Will Pan-Orthodox Synod take place in 2016? / Part IV: Prognosis
7 October 2015
We live in a historic time when the responsibility of saving the Russian nation from globalization autogenocide is not a matter of a capable politician only, but the responsibility falls on every citizen of Russia! The only effective weapon against the spread of the rule of antichrist is true repentance!
What is true repentance? True repentance means to call a sin a sin; it is a true attitude of self-criticism before God which, however, does not lead to despair or depression but receives in humility and by faith the forgiveness of sins, which is in Christ Jesus. Repentance is associated with the truth. When you pray, realize the truth – the reality of your own death, the reality of sin and the reality of God’s judgment and eternity – glory and happiness in heaven and suffering in hell. True self-criticism before God causes pain, but purifies the soul through repentance. You will not conceal anything. An invisible camera records everything in the human soul very accurately. In the hour of death and on the Day of Judgment, all that is hidden will be brought to light. Not in private but before all mankind. We live in a world of hidden cameras and various eavesdropping devices provided in technology. But there is yet another “technology” – in the spiritual world. To bury your head in the sand like an ostrich is self-murder! No one can escape death, and no one can escape the judgment of God either! It is not enough to know these truths theoretically; wisdom is to be ready every day for death and eternity. Are you ready now? When will you be ready? Tomorrow? And what if you die this night?
The question of repentance is also linked to the question of the meaning and purpose of our life. Why do you live? To eat, drink, work or sleep, to become a slave to lies and sin, to die, be buried and end up in hell? This life is only a short test and it decides our eternity. The purpose of life is to search for and then to receive the revealed Truth, Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and also Life! (cf. Jn 14:6)
What should we repent of in particular?
Mainly of boycotting the Truth, the reality of shortness of time and the reality of death. We have not given the first place to God and the law of God!
How should bishops repent?
They are obliged at this critical time to confess the true faith and to renounce heresies and the spirit of heresy. They were called to repent already in our previous letter, so that, being regarded as representatives of God and Christ, they may show publicly that they really are!
How should priests repent?
To have the strength to testify not only with words but also with their life, they must find time for prayer and the Word of God, namely one and a half to two days a week in fellowship (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11421).
How should monks repent?
They should return to the spirit of their founder! In his monastic rule, St Basil the Great emphasized the essence of religious life on the model of the early Christians in Jerusalem. He stressed that living together in fellowship in small groups is a form of cleansing the soul. In a spiritual struggle against self-deception and sin, a monk must draw strength from personal prayer which unites him to God in the name of Jesus. An example of interior prayer relevant to the present time is prayer models (http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11486, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=models-of-interior-prayer). Nowadays, monastic life is under threat from false spirituality (Buddhism, yoga, Zen, Oriental pseudo mysticism).
How should teachers and students in seminaries repent?
The foundation must first be true conversion. Being representatives of spiritual life, they must have the habit of prayer! The most essential thing for priests and religious people is interior prayer (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=models-of-interior-prayer, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11434, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11421). They should devote two hours daily to interior prayer so as to acquire the habit of prayer, since it is the foundation of spiritual life. Today it is the need of the time that each student of theology should also have personal experience of mission.
Student mission
First of all, it is necessary to carry out mission among students in universities. Converted students must form living cells everywhere. They must become the leaven, the light, the living witnesses of Jesus Christ. But they need guidance and additional formation. They are waiting for converted priests and students of theology.
Converted university students should learn to celebrate Sunday by devoting their time to prayer and God’s Word (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=celebration-of-sunday&paged=2). They should carry out individual mission among their fellow students at universities.
When young people are converted, it is necessary that seminarians or other experienced university students lead them to form many small Christian cells at universities. They shall gather together twice a week and follow a given programme: the apostolic teachings for approximately half an hour, i.e. the interpretation of Holy Scripture in the spirit of the Orthodox tradition, half an hour of prayers and chants – confession of the sins of egoism (5 min), song (5 min), thanksgiving to God, each personally (5 min), song (5 min), prayer of petition (5 min), song (5 min). It shall be followed by half an hour of testimony, the experience of prayer, of life situations and of personal mission. The study of the Word of God should be guided by a seminarian of the 2nd or 3rd year according to a well-tried elementary course (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=bible-courses). It is strongly recommended that students prepare dramatization of the lives of saints according to a script (http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=scripts-for-the-lives-of-the-saints), or a short scene which they can perform in front of a large audience of students as a form of evangelization.
If students stay in the hostel, they can celebrate Sunday according to the given model (http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=celebration-of-sunday&paged=2). If they return home at weekends, they can celebrate Sunday with someone at home (parents, grandmother, siblings, a converted friend) according to this model too. They can share with them the living experience they had during the week in the university Christian cells.
In the 4th year, seminarians should learn to be pastors to lead these beginners and catechumens and to help them solve their problems. Moreover, they should be prophets who guard the purity of faith and discern spirits. Therefore, they should pray much for the mission in their 4th year. The seminarians would carry out mission in the universities of the city where their seminary is and thus gain experience. When they become priests, they should educate the lay evangelists, teachers, prophets and pastors. They themselves will already have the experience of working with students. When, being priests, they bring the Spirit of God to the place where the bishop assigns them and have fellowship with other priests, there will be an awakening in Russia. For instance, school premises can be used for the celebration of Sunday on Sunday afternoon and become a place of prayer and fellowship. Catechumens and beginners should be instructed in the faith and in the law of God, so that after 3-4 years they may actively participate in the Divine Liturgy and receive the sacraments.
The missionary vision gives the study of theology practical application. Seminarians will be eager to know the essential truths and to gain experience so as to be able to give it to the people as food and a life programme. Above all, it is necessary that they are instructed on orthodox doctrine and on the danger of contemporary heresies, such as so-called ecumenism, various forms of occultism, superstitions or magic. They must be true apologists. Seminaries today are penetrated by heresies from the West. The first to accept them are the seminarians inclined to intellectual careerism. Such must be warned in time and if they disobey, they must be expelled from the seminary!
The Orthodox Church must be conscious of her true identity, i.e. of the truths of faith which have been preached in Russia continually throughout 1,000 years. True Christian spirituality is represented by thousands of martyrs and saints who are an example to us of life struggle with sin, heresies and the cunning of evil. What the so-called 2016 Synod plans is suicide of orthodoxy and suicide of the Russian nation.
Be a disciple of Christ!
Jesus said: “Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Lk 14:33) The community of the early Christians in Jerusalem “were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common” (Acts 4:32).
The relation to things, people and ourselves can be illustrated with a short paraphrase of the parable of a precious pearl from the Gospel: A salesman with pearls comes to a very rich man and offers him a pearl of great price. The purchaser likes the pearl very much and wants to have it at any price. He asks: “How much is it?” The merchant says: “All that you have.” – “Well, I give you all the money I have. Give me the pearl.” – “You have not given everything yet. What about your house? The house also.” – “What, am I to live in the garage?” – “You have a garage?” – “Yes, and two cars.” – “Well, the garage and the cars also!” – “Good, and now give me the pearl!” – “You have not given everything.” – “How do you mean? I have given all that I have!” – “Do you live alone?” – “No, I have a wife and children.” – “So your wife and children also.” – “Now give me the pearl, please!” – “But you have not given everything.” – “I have nothing more, I am a beggar now.” – “You still have something. Are you healthy? Your health also.” – “So now give me the pearl.” – “You have not given everything.” – “I have nothing more.” – “You still have something, your own will. You must give it too.” – “I give my will too, give me the pearl!” – “The pearl is yours!”
The most precious Pearl is Jesus Christ. In Him we have everything; all heaven is ours because it belongs to Christ. If you have now received Jesus as your Lord, given Him the first place and given Him all that you have – He gives you all back. Your health, your house, wife and children, and all your possessions. But realize one thing: it is no longer yours but it now belongs to Christ. You are not the owner any more but only a tenant – a steward. The time will come when God will call your wife, you will lose your health, grow old and then you will die and lose everything. However, if you have this Pearl, Jesus, in Him you have everything. He overcame death; in Him you have eternal life!
This is the essence of a true attitude towards Christ, towards yourself, towards people and things. Let us be aware of it every day! My Lord is Jesus and not my ego, mammon, fear, passion or alcohol any more.
The Apostle Paul says: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil 1:21) Without the life of prayer, a Christian cannot launch out into the deep. We must be mindful of the reality of death. Jesus says: “Be ready, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Mt 25:13) People grow old or ill, or they are even at death’s door, and yet they do not think seriously about death. This is incomprehensible blindness, which is caused by sin – the focus of lies and evil in us.
Fellowship
The present time calls priests to lead a semi-monastic way of life (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11434, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11421). Priests must spend at least one and a half day or two days a week together in solitude, outside their families. They shall devote this time to prayer, the apostles’ teaching (Scripture and Tradition), and fellowship. They shall deal together with serious problems both of their families and of the flock entrusted to their care, and realize the responsibility for the entire nation. They shall learn to be the head – that means to solve problems, seeking the solution together before God. This community of priests shall become a spiritual family as well as a model for all Christians of the celebration of Sunday in prayer and fellowship. Then spiritual gifts can be manifested as ministries. Without this living community, spiritual gifts and ministries, which are listed in Eph 4:11-14, i.e. “evangelists, teachers, prophets, pastors and apostles”, cannot work. The Apostle emphasizes that these gifts are necessary “for the edifying of the Church – the Body of Christ”. “Then we will no longer be carried about with every wind of deceitful doctrine.” (cf. v.14) The priests will be formed here; otherwise without fellowship they will be deformed by the pressure of the world, lies and heresies.
Celebration of Sunday (http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11421)
And exactly what priests experience in spiritual solitude in common prayers, they should then teach their believers. They should lead them to personal prayer and especially on Sundays, to experience the mystery of Christ’s resurrection and the mystery of Pentecost and to realize the necessity of fellowship. These communities will form orthodox men who will then be able to take office in the political sphere, in culture, arts, mass media, education, medicine… They will be men filled with God’s Spirit who will distinguish between good and evil and not “serve the idol of mammon” (cf. Mt 6:24).
Muslims gather in their mosques. They discuss political issues, and especially the question of how to dispose of Christianity and how to enforce the rule of Islam in Christian nations. Therefore, we should use fellowship and the celebration of Sunday to promote the rule of Christianity in the territory which was devastated by atheism and now is being devastated by the neopaganism of American globalism.
A tithe of time to God
It is 2 hours and 24 minutes a day. A disciple of Christ should spend one hour praying alone, speaking to God. The second hour he should pray with his family, preferably the holy hour from 20 to 21:00. During the day he should stop 4 times, as it was the tradition in the time of Jesus: namely, at 9:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00, and apart from it in the morning when he gets up, in the evening when he goes to bed, and also at the end of the holy hour at 21:00 when priests give a blessing. Thus, a total of seven stops per day (see Psalm 118:164, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=4952).
A special task is for women at retirement age, among whom are widows too (cf. 1Tim 5:5). They should devote time especially to prayer for mission (see http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?category_name=models-of-interior-prayer, http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?p=11486), i.e. support mission with prayer. Therefore it is necessary to reduce the television, radio and internet to the minimum. It is modern-day fasting or abstinence from mass media. In addition, the older women should teach the young ones in a community of women “to bring up their children and to obey their husbands” (see Tit 2:3b-5). Men pensioners should also devote time to prayer, reading Scripture and the lives of saints, that they may embrace the spirit of true Christianity and repent of the period of their life when they lived a lukewarm Christian life or in total godlessness. They should also participate in fellowship with other men.
This is the perspective for the spiritual resurrection of Russia. What to do? To adopt the key programme in the seminary. Priests should even now establish prayer communities, and then they will be able, especially professors at theological faculties, to encourage their students in a life of prayer and fellowship. This is a spiritual revolution without which the Church in Russia will be paralyzed and slowly die out, and the Russian nation will lose its identity and its deep Christian roots.
God now confronts the Russian people with His words: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deut 30:19) Therefore, it is important to realize that the wolfish Synod of 2016 brings death and cursing, while true repentance and revival brings life to the Church and the nation as well as to the future generations. God says to you today: “Choose life!”
+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Patriarchate
+ Methodius OSBMr + Timothy OSBMr
Secretary Bishops
http://vkpatriarhat.org/en/?page_id=9564
Copies to: Presidents and governments of individual states with Orthodox religion
Download: Will Pan-Orthodox Synod take place in 2016? / Part IV: Prognosis (7/10/2015)
