Video Monologue: Forgiveness Sunday
A monologue on Forgiveness Sunday by the spiritual
father of St.Elisabeth Convent, Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok.
Translation provided by
the Catalogue of St.Elisabeth Convent.
Video Monologue: Forgiveness Sunday
The Greatness of God and the Triviality of Gods
“Whosoever shall
exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be
exalted” (Mat. 23:13).
Not so long ago,
the actress Shirley MacLaine delighted a large television audience when, by
standing with open arms on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, she began to sing,
“I am God, I am God, I am God." This was shown in the television
mini-series “Out On a Limb” in 1987. Believers could have ignored that eccentric
actress’ silly performance if it weren’t for the fact that it was a planned act
for the popularization of the New Age movement. This now-fashionable teaching
preaches that everything is God and God is all; i.e., that God and nature are
one. Consequently every person is God. From this comes the conclusion that the
task of human life is to reveal one's latent divinity, to recognize oneself as
“god.” “When you finally understand your divine nature,” say the ‘apostles’ of
the new doctrine, “a remarkable sensation will overcome you that you are above
space and time, above all that is material.”
Similar proud statements are not new; Hinduism
has preached them for a long time. One of the modern popularizers of Hinduism,
Sai Baba, writes, “You are the God of the universe… You truly are God … You are
not man, you are God”. During transcendental meditation, one is advised to
convince oneself, “I am the sun; I am the true, true sun… The whole universe
moves by me and receives its existence from me… I was before the beginning of
the world… I penetrate every atom and bring it into movement… Oh, how marvelous
I am… I am the entire universe... Everything is in me… I am God!”
There is no need to say how ludicrous such
claims are to the Christian point of view. Recognizing the high purpose of man,
Christianity teaches to clearly distinguish between the infinite omnipotent
Creator and everything else. “God dwells in the light which no man can approach
unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (1 Tim. 6:16). In essence, God
is everything and we are nothing. If a person humbly bows down to his Creator and
submits to His will, he is able, with God’s help, to grow and improve — within
the limits of his nature.
Therefore, it is
very strange to listen when preachers, posing as Christians, echo the Indian
guru and call for their followers to find their deity. Listen, for example, to
what the Mormons preach: “As man is, God
once was. As God is, man may become”. Also, “Remember that God our heavenly
Father was perhaps a child, and mortal like we are, and rose step by step in
the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and
overcome until He has arrived at the point where He is now. Joseph Smith, the
founder of the sect of Mormons, preached, “I am going to tell you how God came
to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I
will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see .… It is
first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and
to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another and that
he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of all us, dwelt
on an earth. Similar statements can be heard from other Mormon “prophets."
For them, the Lord Jesus Christ is not the Second Person of the Holy Trinity,
consubstantial with the Father, but rather one of the gods, equal with the
angel Lucifer and with other spirits! The subject of things doesn’t change the
fact that the Mormons consider one of the gods as the main one, but the fact
that their god is limited and is not the unique.
We, however,
believe that the true God is not only the main one among those allegedly
similar to Him, but that He is unique and the only God, to Whom there are none
similar. There exists only one God — the almighty and eternal Creator; all
other creatures are like small numbers in comparison with the infinite.
What is tragic for
the modern society is the fact that with all its scientific and technological
progress, on the spiritual level mankind is becoming primitive and all the more
yields to the sin of pride, under which crazy ideas about the unveiling of
one’s divinity are met with greater sympathy. In accordance with apostle Paul,
the distinctive characteristic of Antichrist, the last enemy of Christianity,
will be his boundless pride. This will be “that man of sin, the son of
perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or
holiness, so that he will sit in the temple of God as God, portraying himself
that he is God” (2 Thes. 2:4). Will not his absurd claim of deity be
approvingly met by his contemporary society, because it itself will be
completely poisoned by the ideas of deification of man?
It is necessary to
note that all doctrines exalting man at the expense of the Creator, although
they may differ on some minor issues, are either of occult origin or at least
have developed under the influence of some occult teachings. For example, the
ancient pagan polytheism with its magic and mysteries, as well as the modern
Mormonism — dictated by “spirits” — introduce a great number of deities.
Theosophical teachings, such as Hinduism, Buddhism and the modern New Age
movement also preach pantheism. Rejecting the personal God-Creator, they teach
that nature itself is Divine. Of course, the pantheistic god is not in any way
God, but nature to which is attributed some god-like properties: eternity, ubiquitousness, rationality, and
distinctive fairness. Strictly speaking, pantheism is an ennobled atheism.
The ancient
Pythagorists, Gnostics, Neoplatonists, and a number of subsequent philosophical
schools belong to the third group of doctrines, as, for example, Jacomba Beme,
Shopenhauer, Swedenborg, Parasels, Shelling, and others. It is known that
Gnostic sects were especially active during the first three centuries of
Christianity and were a great hindrance for the Church. The doctrines of this
group introduce different intermediary beings between the Absolute-God and the
lower world. Some call one of these as Demiurg; others, Logos or Sophia; still
others the “universal soul” or the “feminine principle in God," and so
forth. These doctrines are extremely confusing and contradictory in many
details, but some form of emanation from the Absolute is common to all of them.
Lower deities, or “eons" of ancient Gnostics, flow as graded waterfalls
from one to another, beginning with the transcendental Absolute, the Highest
Beginning, or Primary Source, and ending with our physical world. For some
Gnostics, the number of intermediaries between the Great Unknowable and the
material world reached thirty-two, for others it was limited to just a few.
Again, the Absolute of these doctrines is not
the true God we Christians believe in, because by emitting from himself lower
beings he himself becomes subject to the laws of change and compulsion. Besides
granting his eons with divine characteristics, such as creativity or the power
for world management, the Gnostics limit their Absolute. In this way they erase
the distinction between the Creator and the creature.
By the way, the
temptation to make a bridge between the Creator and the creature has touched
Russian theology as well, thanks to the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. A great
number of religious thinkers, enthusiastic about his ideas, as for example Rev.
Sergei Bulkakov, Rev. Pavel Florenski, Prof. Nikolai Berdyaev, and some
theologians of Saint Segius Theological Institute in Paris, developed further
his ideas about Sofia, the global soul and “the feminine principle” in God
along the Gnostic ideas.
Professor A.V.
Kartashov, concerning the influence of V. Solovyov on Russian religious
thought, writes, “The mystical horse on which Solovyov flies over the
formidable abyss that exists between God and the world is the long-deserted and
forgotten Sophia. Repeating thousand-year-old ancient attempts of the Hellenic
philosophy, the biblical hokism, the rabbinical Cabala, and the wild Gnostic
science-fiction writings, to fill by illusion the abyss between the Creator and
His creatures, Solovyov chooses for this purpose… Sofia, and thus infects our
religious-philosophical thinkers and poets for a long time... No gradualness,
no bridges of eons can possibly cross the ontological breach between two
polarities [God and world]. No crescendo-diminuendo from the creature to the
Creator et vice versa can create the solid continuity; and through any of the
microscopic cracks, as if into the bottomless pit, falls everything that was
constructed".
Professor Rev.
Georgi Florovskii commented about the Sense of Love by V. Solovyov, “This is
some ghastly occult project of reunification of humanity with God through
multi-sexual love”.
Disassociating
oneself from all attempts to make a bridge between the infinite and the finite,
the Orthodox Church does not recognize any independent deities, nor emanations
from the Primary source, nor intermediaries between God and creature.
The church teaches
that originally nothing existed — neither a spiritual nor a material world.
Even time and space are not eternal but are qualities of this temporary
world. There existed always the
Singular, unchangeable and all-perfect God:
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as Trinity, one in essence and
undivided.
When it was
pleasing to God, He first created a great spiritual world which He populated
with rational spirits called angels; after that — our visible, material world.
For creation of one and the other He did not use any substance, because there
was none, but created everything from nothing by the distinct action of His
omnipotent will. Nothing forced Him to create: He created when and how it was
pleasing to His will. So, God is the single source of existence for all things
visible and invisible. The angels and human souls are not eternal, but only
immortal, and are so not by nature, but by the will of their Creator. Only God
is eternal and immortal by His essence.
“God always was, is
and will be, or better to say, always is,” explains St. Gregory the Theologian,
“because the words 'was' and 'will be' indicate divisions of time and are
characteristic to transient nature. But ‘being’ is always. And by this name
(Jehovah) He calls Himself… because He concentrates within Himself the most complete
being, which does not begin and will not end. He is like a sea of essence,
indescribable and infinite, extending beyond the limits of any comprehension of
time and nature.”
Between infinite
and perfect being of God and everything else there exists a qualitative abyss,
which does not allow for any intermediary. Between God and the world there
cannot be anything in the middle, just as there is nothing between the logical
one and the logical zero.
But being infinite
and all perfect, God is not far from the world, as some think, as if he dwells
somewhere far beyond the limits of the universe. On the contrary, He embraces
everything and penetrates everything with Himself; He is simultaneously
everywhere, but at the same time He, as the purest Spirit, does not mix with
anything and nothing touches Him.
One must speak of
God always with the greatest reverence and self-restraint because "He
dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Tim
6:16). Only with weak hints can we attempt to describe Him, Whom we call this
mysterious name. “Wishing to theologize,” edifies Saint Maxim the Confessor,
“do not attempt to comprehend God in His essence, because that is not
attainable to human or any other kind of intellect. Reflect if possible on His
qualities: eternity, infiniteness, incomprehensibility, bliss, wisdom and
omnipotent power, which directs everything and which righteously judges
everyone. After all, one becomes a great theologian among people, when he learns
at least some of the Divine attributes.”
Sometimes a person,
forgetting the greatness of God, compares himself with people similar to him,
and begins to dream of how important and wise he is. In such a situation it
would be useful to gaze at the starry sky and to mentally envision himself from
the depths of space: somewhere in the boundless sea of space there is a small
dot of light which is our galaxy called the Milky Way. On the edge of it, among
billions of other stars, hides our solar system which is so small that it
cannot be discerned with the most powerful telescope. And still further
somewhere within the solar system lies buried our microscopic planet Earth. And
there, on its surface some virus-like one-day creatures bustle about — who are
you and I! If we are so insignificant in comparison to the universe, then what
are we in comparison to Him, Who has created everything with the power of His
word?
And one does not know at which to marvel more:
the greatness of God or that with all His boundlessness He remembers and cares
for each of us! He not only sees each of us, but completely knows everything
that is within us: our deepest thoughts, forgotten feelings, and future
intentions; and all of this he knows better than we do ourselves. “Neither is
there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked
and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). Knowing
our needs and our frailties, He cares for us, as the most caring and loving of
mothers; and all while He manages the limitless universe, everything visible
and invisible. He directs towards goodness and the existence of every creature
— regardless of how insignificant it may be. If we all have followed His Divine
will then what a paradise and bliss we all would have enjoyed!
But instead of that we see something
completely different. What is the reason for the disasters for humanity? In
accordance with the Bible, it is our ancestors’ proud desires to become gods.
That ancient snake-devil, himself having fallen from the Heavens due to his own
pride, had instilled the knowledge in them that by eating the forbidden fruit,
they would not die, but “will be as gods” (Gen. 3:5). But why did our ancestors
believe such an insolent proposal? Probably because it sounded credible. A lie
is most effective if it holds a grain of truth in it.
Primordial man understood that he was given
something great, something that raises him above other unreasoning creatures.
That something great was the mark of the image and likeness of God, which the
Creator placed on his immortal soul. It was the mark of resembling God which
opened to man the way to uncovering the mystery of being and creativity; it
attracted him to the ideal and the infinite; it made him capable of unselfish
love, it attracted him to communion with God, it made him king over nature. By
God’s plan, man, working on himself and developing his spiritual abilities,
should have been perfecting himself. God set for man the high goal of following
His perfection, to which he was to have ascended under His direction and with
His help.
The devil’s lie was that man — by just
desiring it, with one daring leap, apart from and even contrary to God’s plans
— could attain the state of deity and could attain all knowledge and
perfection. Instead, however, the deceived man by his own insolent "salto
mortale” not only missed the state promised to him by the tempter, but rather
fell into a terrible abyss of sin and thus lost even that which he had already.
From being the ruler over nature he became a pathetic toy of his own passions.
Adam and Eve transmitted their nature damaged by sin to their descendants.
Apostle Paul thus presents the moral poverty of sinful humanity, “O wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death: the good that I
would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7:19-24).
God should have
destroyed man for his insolence or simply should have turned away from him and
left him at the mercy of the blind and destructive forces of nature. But God is
as great in mercy as He is omnipotent in creation! Instead of rejecting man, He
Himself, in the Divine person of the only-begotten Son, descended from the
throne of His unapproachable glory to our valley of sorrows and darkness.
By coming to us He
not only taught us to believe correctly and to live righteously, but He adopted
our human nature. Through this wonderful and incomprehensible unification of
His Divinity and His humanity, God injected invigorating spiritual energies
into our decrepit nature. Thanks to them the ascent to God became for us a real
possibility. Without the miracle of incarnation the Gospel doctrine would have
remained an inaccessible ideal.
One must say that in the days of the Old
Testament people also had many sensible ideas about good and evil; many people
had very elevated ideas about God, but they were morally powerless to perfect
themselves. God’s help was necessary to all, and the Lord Jesus Christ brought
us that help. That impassable chasm between God and creature, which no one
could cross, was crossed by the Lord Jesus Christ by His becoming man. He
became like a bridge between the transcendental and the finite, between the
Creator and the creature. He took us in communion with Himself. Not with our
own efforts, but because of Christ we “might be partakers of the divine nature”
(2 Pet. 1:4).
Thus, the deification of man, from one side,
is an unattainable dream and a terrible temptation, when man himself tries to
reach it. Any attempt to self-servingly jump across the abyss between earth and
Heaven inevitably plunges one to the depths of hell, where Lucifer the proud
angel fell. If man with humility and repentance turns to Christ, then, as
holding His hand, he can begin to ascend to God spiritually.
Unity with Christ,
partaking of His Divine nature, is not an abstract theory, but reality, which
happens during the Sacrament of Communion. Tragically, the world of other
beliefs, which speaks so much about the spiritual revival, does not understand
the purpose of the incarnation of Christ. It was precisely for this reason that
Christ became man — i.e., to join us to Himself. Of course, an angel or one of
the prophets could have taught us or could have given us a good example. Christ
incarnated specifically because only through unity with Him true rebirth and
communion with God becomes possible, “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me”
(John 14:6).
Therefore God
taught, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye
have no life in you. Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal
life; and I will raise him up at the last day… He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him”(John 6:53-56). In the sermon
about the grape vine Christ explains how important is to unite with Him: “As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more
can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me
ye can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).
Thus, the purpose
of incarnation of the Son of God is the spiritual and physical rebirth of man.
Spiritual renewal begun in this life will be finished by physical restoration
of man on the day of all resurrection of the dead. Then shall “the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mat. 13:43). Apostle
John the Theologian wrote about this a little bit mysteriously: “Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we
know that, when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as
He is” (1 John 3:2).
So, we are still
not yet capable of completely comprehending the entire grandeur of the calling
to which the merciful Creator is drawing us. It is important to remember,
however, that perfection is possible only under the direction and with the aid
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only He can renew our damaged state, only He can pour
into us the so needed spiritual strength; only He, by uniting us with Himself,
can deify us. Without Him we are nothing, just dust and ashes, as other lower
creatures.
Therefore,
remembering our sinfulness, let us hasten to our Doctor, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us humbly and obediently follow the path shown by Him remembering that
“whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble
himself shall be exalted” (Mat. 23:13).
The relationship between saints and animals
"Pacify yourself
and heaven and earth will be pacified for you".
Abba Isaac
The relationship of
men towards animals perhaps should be presented under the prism of the creation
of the world. We specifically read in Genesis, "and God created the beasts
of the earth after their kind, and the animals after their kind and all that creep
on the earth after their kind and God saw that it was good (Gen, 1:25).
After his creation
man is given dominion over all the animals "over the fish of the sea and
over the foul of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth
(Gen, 1:28).The dominion over the animals extends in their naming when God
brought all the animals in front of him
to give them their name: "...and brought them unto Adam to call
them and whatever Adam called every living thing, that was its name" (Gen, 2:19).Thus man has authority over the animals as on all creation, being a
creation "in the image of God". The animals looked on man as a crown
of the complete creation, for this they not only submitted to him but lived in
harmony between themselves.
The fall of the first
created did not only have a radical change in the relationship with God but
also between man and creation. Having darkened the "image" and
lacking the divine grace, man now is confronted with hostility by the dumb
animals "the beasts and all the animals of the earth seeing him denuded of
the former divine glory, ignore him and immediately became harsh towards
him". The result being that some animals he feared and other animals
feared him.
In Genesis we also
see the decision of God to destroy man "for them being of the flesh"
but as He spares the just Noah and his family so also He takes care of the
animals "for You took care of the animals in the Ark"
In the Deuteronomy
it is noted that one of the main reasons for observing the Sabbath is due to
the need for the animals to rest. In the preamble psalm (103) the caring of
animals is mentioned, "they give drink to every beast of the field; the
wild donkeys quench their thirst" (Ps, 103:11). For the thirst" as to
Joel "and the animals of the valley he cared when the water discharges
dried up". Where as at the second coming of Christ, "I will make a
covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven and with
the creeping things of the ground" (Hosea, 2:18)
In many instances
in the Old Testament we see the pre-fall relationship of man with the animals,
where an explicit promise is given to the Prophet Elijah, that he will be
provided care for his feeding, "and I have commanded the ravens to
feed you there" (1 Kings, 17:4). We see the raven is a bird by nature
despised bird - that does not even care for its young - carrying meat and bread
to the prophet.
Jonah remains three
days in the belly of the whale ("mark of Jonah") symbolizing the
three day burial and resurrection of the Lord. Later, in Babylonian detention
of Daniel, he remained unhurt in the den of the lions: "They placed him in
the lions pit and he remained there for six days", on which the Apostle
Paul later said, "the mouths of the lions were sealed".
The time of
Christ
Our Lord coming to this world receives the affection of the dumb animals: "and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger" (Luke, 2:7).
The promise of
Jesus to His disciples is that He will protect them from dangers, and He will
give them authority "to tread on serpents and scorpions [...] and
nothing shall by any means hurt you" (Luke, 10:19).
Early Christian
Times
After Apostle Paul
was shipwrecked at Meliti, when the barbarians saw that he was bit by a viper,
they shouted "no doubt this man is a murderer [...] yet justice
has not allowed him to live"(Acts, 28:4).
When however they
saw him remain unaffected, "they changed by saying that it is his
God" Here we see the fulfillment of the promise "and snakes they will
take up" and secondly the miracle results in the changing of the minds of
the Melitians.
The saints
Trophimos and Dorymedon are given as feed to a wild bear and because they
remain unhurt, they are thrown to a leopard and then to a lion. Because even
the lion did not bother them, the beast tamer started prodding it to attack
them, the lion lunged at him and torn him apart.
In the case of
saint Golindouch not only the martyr remained unhurt by the dragon inside the
pit, but the beast became tame and was resting on her. Similarly Saint John in
a shaft of a dry well, was protected from scorpions and serpents.
Saint Alexander,
bishop of Jerusalem was condemned to be torn apart by the beasts, however after
his prayer, some of them worshipped him by bowing their heads and others were
licking his wounds.
Impressive is the case of Saint Hypatius who killed in a spectacular way a huge snake that had entered in the castle of the emperor Constans. He placed his rod in the mouth of the beast and it followed him to the marketplace where he burnt it in a huge pyre.
The animals
serve the Saints
Further to the
cases of protection of the martyrs from being hurt by the wild animals -which
were described above- our collections describe many cases where the animals
served the Saints in different ways.
Saint Koprios as a
baby was fed by a goat which "grazed with the other goats and when it was
time to ‘breastfeed' the baby, it descended from the mountain and having ‘breastfed'
the child it returned to her usual grazing. The same Saint was ascending the
mountain with a laden donkey which was then wounded by a bear, he then got hold
of the bear, loaded it with the wood and told it "you'll perform the
service of the donkey until it recovers".
In the case of
Saint Makarios the Roman, the lions became the cause to feel his sinfulness:
every day two lions would come to his cell and keep him company. One night he
was tempted by a thought of the flesh and considered it a great sin, because
the lions would not come close to him for ten days.
Well known is also
the case of the lion and Saint Gerasimus the Jordanite, where the beast "was forced to carry water, while in
many depictions it drags the donkey from the bridle (reins) and brings it to
the Saint as a hunt quarry only to be falsely accused that it had killed it.
The care of the
beasts however does not stop in serving a Saint, but continues to the taking
care of the relics, as shown in the case of Saints Philomonas and Apollonius:
Their relics were placed in bags and were cast into the sea where a large
dolphin "took" the bags on its back and brought them to the coast of
Alexandria.
In the life of
Saint Martinus, bishop of Lougdoynoy, there is this happy story that shows the
love of the animals towards the Saints: in the area of Nitria, an ascetic lived
on wild herbs but did not know how to select the good from the poisonous, with
the result that he would suffer with convulsions. This way he stopped eating
for seven days and was on the verge of dying. Then an ibex (type of deer). Approached him and dropped him a bag of
vegetables. The beast with its mouth selected the good from the poisonous
herbs. This way the ascetic taking this as an example of what to eat, he was saved
from death.
The Saints heal
or send away the animals
For this reason,
flooded by the love for God and man, the saints have great reserves of love,
that they pray also for the animals and in fact heal them, either because they
suffer and feel compassion for them, or because they are useful to people while
getting rid of the risks that hurt people.
In Saint Mark the
ascetic a hyena visited him and brought her blind cub and acted as if she
begged the Saint to cure it. The Saint having prayed spat in the eyes of the
cub which was then healed. Few days later the hyena brought him a pelt of a
large ram. The ascetic took it after making sure that the hyena understood she
should not harm the sheep of the poor.
Many times the
healing of the suffering animal was nothing more than from a pathological
organic disease, but an animal could also be tormented by demons as we see in
the Synarxis of Saint Martin of Tourins:
"he met a cow that was tormented by a demon and was goring people
with her horns. When the Saint approached, he lifted his hand and ordered the
animal to stop. He sees the demon sitting on the back of the animal. "Go
unclean from the animal and cease tormenting the innocent animal. When it was
freed, the cow fell at the feet of the saint. He then ordered it to rejoin the
herd, stronger than the sheep.
The animals show
gratitude and contrition to the Saints
The animals which received benefits from the saint - within the framework of communication that develops - express their gratitude with different ways to their benefactor, such that the biographer of Saint Martinus wrote: "for this we sigh that the beasts feel the kindness and the people do not revere it".
Something similar
is also the previous example of the ascetic Mark with the hyena that gave him
the sheepskin as a gift for the care she received and the healing of her cub.
The mourning of the animal for the death of a
saint
The lion that
served Saint Gerasimus the Jordanian in its customary visit to worship the
elder, was informed by the attending
monk of his demise and when it was led there (to the grave) "it roared greatly and then expired".
Another lion helped
the elder Zosimus to bury the relics of holy Mary of Egypt: "Immediately
when the lion was told the required size of trench, it did so (dug it) and then
buried the body".
The animals talk
about God
Between the other
wonderful signs that we find in the collections, noteworthy are those where the
animals appear to be talking with God or the Saint.
Holy Artemon of
Laodecia was followed by two deer and six donkeys. When he was captured, he
told the animals to report it to bishop Sisinius - who was surprised when a
female deer told him of the arrest of Artemon. While the Saint was being
tortured by being skewered over a fire, the deer would lick his burns and then
said to the torturer: "know impious one that two big birds will grab you
and will drop you in the boiler" as it happened. Also at the martyrdom of
Saint Eutyhius the animals would speak.
Similar is the case
of the wild mules which dragged the corpse of Saint martyr Zoticus, the orphan
feeder, to the emperor Constantius. "Even when they were flogged violently
by the torturers, the human voice invokes everybody to their triumph over the king's
atrocities and lack of reason, calling him blind and insensitive".
Others, denying the
historical validity of the Bible, consider such narrations as myths. More
powerful is the explanation of Holy Chrysostom in his 16th speech on Genesis
where he explains the conversation between Eve and the snake, through which it
is apparently applicable to all the other similar stories in both the Old and
New Testaments. "But perhaps someone may wonder and wish to know if the
beast took part in the conversation. May
this not be so, for always following the scripture it is necessary to consider
that while the saying were of the devil... the beast was used as a specific
tool".
According to this explanation by Saint
Chrysostom it is not this animal but God Himself who gives us the message or
the devil, as was with Eve and the snake.
Contemporary
Saints and Elders
Because the lives of the earlier saints may seem somehow distant from the contemporary world, it would have been an oversight not to mention more recent saints and elders of our days:
b) In the
collections of elder Hadzigeorgis, it is said that the elder made the sign of
the cross on the wild boar that was destroying his garden and it remained
motionless. He then took it by the ear and closed it in the stable under a
"rule". Three hours later he freed it telling it that if it stepped
back he would receive a double "rule". So it happened.
c) Saint Arsenius
the Cappadocian never mounted animals because he did not wish to burden them.
d) From the life of
elder Paisius we see that wild birds would approach him and feed from him. When
some enlightened one told him that he believed in some power but not in Christ
the Saint replied, "you are more stupid than the lizard". To the
great surprise of the man, the elder asked the lizard if Christ existed and the
lizard replied by moving its head affirmatively.
Another
characteristic with the elder Paisius that reminds us of the prophet Elijah, is
the following: "On the Sunday of the blind, being sick, exhausted and
hungry he went out to the garden somewhat unhappy because he had nothing to
eat. He looked at the sea and saw a large bird rising to the sky, such as a
hawk or an eagle that held in its talons a large fish. As it arrived over his
cell, it let go of the fish which then dropped in front of his feet. The elder
prayed, cooked it and then ate it".
A pre-fall
picture
As a crowning over
all the wonderful cases in the relations of the Saints with animals, it is
perhaps worth mentioning the description from the "Thebaid of the
North". Someone visited Saint Paul of Obnaras who lived in a remote area
of the Russian forests. When he saw him he became witness to the following:
"A great number of birds surrounded the Saint. The smaller ones even
climbed in his shoulders and head and he would feed them with his hands. Close
to him was a bear that waited to be fed. Foxes, hares and other animals would
mingle without any aggression between them. It was a wonderful picture of the
first created innocent Adam in the garden of Eden.
The protectors
of the animals: Modesto and Mamas
Our Church
expressing her love for the dumb animals made - in view of their specific
miracles- the Saints Modesto and Mama their protectors. "Miracles brighten
all the earth, from disease and danger you save every soul and your visit soon
stops the pernicious infections of the nurslings (=animals).
In the martyrdom of
Saint Mamanta it is mentioned that they threw him to the wild beasts, which
however stood beside him, joyfully wagging their tails. In agiography, the
saint is depicted sometimes riding a lion and other times holding defensively a
little doe.
Apparently, from
other cases, as well as from Saint Tryphon - protector of gardens- we see that
some distinction is made between the wild animals: The saints, even though they
generally love the animals, they send away or kill the damaging ones (birds,
snakes, locusts) when they become the cause of hardship and suffering of man.
The centre of love is God, then man and
then the animals, in a relationship based on whether they benefit or
harm man, who when benefiting glorifies God.
Church's
blessings on the animals
The Church with her blessings on all the creation - it is not possible not to pray for the animals as well - as for all the creation. This is concluded by the different blessings in the Book of Blessings (Efgologion): blessing against the transmission of animal diseases and of drought.
In particular we
see some characteristic excerpts from the blessing of Saint Modesto: "hearken to this supplication and
remove all deadly disease and hurt from the animals (horses, donkeys, mules, sheep, goats, bees
and the rest of the animals) that are useful in the lives of your servants,
pity all the suffering animals [...] their suffering and their grief miserably
they announce [...] that your servants abundantly enjoy [...] being fully self
sufficient and having left over in every good work and glorify You, the
provider of every thing good".
Concerning the
above prayers we can make the following observations: Firstly, the Church prays
-through the saints who composed the prayers- for the good health of the
animals and the increase of the fruit of the earth, so that man be self sufficient
in necessary goods, but this should not be self serving but "so that there
should be left over in all goods" and "glorify" "in
remembrance of this time, for the glory of God". Three are therefore the
reasons for the well being of the animals a) so that man may be adequately
supplied and not suffer, b) to do good
works and c) to glorify the name of God.
Secondly the reason
that animals suffer - as was already said- it could be due to some demonic
activity: "the devil's envy", "protect against all poison and
entrapment" and thirdly what is truly impressive and is the punch line of
the prayer is on the diseases of the cattle: "guard them oh Lord with the
holy angels".
The animals and
the people today
In our contemporary,
western style urban society, man has drifted away from his natural environment,
thus the relationship between man and animal has been disturbed. Phenomena,
such as excessive animal loving - such as adoption, hospitalization,
inheritance and officially burying dead animals- consist in outrageous
transformation of the normal relationship between humans and animals. All this
is evidently the result of loneliness of contemporary man. However, is it
possible that an ethical problem has been created by this precedence of
affection? Towards whom should this love be manifested? Towards man or animals?
Is it possible some extreme forms of animal love ("the animal has
soul") take us way back to animal worship? Dog, bird, crocodile worship
etc of ancient Egypt?
Conclusions
From all that were briefly presented on the relationship of the saints with the animals, we see that before the fall of the first created period, the holiness and grace that covered man flowed from his relationship with the Creator, made the animals feel this grace and live peacefully with man.
After the fall,
when the "according to the image" had darkened and the grace was
removed, the relationship of man with all the creation became disturbed and the
relationship between man and animal became hostile. Despite everything the care
of the Father Creator did not stop, since He cared for them in the Ark (For You
also cared for the animals in the Ark). In the Old Testament we have seen the
saints and the just were protected unharmed by the wild animals (Daniel in the
lion pit, Jonah in the belly of the whale, Prophet Elijah and the crow).
In the New
Testament we have cases of martyrs who were protected from ‘wild beasts, saints
healing wild animals, which not only served them but mourned for the death of
saints. In parallel our Church prays for the animals - not however
independently- but for the welfare of animals for the benefit of man but also
for the glory of God (‘so that You be glorified").
Besides it was
ascertained that the relationship of saints with the animals is not far fetched
and fairy tales, as many believe in our
time but a tangible reality that continues to our days, as is apparent from the
lives of contemporary saints and elders. Even though the answer for the happy
relationship, that mostly could sound strange and unreal in our ears, has been
exposed in many ways within this small reality and judged expedient - as punch
line - to repeat the answer of Abba Paul to the specific question: " They
asked Abba Paul who was catching with his hand horned serpents, scorpions and
snakes. Tell us what did you do to receive this gift? Forgive me fathers. If
someone attains purity, everything submit to him, as for Adam when he was in
Paradise, before he disobeyed the commandment of God".
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