'Welcome deare feast of Lent'

The ever-tasteful Kevin Edgecomb recently posted a piece by the English clergyman and Christian poet, George Herbert (1593-1633). I, for my part, duly approved and noted to myself that I ought to follow suit. So here it is, and appropriate to the season as well (I have copied this version from here, since my own edition of Herbert, the Everyman’s Library, is sadly in modernised spelling—The Complete English Works, ed. Ann Pasternak Slater [NY: Knopf, 1995]):

Lent

Welcome deare feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
But is compos’d of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev’ry Corporation.

The humble soul compos’d of love and fear
Begins at home, and layes the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He sayes, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandall to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
And Power it self disable.

Besides the cleannesse of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulnesse there are sluttish fumes,
Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
Revenging the delight.

Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodnesse of the deed.
Neither ought other mens abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.

It’s true, we cannot reach Christ’s fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev’n as he.
In both let’s do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

Interestingly, there is a book on Herbert by the late (I believe) Mother Thekla of the former Dormition Monastery in Yorkshire called George Herbert: Idea and Image (Buckinghamshire, UK: Greek Orthodox Monastery of the Assumption, 1974). Unfortunately, I have not read it and have yet to actually see a copy, but there is a detailed description of it in John R. Roberts’s George Herbert: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern Criticism, 1905-1974 (Columbia, MO: U of Missouri, 1978), pp. 261-2. Here is the beginning of Roberts’s description:

Detailed discussion of the theological and spiritual dimensions of Herbert’s poetry. Sees a double, simultaneous movement in The Temple and suggests that, although on one level The Temple can be seen as an exposition of Anglican theology and dogma in verse, on another level it is a record of Herbert’s own mystical thinking: ‘It is this double movement which I have tried to lean towards in my exploration of The Temple, that is, the reality of Herbert’s allegiance to his Church, the Church of England, on earth, with all the consequences, and, then, the reality of the love which can not be contained in the Church on earth, or indeed within the confines of the created world’ (p. 14). (Roberts, p. 261)

Fr Ephrem (Lash) told me the sad story of Mother Thekla’s monastery and its eventual demise over drinks at the Mitre, though I’m a bit fuzzy on the details now. But one can get some idea of where things were headed in this fascinating article from The Guardian. Mother Hilda sums up an important problem:

She believes that one of the reasons fewer women choose to enrol is a growing inability to sustain an ‘inner life’. ‘We have been robbed of our inner resources; elevator music is all around,’ she says. ‘All the silences are covered. These days it is considered cruel to have a quiet classroom for children.’

Is there too much instant gratification? She nods vigorously. She says that the women who came to the monastery but did not stay, did not ‘know what to do sitting in a room by themselves’.

May we use this Lenten season to 'uncover the silences' and figure out 'what to do sitting in a room by ourselves'.

The painting at the top is ‘George Herbert at Bemberton’ (1851) by William Bryce.

'The Lady Schoolmistress of Athens'—St Philothei the Venerable Martyr

On this day, 19 February, we celebrate the memory of St Philothei (sometimes ‘Philothea’) of Athens (1522-1589), the Ὁσιομάρτυς, or ‘Monastic Martyress’, although it appears she is not officially so named in the Services. According to the Life printed in The Lives of the Spiritual Mothers: An Orthodox Materikon of Women Monastics and Ascetics Throughout the Year, According to the Church Calendar, trans. and comp. Holy Apostles Convent (Buena Vista, CO: Holy Apostles Convent, 1993), p. 87, her status as a martyr was not mentioned at her glorification (in Constantinople c. 1600) due to fear that the Turks would inflict their wrath on the many monasteries and hospitals she founded.

St Philothei was born as an answer to prayer to Angelos and Syriga Benizelos, a well-to-do and pious Athenian family, and given the name ‘Revoula’. According to her Life, ‘As a God-given child, the blessed Revoula foreshadowed all those virtues and godly accomplishments she was to attain later’ (p. 74). But while the Saint thus wished ‘to preserve her virginity and to live an austere life’ (p. 75), out of obedience to her parents she agreed at the age of twelve to be married to a certain nobleman. Unfortunately, the latter proved to be terribly abusive, and though the young girl ‘admonished and censured him’ and prayed fervently that God would change him, all was in vain. ‘Indeed, three years passed with many tribulations and sufferings until God, seeing her patience and his incorrigibility, reaped him with the scythe of death’ (p. 75).

As she was still only 15, the parents of the young widow wanted her to marry again, but St Philothei resisted more strongly this time and ‘remained at home, offering incessant prayers, as a sacrifice of praise, to God’ (p. 75). After ten years, her parents fell asleep in the Lord, and straightaway, ‘With humility, she began to lead a much more austere life, striving with abstinence, vigilance and prayer, like an industrious bee gathering the honey of virtue’ (pp. 75-6). According to Photios Kontoglou, she also ‘catechised her housemaids and made them receptacles of the Spirit’ (‘Ἡ Πολιοῦχος τῶν Ἀθηνῶν Ἁγία Φιλοθέη’).

Soon, our holy Mother had a vision of St Andrew the First-called, commanding her to build a convent dedicated to him. St Philothei used her wealth and lands to build not only a central convent in Athens, but also dependencies in outlying areas and even the islands. When the initial building was complete, she was tonsured into the Schema and received the name ‘Philothei’, or ‘friend of God’. According to her Life:

Immediately, thereafter, Mother Philothei abandoned all the perishable things of the world and eagerly entered the stadium of asceticism. She took in her company all of the maidservants of her father’s house. . . . In addition to them, many other wealthy and noble virgins forsook all the temporal and perishable things of this life. (p. 77)

While St Philothei, of course, was not deficient in the usual monastic virtues, such as vigils and continence (Life, p. 83), and even built a convent with greater solitude at Patesia where at times ‘she would struggle alone in a nearby cave’ (Life, p. 84), she is primarily remembered for her abundant philanthropy. She built hospitals for the sick, homes for the elderly, schools for children, the Saint herself ‘providing Christian training by teaching everyone ecclesiastical letters and liturgical knowledge’ (qtd. in Life, pp. 78-9). According to Kontoglou, she was known as κύρα δασκάλα, ‘lady schoolmistress’ (the caption of the icon above reads ‘St Philothei, Teacher of the Greek Girls’). She took in women who were beaten by their husbands, abducted by the Turks, or pressured to convert to Islam, even enduring imprisonment and the threat of death for protecting some women who had been enslaved by the cruel Turks. As her biographer writes:

Who could listen to Philothei’s salutary words and not perceive the meekness of hier spirit and all her other virtues, and not be attracted to her? Who could possibly praise her worthily for the sympathy, philanthropy, and daily concern that she manifested towards the needy and the sick? She followed St Paul, who said, ‘Who is weak, and I am not weak?’ (2 Cor. 11:29). The infirmaries and hostels that she built, not too far from the convent, were a reflection of her compassionate soul.

Naturally, St Philothei was also granted the grace of performing miracles. Her biographer records, for example, that she healed a young shepherd who had become demonised—‘Through long and ardent prayer, she released him from the demonic scourge. After properly admonishing him, she tonsured him a monk. He then lived the remainder of his life in penitence, to the amazement of all’ (p. 83).

The Turks, however, could not long tolerate her activities on behalf of her Christian sisters. On the feast of St Dionysius the Areopagite (her fellow patron of Athens), during the all-night vigil at the monastery at Patesia, a gang of Turks seized our holy Mother and beat her quite nearly to death. St Philothei of course rejoiced that, according to Kontoglou, ‘she was made worthy to be paid with evil for the good things she had done to men and to resemble Christ in this way, according to the words of the Apostle Peter who says: “rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings” (I Pet. 4:13)’.

Although the sisters tried to treat her wounds and carried their eldress to a safer monastery, St Philothei never recovered from this beating. As Kontoglou writes, ‘On the 19th of February, 1589, she gave her pure soul over to the Lord, who endured such torments for love of Him.’ Her incorrupt relics were eventually placed in the cathedral of Athens, where they remain to this day, bringing grace to the city of which St Philothei is an acknowledged protectress. One Greek biography concludes:

Abbess Philothei (Venizelos), saint and martyr of Christ, was also a handmaid of the nation’s dignity and of the city that gave her birth, Athens. Having united her efforts, that is, of leading a saintly life with education and preservation of her heritage, her memory assumes a double meaning for that celebrated, violet-crowned city. (qtd. in Life, p. 85)

On her sepulchre is engraved these lines (followed by my poor attempt at a translation):

Φιλοθέης ὑπὸ σῆμα τόδ᾿ ἁγνῆς κεύθει σῶμα,
ψυχὴν δ᾿ ἐν μακάρων θήκετο Ὑψιμέδων.

The body of pure Philothei is hidden under this marker,
But her soul is kept among the blest, ruling on High.

St Philothei is also my own sister’s patron Saint, and I will never forget the great blessing of taking her myself to the cathedral to venerate the relics of her Saint. I wish her many years on this day, as well as safe travels!

Dismissal Hymn of the Righteous One

Plagal of the First Tone. Let us worship the Word

The famed city of Athens doth honour Philothei, the righteous Martyr, whose relics it now revereth with joy; for while living in sobriety and holiness, she hath exchanged all earthly things for the everlasting life through great contests as a Martyr; and she entreateth the Saviour to grant His mercy unto all of us.

'The Powerful Roar of a Lion Sounding from Rome'—St Leo the Great, Pope of Rome

Today, 18 February on the Church’s calendar, we commemorate St Leo the Great (400-461), Pope of Rome. In the Preface to his De Incarnatione Domini contra Nestorium, St John Cassian addresses St Leo as Mi Leo, veneranda ac suscipienda caritas mea, Romanæ ecclesiæ ac divini ministerii decus (‘my dear Leo, my esteemed and highly regarded friend, ornament that you are of the Roman Church and sacred ministry’). St Nicholas (Velimirović) relates his defense of Rome against Attila the Hun (The Prologue from Ochrid, Part I: January, February, March, trans. Mr Maria [Birmingham: Lazarica, 1985], p. 185):

When Attila drew near to Rome with his Huns and prepared to ravage and burn the city, Leo went out to him in his episcopal vestments, tamed the wrath of the Hun leader and averted the fall of Rome. Attila was willing to be guided by Leo both because of his holiness and because of a vision he had of the Apostles Peter and Paul, standing behind Leo and threatening Attila with a flaming sword.

Of course, St Leo is primarily known for his zealous opposition to heresy, culminating in the writing of his famous Tome (said to have been placed on St Peter’s tomb and corrected by the Apostle—Prologue, p. 185), which formed the standard for Orthodoxy at the Œcumenical Council of Chalcedon. According to Jaroslav Pelikan (The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), Vol. 2 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine [Chicago: U of Chicago, 1974], pp. 148-9):

The fathers assembled at the council exclaimed: ‘Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo!’ In the period with which we are dealing in this volume, East and West agreed that Leo had indeed been the spokesman for Peter and for the Holy Spirit at Chalcedon. ‘The divinely given and divinely inspired epistle of the great and brilliant and divinely minded Leo, of the most holy church of the Romans’ was, according to Sophronius of Jerusalem, sacred and worthy of honor as a ‘producer of orthodoxy’. The Council of Constantinople of 681 declared that ‘the letter of Leo [the Tome to Flavian], like the powerful [ῥωμαλέον] roar of a lion sounding from Rome’, had frightened away the hunters.

St Leo is renowned for his Lenten homilies—which we have already had occasion to mention (here and here)—and so it is particularly appropriate that his feast has fallen today this year, the second day of Great Lent. Here, for instance, is Chapt. VI from St Leo’s Fourth Homily, ‘On Lent’:

Being therefore, dearly-beloved, fully instructed by these admonitions of ours, which we have often repeated in your ears in protest against abominable error, enter upon the holy days of Lent with Godly devoutness, and prepare yourselves to win God’s mercy by your own works of mercy. Quench your anger, wipe out enmities, cherish unity, and vie with one another in the offices of true humility. Rule your slaves and those who are put under you with fairness, let none of them be tortured by imprisonment or chains. Forego vengeance, forgive offences: exchange severity for gentleness, indignation for meekness, discord for peace. Let all men find us self-restrained, peaceable, kind: that our fastings may be acceptable to God. For in a word to Him we offer the sacrifice of true abstinence and true Godliness, when we keep ourselves from all evil: the Almighty God helping us through all, to Whom with the Son and Holy Spirit belongs one Godhead and one Majesty, for ever and ever. Amen.

Finally, I shall close with the Kontakion for St Leo, taken from the Holy Transfiguration Monastery Great Horologion (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, ), pp. 424-5:

Kontakion. Third Tone
On this day the Virgin

Seated on the priestly throne, O great and glorious Leo, with the Holy Trinity’s inspired and God-given doctrines thou didst stop the gaping mouths of spiritual lions and didst shine upon thy flock the light of God-knowledge, and art glorified now as a divine initiate of the sublime grace of God.

Lent in St Benedict's Rule, Almsgiving, & Us

I have already discussed Chapter 49 of St Benedict’s Rule in an earlier post on this blog, but as today is the first day of Lent, I thought it worth revisiting. Also, in my previous post, I only quoted the opening sentence of the chapter in question, but here I shall reproduce the entire chapter, and in another installment, a portion of Chap. 48 that also pertains to Lent. Also, we shall perhaps see what a certain infallible commentator has to say about these teachings of the great abbot. But first, RB 49 (with one minor lexical change, from The Rule of St Benedict in English and Latin, trans. and ed. Abbot Justin McCann, OSB [Fort Collins, CO: Roman Catholic, n.d.], p. 115; I have also added the traditional ‘verse’ numberings for ease of reference):

1 The life of a monk ought at all times to be lenten in its character; 2 but since few have the strength for that, we therefore urge that in these days of Lent the brethren should lead lives of great purity, 3 and should also in this sacred season expiate the negligences of other times. 4 This will be worthily done if we refrain from all sin and apply ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart, and to abstinence. 5 In these days, therefore, let us add something beyond the wonted measure of our service, such as private prayers and abstinence in food and drink. 6 Let each one, over and above the measure prescribed for him, offer God something of his own free will in the joy of the Holy Spirit. 7 That is to say, let him stint himself of food, drink, sleep, talk, and jesting, and look forward with the joy of spiritual longing to the holy feast of Pascha. 8 Let each one, however, tell his abbot what he is offering, and let it be done with his consent and blessing; 9 because what is done without the permission of the spiritual father shall be ascribed to presumption and vainglory and not reckoned meritorious. 10 Everything, therefore, is to be done with the approval of the abbot.

Now, I have already pointed out some of the observations of the infallible Adlabert de Vogüé concerning this passage. To summarise, while he takes as a given the priority of the Rule of the Master to that of St Benedict, and is apt to discuss the latter in terms of its additions to and subtractions from the former, in this chapter he also considers St Benedict quite indebted to St Leo the Great (whose feast we’ll celebrate tomorrow). But it is where St Benedict follows the Master rather than St Leo that our infallible commentator’s observations become most pertinent to my present purposes (sorry for the triple alliteration!). De Vogüé notes that when St Benedict speaks of the spiritual activities appropriate to Lent (in 4, 5, and 7), he emphasises prayer and abstinence, as does the Master, but omits almsgiving, which is among the more important of the ‘good works’ mentioned by St Leo in his homilies to the faithful of Rome. That St Benedict does this is not the least bit surprising, however, since ‘this latter is not possible for monks as individuals’ (Adlabert de Vogüé, Reading St Benedict: Reflections on the Rule, trans. Colette Friedlander, OCSO [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1994], p. 244).

The point of this is that if we are trying to apply St Benedict’s Rule to our lives, going back to his sources can be an excellent supplement to what we get in St Benedict himself. At least for me, as a layman, and probably the majority of my readers, we have here a useful reminder that the account of Lenten observances St Benedict gives is tailored specifically to monks, and we must remember that for us laymen Lent mustn’t be only about reading, prayer, and worship, but about active love for our neighbour. As St Leo tells us in his 39th Sermon, ‘On Lent, I’ (XXXIX.vi), ‘Let us not pass over the groans of the poor with deaf ear, but with prompt kindness bestow our mercy on the needy, that we may deserve to find mercy in the judgment.’

Obviously, St Benedict too acknowledges the importance of our Lord’s command to love one’s neighbour, since it is the second of the ‘tools of good works’ that he lists in RB 4.2 (McCann, p. 27). There is certainly a sense in which monks are not exempt from St Leo’s exhortations. But they are more limited materially than we in what they are able to do. How does one give alms when one has no money? I was recently reminded that monasteries as a community are extremely generous in their willingness to assist the needy, but this can hardly be applied to the individual monk as personal spiritual advice. Rather, we must here turn to the area where the monk's abilities actually exceed our own. As Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili has written (The Monastic Life: A Most Beneficial Dialogue Between an Orthodox Monk and a Contemporary Theologian, trans. Bishop Chrysostomos and Hieromonk Auxentios [Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1988], p. 26):

The monk’s demonstration of love toward his neighbor is the prayer that he offers for his neighbor. If you wish me to be more explicit, pure and unadulterated love is encountered at the time of prayer, when the believer, hidden in the treasury of his heart—far away from all display and vainglory—, prays secretly and fervently for his fellow-man, weeping and lamenting. This is real love, the love which a monk is required to seek throughout his life.

This said, I did want to speak briefly too about the other activity mentioned in RB 49.4 in addition to prayer and abstinence: reading. This may have to wait a day or two however. Let us ponder on St Leo’s call to Lenten almsgiving, made through St Benedict by his silence in the subject!

By the way, for those interested in St Benedict's prescriptions for Lent, I recommend the letter attributed to St Scholastica, which I found and posted here.

'The Simple Shepherd'—St Nicholas Planas

Today, 17 February on the Church’s calendar, we commemorate St Nicholas Planas, the simple priest of Athens who served the Divine Liturgy daily for 50 years. Although his parish began with only eight families, he inspired and attracted others to him with his childlike simplicity and faith and his zeal for the liturgical cycle of the Church, for as the publisher, Alexander Papademetriou, has written, ‘sanctity has never ceased to attract, to captivate, and to guide the Church’s faithful children in Her true path’ (‘Prologue of the Publishers of the Greek Edition’, Papa-Nicholas Planas (1851-1932): The Simple Shepherd of the Simple Sheep, by Nun Martha, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery [Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1981], p. xix). Indeed, in the case of St Nicholas, Papademetriou continues on the same page:

It can be said that, in our cold and ungrateful times, the service-loving synodia of vigil-keepers of Papa-Nicholas Planas—from Alexander Papadiamantis, Alexander Moraitides, and Father Philotheos Zervakos, to the women, who though little-educated, were yet pious and zealously dedicated to the traditions of the Church—were by the good will and blessing of God, a continuation of the Kollyvades.

In his ‘Foreword’ to the book, the ever-memorable Photios Kontoglou also refers to the beautiful relationship between St Nicholas and this synodia (p. xxviii):

He considered his synodia as his children, the sons and daughters of Christ, a blessed fellowship which had in its midst the innocent Elder as guide—the good shepherd, who guided his flock to the good and refreshing pastures of the Orthodox Faith. The entire care and concern of the Elder was the salvation of the flock. He felt pain for them, since he was not the hireling who abandons the flock and leaves (cf. John 10:13).

Anyway, I thought that rather than trying to give an overview of St Nicholas’s life, which would be rather an imposition upon the material in this book by Sr Martha, I would simply give my own favourite episode, which is number 42, ‘The tamed beast’, on p. 48:

At the family’s where Father often went, their space inside the courtyard had been rented by a certain cobbler who was a mainstay of the Communist party. The hatred which he felt toward all, and especially toward priests, knew no bounds. There, while he worked, he would talk to himself, raving about where his comrades would begin slaughtering the priests. And he would say, ‘First of all, we’ll slaughter the priests of the Life-giving Spring.’ And he would go on dealing in turn with the others also. As I said, he worked inside the court. Father, in his kindness went up to him and said, ‘Good evening, my child.’ Without lifting his head from his work, he mumbled something.

The next Saturday Father went again, ‘Good evening, my Luke.’ He answered, ‘Good evening,’ again without lifting his head.

On the third visit, Father said to him again, ‘Good evening, my Luke; how are you doing, my child?’ He deigned to say, ‘Well, Father.’

Father would visit him continuously there where he worked, until the ice was broken. He got up from his work, he kisssed his hand with reverence, and he told us, ‘When they kill the priests, I will tell them not to kill Papa-Nicholas. And not only will I say it, but I will defend him.’ Afterwards, whenever Father used to come, he would hasten to meet him and kiss his hand. Father neither knew his inclinations, nor did he have any conception of communism, nor did he notice his transformation—we supposed. Who knows how he saw with the clairvoyance of his soul? Well, no matter how many sermons that Communist might have heard, no matter how many admonitions they might have given him, none of these would have been able to have any influence on his hardened soul as the goodness of this white-haired little old man, who used to pay him a standing visit each time—indifferent as to whether he had been scorned at the beginning. With Father’s little greetings and good wishes he repented. And when a short time afterwards he fell ill from a disease (paralysis of the lower extremities of his legs) and died at the age of thirty years, he reposed as a good Christian and . . . without having killed anyone. Such was the influence that the personality of Father had on all who knew him. Because of this, he had no one as his enemy. Only Satan, but even him he would bring to nought with the grace of the Holy Spirit, who had come to dwell in his soul.

There was a good article on St Nicholas in Orthodox America; it is available here. But one really ought to read Sr Martha's book, for as Kontoglou writes, 'this book also is restful and peaceful, because it was written by a soul who, though simple, yet is full of that humble wisdom which is granted by God to those who love Him above all things' (p. xxii).

A Book On the Trivium

I’m not sure how many are aware of a wonderful book about the Trivium: Sister Miriam Joseph, CSC, The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric (Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2002). It is essentially a textbook on the fundamentals of the three classical ‘liberal arts’ that once formed the bedrock of education throughout the Western world (Dorothy Sayers has written a rousing call for returning to these fundamentals in her well-known essay, ‘The Lost Tools of Learning’). Here is a back-cover blurb from Eva Brann of St John’s College:

Lovers of language who want to articulate its necessities and possibilities for themselves, teachers who want to explain its ways to their students, students who like the comfort of decisive clarity—all these will find this book a good companion, for Sr Miriam Joseph arouses our critical abilities by offering us
her firm but friendly learning.

Her teaching is traditional. She fits language into the liberal arts, sets out the classical elements of grammar, explains Aristotelian logic, and gives solid advice on good writing, fleshing it all out with revealing examples.

On the front cover, Brann proclaims, ‘Whoever owns this book owns a treasure.’ This is true both in the sense that it represents something precious and in the sense that it is full of many individually precious things.

Aside from the wealth of information it contains, however, one of my favourite things about the book is the fact that it’s easy to forget that one is reading a contemporary author, and to begin to think one is reading Aquinas. Here for instance is Sr Miriam Joseph’s explication of the function of language:

The function of language is threefold: to communicate thought, volition, and emotion. . . .

Only humans can utter sounds which unite in a sentence to express thought because humans alone among animals have the power to think. Consequently, they alone have language in the proper sense of the word.…Pure spirits, such as angels, communicate thought, but their communication is not properly called language because it does not employ a physical medium. (p. 12)

The passing reference to angels in this context is pure gold to me! Anyway, I have only begun to make my way through this myself, but I feel like I’m on sure ground in recommending it thus prematurely.

'Enlightening As Many People As Possible From All Nations'—St Macarius, Metropolitan of the Altai

Today, 16 February on the Church’s calendar, we commemorate St Macarius (1835-1926), Metropolitan of Moscow and Apostle of the Altai (a region lying at the juncture of Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, and an eponymous people who speak a group of dialects generally deemed Turkic). Today’s Saint was in fact the second St Macarius to serve as a missionary to the Altai, having joined the Altay Holy Mission some years after the repose of the original St Macarius, Apostle of the Altai (an archimandrite who lived from 1792 to 1847). Concerning his predecessor, Fr Florovsky has written, ‘The Altaic mission under his guidance is one of the most heroic and saintly episodes in our history’ (Fr Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Part I, trans. Robert L. Nichols [Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1979], p. 225). Both St Macariuses were apparently glorified at the massive glorification of the Imperial Martyrs and the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Moscow on 7/20 August 2000 (‘We Are Once Again a People: The Consecration of Christ the Saviour Cathedral and the Glorification of the Royal Family and New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia’, Road to Emmaus Vol. 1, No. 3 [3], p. 56).

Unfortunately, while there are a few good accounts of our St Macarius in Russian (see here and here for example), there seems to be very little information on him in English. Actually, as the Wikipedia article seems to be the only source one can find late on a Saturday night, I give it in full and without shame:

Macarius II (Russian: Макарий) (October 1, 1835, Vladimir guberniya - March 2, 1926, Moscow guberniya) was the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna from 1912 to 1917, an outstanding missionary and enlightener of the masses in the Altai region (people used to call him the ‘Siberian pillar of Orthodoxy’ and ‘Apostle of the Altai’).

Born to a family of a sexton, Macarius graduated from a theological seminary in Tobolsk (1854) and joined the Altai Holy Mission, which had been set up by the Holy Synod with the purpose of converting the people of the Altay region to Christianity.

In 1861, Macarius took monastic vows and was ordained a hieromonk (monastic priest). From 1861 to 1864, he was busy restoring the Chulyshmansky Monastery to a normal state. In 1868-1869, Macarius lived in Kazan and worked on the grammar of the Altai language, publishing a number of divine service books in this language. In 1883, he was appointed head of the Altai Holy Mission and raised to the dignity of archmandrite, and then consecrated as Bishop of Biysk and vicar of the Tomsk eparchy. In 1891, Macarius was named Bishop of Tomsk and Semipalatinsk. In 1905, he became the Bishop of Tomsk and Barnaul (later, archbishop). In 1908, Macarius was appointed Archbishop of Tomsk and Altay.

In 1912, he was summoned to Moscow by the Holy Synod and elected Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, also becoming thereby a member of the Holy Governing Synod. In 1913, Macarius became an honorable member of the St Petersburg Theological Academy. On March 20 of 1917, he retired from his post and was sent to Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery. Three years later, Metropolitan Tikhon bestowed upon Macarius the honorable lifelong title of Metropolitan of the Altai. Macarius died in 1926.

In 1956, Macarius' remains (still incorrupt, some say) were transferred to Sergiyev Posad and placed under the Dormition Cathedral of the Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra.

I admit that St Macarius was new to me. I was not surprised finally to read of him, for I knew that there must have been thousands of Russians working in a similar capacity in the 19th century, both catechising and baptising indigenous peoples as well as producing high quality translations into their languages. But I was glad to discover a little bit about one of them.

While there is next to nothing in English about this St Macarius himself, there is an interesting record of the Altaic mission in the generation preceeding that of St Macarius: J.M. Neale’s Voices from the East: Documents On the Present State and Working of the Oriental Church (available here). Here is an interesting excerpt from Archpriest Landyscheff, at one time the director of the mission:

The heathens appear, at the commencement of efforts for their conversion, incapable (from their wretched intellectual development) of understanding the simplest words and the clearest truths of religion. After the enunciation of some maxim, when questioned regarding it, they reply only by a grunt. Patient and gradual teaching before Baptism wakes them by degrees from this mental stupor, developes and enlightens their intellect, the activity of which till then had been paralyzed. Then only, according to the measure of their natural capacity, they begin to seize the truths of the Gospel and the lessons of Christian morality.

After Baptism, the first impression which they feel, as they constantly assert, and as indeed the missionaries perceive, is the calm of conscience. They often say that, in their pagan condition, notwithstanding their barbarism, they were conscious of a sensation of shame whenever a Russian assisted at the ceremonies of their superstition or at an idol feast. As soon as they have received Baptism, they feel that they are on solid ground. Penetrated with the superiority of the belief which they have embraced, delivered from the terrible fear of the demons, who, according to their former idea, rejoiced in their misery here and hereafter, freed from the shameful obligation of a gross rite, the converts are filled with deep calm.

All of this can be seen as yet another manifestation of the Orthodox missionary spirit. It is something to which St John (Maximovich) the Wonderworker, among others alluding specifically to the elder St Macarius of the Altai, gave voice in his address at his consecration as Bishop of Shanghai (taken from here):

For this reason we must above all preserve among ourselves oneness of mind and unity, presenting a unified Russian Church, and at the same time continue her vital work among other peoples. From the very first centuries of Russia's acceptance of Christianity, she sent forth missionaries to distant parts. First to shine forth were the righteous Kuksha and Leonty of Rostov, afterwards Stephen of Perm, Innocent of Irkutsk, and in our time Macarius—Apostle to the Altai, and Nicholas of Japan. Now the scattered Russian people have come to spread the Faith in all corners of the world. The task of the Russian Church Outside Russia is to occupy herself with the work of enlightening as many people as possible from all nations. It is for this purpose that the Synod of Russian Hierarchs Outside Russia is sending me to a country from which rises the material sun, but which is in need of the illuminating rays of the spiritual Sun of Righteousness.