
calling ourselves Orthodox Christians, but being such. Let us not boast that we are better than all the other
Orthodox Christians, we, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of
Russia, but let us be whom we ought to be.
May the Lord God
help us! Let us truly want this! Let us apply all our efforts to
attaining this goal, not by our intentions alone, "with
which," St. John Chrysostom notes, "even the road to hell is
paved." Not by intentions alone, but with true deeds, for which
our Church and Her new, future head, the First Hierarch, will be
waiting.
Amen.
"Orthodox Rus", 1985, #22.
