Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh CHRISTMAS 7 January 1989

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

In one of the texts of the Holy Scriptures we are told that the world

had waxed old, had decayed in the course of centuries since man had

lost touch with God, since communion between God and man had

become dimmed. And Saint Paul says that the whole creation is waiting

with longing for the revelation of the children of God, for the moment

when man will have become Man again in the fullness, in all the beauty

of the glory of his vocation.

And on the day when we remember the Nativity of Christ, the

Incarnation of the Son of God, we can see that the beginning of a new

time has come, that this world that had gone old because God was, as it

were, far away from it - great, awe-inspiring but distant, had come to an

end. GOD IS IN OUR MIDST: this is the meaning of the word

Emmanuel; God with us - and the world is no longer the same. We live in a world into which God has come, in which He is the living power,

the inspiration, Life itself, Eternity itself already come. And this is why

Saint John the Divine in the Book of the Revelation, speaking of Christ

as the End, uses in Greek not the neuter which would be right, but the

masculine: because The End is not a moment in time, the End is not something that happens, but Someone that comes.

Yes, we are waiting for the day when God will come in glory, when

all history will be up, when all things will be summed up, when God

shall be all in all; but already now God is in our midst; already now we

have a vision of what man is by vocation and can be by participation.

But this is an offer; God gives His love, God gives Himself - not only in

the Holy Gifts of Communion, but in all possible ways He is ready to

enter into our lives, to fill our hearts, to be enthroned in our minds, to be

the will of our will, but to do that, to allow Him to do that we must give

ourselves to Him, we must respond to love by love, to faith - the faith

which God has in us - by faith that is trust and faithfulness to Him. And

then - then, we, each of us singly and all of us in our togetherness, will

become God's Kingdom come with power, the beginning of the fullness

of time, the beginning of the glorious victory!

Isn't that something which is worth struggling for? Isn't it worth

turning away from everything that separates us from our own integrity,

from one another, from God, and allow ourselves to become new

creatures?

Let us now, now that the beginning has come, and in a way the end is

already in our midst, let us do it: overcome all that is unworthy of

ourselves and allow God victoriously to transfigure our lives! Glory be

to God for His love! Glory be to God for the faith He has in us, and for

the hope He has put into us! Amen!

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

NATIVITY OF CHRIST

7 January 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We are keeping a Feast which is the decisive point in the history not

only of mankind but of the whole Cosmos. God, the Living God has

taken flesh, thereby becoming a man among men, and yet, revealing to

us all the greatness, all the immensity of what man is; but at the same

time uniting Himself to a human body that stands as an image of all

things created. He has become akin to all the materiality of this world:

everything, beginning with the smallest atom and ending with the

greatest galaxy can now recognise itself fulfilled, revealed in glory in

the Body of Incarnation.

But we must also ask ourselves questions about ourselves. Because

God has called us to enter into this mystery of communion with God;

God has called us to understand the way in which we can become

partakers of the divine nature, to use the words of Saint Peter in one of

his Epistles. Let us therefore cast a glance at the people involved in this

glorious, mysterious night of the Incarnation:

The Mother of God, perfectly surrendered, perfectly given to God in

all Her purity and in all Her humility; a Living Offering capable of

uniting Herself to God in such a way that He became flesh. One day in

history, a maiden of Israel proved capable of bowing down before the

greatness of God, and receiving what cannot be received otherwise than

in humility and obedience. She was able to pronounce the Name of God

in worship with all Her mind, and heart, and flesh - and God became

man in Her.

And we all are called to open ourselves to God, we all are called to

let God enter into our lives, fill each of us - and this happens incipiently,

almost imperceptibly when we receive Communion. We become

partakers of His humanity and the dwelling place of His divinity. If we

only could with greater depth, greater faith, and indeed greater

faithfulness keep the gift of this Communion...

And then, there is Joseph; Joseph who is bewildered both by the

message of the Angel and by what is happening; bewildered - at time in

wonder, and at time in doubt. Isn't this an image of many of us? But how

did he face his doubt and still remain in wonder? Because he believed;

because he accepted the fact that there are many things which cannot be

understood with the intellect, but can be perceived, which can be

experienced. And he did, indeed, experienced what was going on: he

saw. He saw the Virgin birth, he saw the presence of the God Who have

become man.

And what is our way, how can we find our way towards God? Let us

think of the Magi and of the shepherds.

The Magi were people of knowledge, people of science; but it is not

science that gave them wisdom; it its the contemplation of the created

world and their gradual, ever-deepening wonder before what they saw;

and the more they knew, the humbler they were, the more they knew,

the more open they were to all that God would reveal to them about the

depth, the mystery, the beauty, and the terrifying depths of the created.

And because they were full of wonder, because they were open to the

discovery of the unknown, of the unthinkable, they were brought to that

place, where the unthinkable has taken place: the incarnation of God.

And then, there were the shepherds, men without knowledge, but they

had purity of heart; they had simplicity; they were capable of listening to

the message which the Angels brought not only with their ears, but with

their inmost self; they recognised the truth of the message because it

gave them life, joy, hope - and they found Christ.

And what is the Incarnation about if it is not about the love of God?

And it is revealed to us in a way in which all love can reveal itself to us:

surrendered, frail, totally within our power to destroy and to hurt; this

Babe of Bethlehem is the perfect image of love, given, but perhaps,

received by the ones - and indeed, as we know, rejected by the others.

And so is the love of God. God created us in order that we might be

loved by Him with all His being; and in this, He accepted beforehand

the Crucifixion, because He gave us power to reject His love. We see

that now exemplified in Christ, in the Incarnation, in God becoming

Man. The Gospel speaks of it: the few responded to the love of God, the

many passed Him by, and many shouted, Crucify Him, crucify Him!, because the message of love, of that love which is God's love, the total

gift of self was too much: it had to be erased in favour of selfish, limited

love - if that can be called love.

Let us therefore try to learn from the people who were there: from the

Mother of God and Her perfect freedom to give Herself, and Her perfect

generosity in doing so; Her perfect ability to believe, to trust God at any

cost, at all risks. Let us think of Joseph between wonder and doubt; and

when we are in the same position, let us not only concentrate on our

doubt, but look with wonder at the impossible, unthinkable that is God's

way in our midst.

And then, let us learn, when we face the world that surround us, dark

and mysterious, so deep, so frightening, so entrancing also, - let us learn

to look at it with wonder: not to pass judgments, but look, look so

deeply as to see its depth and the meaning of things. And this we can do

ultimately only if we learn to have a pure heart, to cleanse ourselves

from selfishness, from hatred, from everything that is darkness in our

souls and in our lives.

And than we also, sooner or later, or rather from time to time, will

find ourselves face to face with the love of God, offering itself to us

frail, vulnerable, awaiting from us a response: let us then give this

response.

But this response is to be given not only to God Whom we do not see,

but to everyone who surrounds us, because Christ has said to us,

Whatever you have done to one of these, you have done to Me. It is by loving concretely, actively, generously, at a cost those whom God sends

us, those whom we meet in life that we can learn that love, the love of

God. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

BAPTISM OF CHRIST

18 January 1979

In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

When a human enters into the world, he enters from nowhere, from

total, radical absence enters through the gates of time in order to grow

into eternity. He enters an ephemeral world in order to become citizen of

Gods Kingdom. When Christ was born, the Eternal entered into the narrow limits of time; He Who was immensity itself was limited by

space and became a man in the flesh although the fullness of the

Godhead abided, dwelt in this human frame. He entered into a world of

sin in order to overcome sin, and in a world of suffering to endure it all

together with us.

But on the day of His Incarnation God delivered unto us in the frailty of

the child of Bethlehem the fullness of His love, and love is always

defenseless and frail, abandoned and surrendered. It was an act of God

by which He gave Himself to us and in which the humanity of the

Incarnate Son of God was helplessly delivered into the history of

mankind.

When we are baptised, we are plugged into waters that cleanse us from

sin. When Christ came unto Jordan, He came sinless, but this time in the

maturity of manhood, at a point at which His human will, identified with

the will of God, made Him a self-offering; He brought Himself there to

begin, to start the way to the Cross. Thousands were baptised in the

Jordan, and each of them proclaimed his sins, and these waters of Jordan

were heavy with the murderous sins of men. Christ had no sin to

proclaim and to confess, and when He entered into these waters of

Jordan, He entered, to use an image of a contemporary divine, as one

plunges, walks into a dye He was dyed with the darkness of our sins. He came out of it carrying all the sins of the world. He came out of the

waters of Jordan loaded with the condemnations that lay upon the world.

And there is the time when He begins His ascent to the Cross.

We are now keeping the feast of the Baptism of Christ, a dread event, an

event that should keep us spellbound, in awe: Him Who is pure shares

the impurity of sin universal so that He may save us. We will bless the

waters, the natural waters that surround us and pray the Lord to send

upon these waters grace and blessing for them to become pure and holy,

endowed with the power to cleanse and to renew, to make us and all the

objects and all the places where they will be sprinkled, partakers of this

purity of the waters of Jordan who had touched the holy body of the

Incarnation, which had taken upon Himself all the evil of world. So let

us pray that the grace of the Spirit of God may come upon these waters

and that they may be truly blessing and salvation by the power of Christ,

by the power and dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

ZACCHAEUS

20 JANUARY 1991

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

In these weeks of preparation for Lent, we were faced last Sunday

with the story of Barthimaeus to attract our attention on our own

blindness; our spiritual blindness of which we are not aware while

physical blindness is so clearly perceived; but also on the fact that if we

want to recover our sight, our spiritual vision, our understanding of self,

of God, of our neighbour, of life, there is only one person to whom we

can turn - it is God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Bartimaeus have tried all

means to recover his sight, but it is only when he turned to Christ that he

did recover it.

Whether we have taken advantage of the past week to reflect deeply

on our own blindness, and in the darkness to begin to see some light, I

do not know; each of us will have to answer for his eagerness or his

laziness.

But today we are confronted with a new parable, or rather, a new

story of the life of Christ: the story of Zacchaeus. This story speaks to us

again directly and the question which is been asked from us is this:

What matters to me more? The good opinion of people around me, that

people should not jeer at you, laugh at you because you are seeking to

see God, to meet Him, or the necessity, the inner call to discover

everything provided you can see Christ face to face? Is vanity stronger

in us or the hunger for God? And Saint John of the Ladder says clearly

that vanity is contempt of God and cowardice before men. What is our

attitude: are we prepared to discard everything, provided we can meet

God - or not? And in our circumstances it is not so much people who

will prevent us, people will not jeer at us, they will not laugh at us: they

will be totally indifferent; but this does not mean that we like beggars

not turn to them, hoping for their approval, and in order to receive this

approval, turn away from our search, from the only thing that can heal

us and give us new life.

Also, we will find within ourselves conflicting voices, saying, Don't!

Don't make yourself ridiculous! Don't single yourself out by a search

which is not necessary; you have got everything... Zacchaeus was rich,

Zacchaeus was known as an honorable citizen - so are we! We possess

so much, we are respected - are we going to start on a road that will

make us into what Paul calls 'the scum of the earth, debase us? This is the question which today's story of Zacchaeus says to us: is vanity, that

is the search of things which are vain, empty, and the fear of other

people's opinion that will prevail, or the hunger each of us has, at times,

acute for a meeting with the living God? Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

THE PUBLICAN AND THE PHARISEE

4 February 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

How short, and how well known is today's parable, and yet, how

intense its message, how challenging.

Intense it is in its very words. Two men come into the church of God,

into a sacred realm which in a world that is lost to God belongs to Him

unreservedly, into His Divine Realm. And one of the men walks boldly

into it, takes a stand before God. The other one comes, and doesn't even

dare cross the threshold: he is a sinner, and the Realm is holy, like the

space around the Burning Bush in the desert which Moses could not

enter without having unshod his feet, otherwise than in adoration and

the fear of God.

And how different the words spoken! Apparently the Pharisee praises

God, he gives Him glory - but for what? Because He has made a man

like him, a man so holy, so worthy of Him, of God; a man who not only

keeps all the commandments of the Law, but goes beyond of what God

Himself has commanded and can expect of man. Indeed, he stands

before God praising Him, that he, the Pharisee, is so wonderful that he is

God's own glory, the shining, the revelation of Gods holiness.

The Publican does not even dare enter into the holy Realm of God.

And the parable is clear: the man who came and stood brokenhearted,

ashamed of himself, knowing that he is unworthy of entering this sacred

space goes back home forgiven, loved, indeed: accompanied by God

Himself Who came into the world to save sinners and Who stands by

everyone who needs Him, who recognises his need for salvation.

The Pharisee goes home, but he goes home less forgiven; his

relationship with God is not the same; he is at the center, God is

peripheric to him; he is at the heart of things, God is subservient to him.

It does not mean that what he did was worthless; it simply means that as

far as he is concerned, it has born no fruit of holiness in himself. The

deeds were good, but they were spoiled, poisoned by pride, by self-

assertion; the beauty of what he did was totally marred because it was

addressed neither to God nor to his neighbour; it was turned in on

himself. And we are told that this pride has despoiled this man, has

taken away from him the fruits of his good works, the fruit of his

outward faithfulness to the law of God, that only humility could have

given him and his action full meaning, that only humility could have

made his actions into life, into the waters of life gushing into eternity.

But then, the question stands before us: how can we learn anything

about humility if that is the absolute condition to be not like the barren

fig tree, but fruitful, to be rich harvest and from whom people can be

fed?

I do not think that we can move from pride, vanity into humility in a

single unless something so tragic happens to us that we see ourselves,

we discover ourselves completely bereft of everything that supported

our sinful, destructive, barren condition. But there is one thing which we

can do: however much we think that we are possessed of gifts of all

sorts of heart and mind, of body and soul, however fruitful our action

may be, we can remember the words of Saint Paul: O, man! What have

you got which was not given you?!.. And indeed, he echoes at this point

what Christ said in the first Beatitude, the Beatitude that opens the door

to all other Beatitudes, the Beatitude which is the beginning of

understanding: Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who

know, not only with their intellect - but at least with their intellect! - that

they are nothing, and they possess nothing which is not a gift of God.

We were called into being out of naught, without our participation:

our very existence is a gift! We were given life which we could not

create, call out of ourselves. We have been given the knowledge of the

existence of God, and indeed, a deeper, more intimate knowledge of

God - all that is gift! And then, all that we are is a gift of God: our body,

our heart, our mind, our soul - what power have we got over them when

God does no longer sustain them? The greatest intelligence can of a

sudden be swallowed into darkness by a stroke; there are moments when

we are confronted with a need that requires all our sympathy, all our

love - and we discover that our hearts are of stone and of ice... We want

to do good - and we cannot; and Saint Paul knew it already when he

said: The good which I love, I don't do, and the wrong which I hate I do

continuously... And our body depends on so many things!

And what of our relationships, of the friendship which is given us, the

love which sustains us, the comradeship - everything that we are and

which we possess is a gift: what is the next move: isn't it gratitude?

Cant we turn to God not as a pharisee, priding ourselves of what we are and forgetting that all that is HIS, but turning to God and saying: O,

God! All that is a gift from You! all that beauty, intelligence, a sensitive

heart, all the circumstances of life are a gift! Indeed, all those

circumstances, even those which frighten us are a gift because God says

to us: I trust you enough to send you into the darkness to bring light! I

send you into corruption to be the salt that stops corruption! I send you

where there is no hope to bring hope, where there is no joy to bring joy,

no love to bring love... and one could go on, on, on, seeing that when we

are send into the darkness it is to be God's presence and God's life, and

that means that He trusts us - He trusts us, He believes in us, He hopes

for us everything: isn't that enough to be grateful?

But gratitude is not just a cold word of thanks; gratitude means that

we wish to make Him see that all that was not given in vain, that He did

not become man, lived, died in vain; gratitude means a life that could

give joy to God: this is a challenge of this particular parable.

Yes, the ideal would be for us to be humble - but what is humility?

Who of us knows, and if someone knows, who can communicate it to

everyone who doesnt know? But gratitude we all know; we know small ways and small aspects of it! Let us reflect on it, and, let us in an act of

gratitude recognise that we have no right to be in Gods own realm - and He lets us in! We have no right to commune to Him either in prayer, or

in sacrament - and He calls us to commune with Him! We have no right

to be His children, to be brothers and sisters of Christ, to be the dwelling

place of the Spirit - and He grants it all in an act of love!

Let each of us reflect and ask himself: in what way can he or she be

so grateful in such a way that God could rejoice that He has not given in

vain, been in vain, lived and died in vain, that we have received the

message. And if we grow in a true depth of gratitude, at the depth of

gratitude we will knock down, adore the Lord, and learn what humility

is not abasement, but adoration, the awareness that He is all we possess,

all that we are, and that we are open to Him like the earth, the rich earth

is open to the plough, to the sowing, to the seed, to the sunshine, to the

rain, to everything in order to bring fruit. Amen!

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

SUNDAY OF THE PRODIGAL SON

19 February 1984

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Time and again I have occasion to preach on the Parable of the

Prodigal Son, on the story of the Publican and the Pharisee, and every

time I notice how easy it is for me - not in fact, not in reality, but in

imagination - to identify with the sinner who has found his way to God,

with the publican who stood broken-hearted at the gate of the church,

unable to walk even into the holy space of God, or with the prodigal

son, who in spite of grievous sin, of incredible insensitiveness, of

cruelty, still found his way home.

And how rarely I was touched to the quick by the destiny of the

pharisee, by the destiny of the elder son - yet, God condemned neither of

the two. About the publican He said: And this man went home more

forgiven, more blessed than the other one. He did not say that the

pharisee went without the love of God accompanying him, that God was

forgetting his faithfulness, his sense of dutiful obedience.

And again today we find ourselves face-to-face with the elder son.

All his life he had lived side-by-side with his father, all his life he had

made his father's interests his concern - he had worked hard, faithfully,

forgetful of self, without paying attention to tiredness, without claiming

any reward just because he felt it was right to do so. There was

something indeed lacking in him - a warmth, a tenderness, a joy in his

father. But there was one thing which is so impressive in him - his

faithfulness; in spite of the fact that his heart was not aglow, he

remained faithful. In spite of the fact that he received no visible reward

or no visible acknowledgement he remained faithful, he worked, as he

says - he slaved.

How hard we are when we think of him as of one who deserves little

of our sympathy; but how few of us are capable of being so faithful, so

perfectly and steadily obedient to the call of duty as he was when we are

not met with recognition, do not hear a word of encouragement, do not

receive the slightest reward because, as the father did with regard to the

elder son, those who surround us, those whom we serve, for whom we

slave perhaps, those whose interest is at the very centre of our life, take

it for granted. Isn't it natural? Isn't he my son? Isn't he my father? Isn't

he my brother? Isn't he my spouse? Isn't he my friend? Doesn't all this

imply total, unlimited devotion which is its own reward?

How cruel we are so often to the people who surround us and who are

put by us in the position of the elder son - never recognised and always

expected to do the right thing unflinchingly and perfectly.

Indeed, the prodigal son had warmth, the prodigal son had come back

broken-hearted, he was ready to become new, while the other one could

only go on, plod on with his stem faithfulness; unless - unless,

confronted with the father's compassion, he understood what it meant

that his younger brother had been truly dead and had come to life, had

been truly lost and was found.

Let us think of ourselves. We, all of us, have someone around us

whom we treat with the same coldness with which we think of the elder

brother; but also all of us have someone whom we treat as

contemptuously and harshly as the elder brother treated his younger

brother whom he had written off, who was no brother to him; he had

been unfaithful to their father, he was unforgivable. And yet, here was

the father, the victim of the son's rejection, light-mindedness, cruelty,

who forgave wholeheartedly and tenderly.

Let us find our own place in this tragic and beautiful parable because

then we may find our way, either out of being the elder son, though

perhaps so much less dutiful, so much less honest, so much less devoted

to the interests of our father, our friends, our relatives; or else perhaps,

can we find in our heart a creative sympathy for the younger son and

learn from him first that there is never a situation out of which a honest

repentance, a turn-about cannot bring us and that there is one at least -

God - and probably one person, or many, who are ready to receive us,

redeem us, restore us and allow us to begin a new life together - father,

younger and elder brother. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

Sunday of the Last Judgement

Sunday, March 6, 1994.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

More than once does the Gospel give us a warning on the way in

which we shall be judged and on the way in which we can save

ourselves from condemnation. There is a passage of the Gospel in which

the Lord says: It is not everyone who will have called Me 'Lord, Lord'

who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There will be such who will

come to Me and say, Have we not broken bread in the precincts of Thy

Temple? Have we not prayed, have we not sung Thy glory? And I shall

say to them: Go away from me doers of iniquity.

So, it is not by outward signs of piety that we shall find salvation.

The Gospel which we read on the Day of the Publican and the Pharisee

already tells us something about this. The pharisee had been faithful in

everything outwardly, but inwardly he had remained cold and dead to

the only thing that matters - loving. He might have said to the Lord: But

have I not prayed so often in Thy Temple? He would have heard the

words which I quoted a moment ago, and he might have remembered

also a passage from the Old Testament that says that the prayer of one

who does not forgive his brother is abomination before the face of the

Lord.

And so we are confronted to-day with the Gospel of the Last

Judgement. A day will come, and it may not be after we die, it may be at

a moment when we are suddenly illumined, when light comes into our

mind, that we will ask ourselves: Where is salvation? Can I hope for

anything at all? We have had the first answer to this question in the

person of the publican. He could pride himself on nothing, nothing at

all. He was a traitor to his nation, he was greedy, he was unworthy of his

people, of the Testament that was the rule of the nation. And yet, he

realized that he was totally, utterly, hopelessly unworthy, and he stood,

not daring even to enter the Temple, because the Temple was the place

where the Lord lives, a place as holy as God's presence makes it; and he

beat his breast saying: Forgive me; I am a sinner. That is a first step

towards forgiveness, towards a healing of our life and soul.

To-day we are confronted with something else. It is not strict

adherence to forms of life; it is not piety, the kind of piety which one

can put in inverted commas; it is not praying if we pray unworthily, that

saves us. The Lord at the Last Judgement, as it appears clearly from this

passage of the Gospel, will ask us nothing about the tenets of our faith,

or about the way in which we have tried outwardly to please Him. He

will ask us: Have you been human, or inhuman? When you saw

someone who was hungry, did your heart turn to him in compassion and

did you give him food? When you saw someone homeless, did you think

of a way of providing a roof and a little warmth and safety for him?

When we were told that someone, perhaps someone we knew, had

disgraced himself and been put into prison, did we overcome the shame

of being his or her friend, and go to visit him? When we saw someone to

whom we could give the surplus of what we have, the unnecessary coat,

the unnecessary object which we possessed - did we turn and do that?

That is all the Lord is asking concerning the Last Judgement.

As I said before, His only question is: have you been human in the

simplest way in which any pagan can be human? Anyone can be human

who has a heart that can respond. If you have, then the doors are open

for you to enter into the Kingdom and to become by communion with

God, not sacramental communion, but a deeper communion even than

the Sacrament, become one with Him and grow into being the Temple

of the Spirit, the Body of Christ, a place of His incarnate presence.

But if we have been inhuman, how can we think of being divine?

How can we think of being partakers of the Divine Nature, of being like

Christ, possessed of the Holy Spirit, alive for eternity? None of these

can be true. And today, we are confronted with the Judgement, with this

clarity, this sharpness and His mercy. Because God is merciful; He

warns us in time. It takes one moment to change one's life. It is one

moment that is needed, not years, so that the oldest of us can in one

moment see the ugliness, the horror, the emptiness, the evil of our lives,

and turn to God with a cry, crying for mercy. And the youngest can

learn now that it is time, step by step, to be simply human. If we are

human, then we become the friends of God, because to be a Christian

means to choose Christ for one's friend. And you know what friendship

means; it means solidarity, it means loyalty, it means faithfulness, it

means being at one in soul, in heart, in action with the one who is our

friend. This is the choice we all have made, seemingly, and forgotten so

often.

So to-day we are confronted with this Gospel of the Judgement. But

we can do something now to face it. After the Service, at the doors,

there will be a collection for "Crisis". "Crisis" is an organization which

looks after those who are homeless and have to live on the streets, who

depend on the passer-by to have a chance to eat, who depend on the

mercy of people. Well, face today's reading of the Gospel. Face it not

only emotionally but in fact, and when you are confronted with a plate at

the doors of the Church, give, give generously, give with your whole

heart, give as you would wish to be given if you were in the street,

unprotected, alone, hoping beyond hope, or having lost all hope in

human charity.

We have got a few moments to do a thing which is infinitely simple.

Let us do it, and may God's blessing be upon anyone who will have

done something, not just a little, but as much as possible, to enable

another person to stay alive, to breathe, not to collapse.

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

Forgiveness Sunday 19February 25, 1996

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

To-day two themes dominate the readings of the Holy Scriptures. St

Paul speaks to us about fasting and the Lord about forgiveness, and St

Paul insists on the fact that fasting does not consist simply of depriving

oneself of one form of food or another, neither does it, if it is kept

strictly, obediently, worshipfully, give us any ground to be proud of

ourselves, satisfied and secure, because the aim of fasting is not to

deprive our body of the one form of food rather than the other, the aim

of fasting is to acquire mastery over our body and make it a perfect

instrument of the spirit. Most of the time we are slaves of our bodies, we

are attracted by all our senses to one form or another of enjoyment, but

of an enjoyment which goes far beyond the purity which God expects of

us.

And so, the period of fasting offers us a time during which we can

say not that I will torment my body, limit myself in things material, but

a time when I will re-acquire mastery of my body, make it a perfect

instrument. The comparison that comes to my mind is that of tuning a

musical instrument; this is what fasting is, to acquire the power not only

to command our body, but also to give our body the possibility to

respond to all the promptings of the spirit.

Let us therefore go into fasting with this understanding, not

measuring our fasting by what we eat and how much, but of the effect it

has on us, whether our fasting makes us free or whether we become

slaves of fasting itself.

If we fast let us not be proud of it, because it proves simply that we

need more perhaps than another person to conquer something in our

nature. And if around us other people are not fasting let us not judge

them, because God has received the ones as He receives the others,

because it is into the heart of men that He looks.

And then there is the theme of forgiveness, of which I will say only

one short thing. We think always of forgiveness as a way in which we

would say to a person who has offended, hurt, humiliated us, that the

past is past and that we do not any more hold a grudge against this

person. But what forgiveness means more deeply than this is that if we

can say to a person: let us no longer make the past into a destructive

present, let me trust you, make an act of faith in you, if I forgive you it

means in my eyes you are not lost, in my eyes there is a future of beauty

and truth in you.

But this applies also to us. Perversely, we think very often of

forgiving others, but we do not think sufficiently of the need in which

we are, each of us personally, of being forgiven by others. We have a

few hours left between the Liturgy and the Service of Forgiveness

tonight, let us reflect and try to remember, not the offences which we

have suffered, but the hurts which we have caused. And if we have hurt

anyone in one way or another, in things small or great, let us make haste

before we enter into Lent tomorrow morning, let us make haste to ask to

be forgiven, to hear someone say to us: in spite of all that has happened

I believe in you, I trust you, I hope for you and I will expect everything

from you. And then we can go together through Lent helping one

another to become what we are called to be - the disciples of Christ,

following Him step by step to Calvary, and beyond Calvary to the

Resurrection. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh SUNDAY OF ORTHODOXY

16 March 1997

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We are keeping today, as every year at the end of the first week of

Lent, the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. And every year we must

give thought to what is meant, not only as a historical event, but also in

our personal lives. First of all we must remember that the Triumph of

Orthodoxy is not the Triumph of the Orthodox over other people. It is

the Triumph of the Truth Divine in the hearts of those who belong to the

Orthodox Church and who proclaim the Truth revealed by God in its

integrity and directness.

Today we must thank God with all our hearts that He has revealed

Himself to us, that He has dispelled darkness in the minds and hearts of

thousands and thousands of people, that He who is the Truth has shared

the knowledge of the perfect Truth Divine with us.

The occasion of this feast was the recognition of the legitimacy of

venerating icons. By doing this we proclaim that God - invisible,

ineffable, the God whom we cannot comprehend, has truly become man,

that God has taken flesh, that He has lived in our midst full of humility,

of simplicity, but of glory also. And proclaiming this we venerate the

icons not as idols, but as a declaration of the Truth of the Incarnation.

By doing this we must not forget that it is not the icons of wood and of

paint, but God who reveals Himself in the world. Each of us, all men,

were created in the image of God. We are all living icons, and this lays

upon us a great responsibility because an icon may be defaced, an icon

may be turned into a caricature and into a blasphemy. And we must

think of ourselves and ask ourselves: are we worthy, are we capable of

being called "icons", images of God? A western writer has said that

meeting a Christian, those who surround him should see him as a vision,

a revelation of something they have never perceived before, that the

difference between a non-Christian and a Christian is as great, as

radical, as striking, as the difference there is between a statue and a

living person. A statue may be beautiful, but it is made of stone or of

wood, and it is dead. A human being may not at first appear as

possessed of such a beauty, but those who meet him should be able, as

those who venerate an icon - blessed, consecrated by the Church -

should see in him the shining of the presence of the Holy Spirit, see God

revealing Himself in the humble form of a human being.

As long as we are not capable of being such a vision to those who

surround us, we fail in our duty, we do not proclaim the Triumph of

Orthodoxy through our life, we give a lie to what we proclaim. And

therefore each of us, and all of us collectively, bear every responsibility

for the fact that the world meeting Christians by the million is not

converted by the vision of God's presence in their midst, carried indeed

in earthen vessels, but glorious, saintly, transfiguring the world.

What is true about us, simply, personally, is as true about our

churches. Our churches were called by Christ as a family, a community

of Christians to be a body of people who are united with one another by

total love, by sacrificial love, a love that is God's love to us. The Church

was called, and is still called, to be a body of people whose

characteristic is to be the incarnate love of God. Alas, in all our churches

what we see is not the miracle of love divine.

From the very beginning, alas, the Church was built according to the

images of the State - hierarchical, strict, formal. In this we have failed -

to be truly what the early, first community of Christians were. Tertullian

writing in defence of the Christians said to the Emperor of Rome:

"When people meet us they are arrested and say: 'How these people love

one another!'" We are not collectively a body of people about whom one

could say this. And we must learn to recreate what God has willed for

us, what has once existed: to recreate communities, churches, parishes,

dioceses, patriarchates, the whole church, in such a way that the whole

of life, the reality of life should be that of love. Alas, we have not

learned this yet.

And so, when we keep the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy we must

remember that God has conquered, that we are proclaiming the truth,

God's own Truth, Himself incarnate and revealed, and there is a great

responsibility for all of us collectively and singly in this world, that we

must not give the lie to what we proclaim by the way in which we live.

A western theologian has said that we may proclaim the whole truth of

Orthodoxy and at the same time deface it, give it the lie by the way in

which we live, showing with our life that all these were words, but not

reality. We must repent of this, we must change, we must become such

that people meeting us should see God's truth, God's light, God's love in

us individually and collectively. As long as we have not done this we

have not taken part in the Triumph of Orthodoxy. God has triumphed,

but He has put us in charge of making his triumph the triumph of life for

the whole world.

Therefore, let us learn to live according to the Gospel which is the

Truth and the Life, not only individually but collectively, and build

societies of Christians that are a revelation of it, so that the world

looking at us may say: "Let us re-shape our institutions, re-shape our

relationships, renew all that has gone or remains old and become a new

society in which the Law of God, the Life of God can prosper and

triumph. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Saint Gregory Palamas Sunday

11 March 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

In one of the Psalms we can read the following words: Those who have

sown with tears will reap with joy... If in the course of weeks of

preparation we have seen all that is ugly and unworthy in us mirrored in

the parables, if we have stood before the judgement of our conscience

and of our God, then we have truly sown in tears our own salvation.

And yet, there is still time because even when we enter into the time of

the harvest, God gives us a respite; as we progress towards the Kingdom

of God, towards the Day of the Resurrection, we still can, at every

moment, against the background of salvation, in the face of the victory

of God, turn to Him with gratitude and yet, brokenheartedness, and say,

Oh, Lord! I am perhaps the worker of the eleventh hour, but receive me as Thou promised to do!

Last week we have kept the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the day

when the Church proclaimed that it was legitimate and right to paint

icons of Christ. It was not a declaration about art, it was a deeply

theological proclamation of the Incarnation. The Old Testament said to

us that God cannot be represented by any image because He was

inscrutable mystery, He had even no Name except the mysterious Name

which only the High Priest knew. But in the New Testament we have

learned, and we know from experience that God has become Man, that

the fullness of the Godhead has abided and is still abiding forever in the

flesh; and therefore God has a human name: Jesus, and He has got a

human face that can be represented in icons. An icon is therefore a

proclamation of our certainty that God has become man; and He has

become man to achieve ultimate, tragic and glorious solidarity with us,

to be one of us that we may be one of the children of God. He has

become man that we may become gods, as the Scripture tells us. And so,

we could last week already rejoice; and this is why, a week before, when

we were already preparing to meet this miracle, this wonder of the

Incarnation, softly, in an almost inaudible way, the Church was singing

the canon of Easter: Christ is risen from the dead! Because it is not a

promise for the future, it is a certainty of the present, open to us like a

door for us to enter through Christ, the Door as He calls Himself, into

eternity.

And today we remember the name of Saint Gregory Palamas, one of the

great Saints of Orthodoxy, who against heresy and doubt proclaimed,

from within the experience of the ascetics and of all believers,

proclaimed that the grace of God is not a created gift - it is God Himself,

communicating Himself to us so that we are pervaded by His presence,

that we gradually, if we only receive Him, open ourselves to Him,

become transparent or at least translucent to His light, that we become

incipiently and ever increasingly partakers of the Divine nature.

This is not simply a promise; this is a certainty which we have because

this has happened to thousands and thousands of those men and women

whom we venerate as the Saints of God: they have become partakers of

the Divine nature, they are to us a revelation and certainty of what we

are called to be and become.

And today one step more brings us into the joy, the glory of Easter. In a

weeks time we will sing the Cross - the Cross which was a terror for the criminals, and has become now a sign of victory and salvation, because

it is to us the sign that Gods love has no measure, no limits, is as deep as God is deep, all-embracing as God is all-embracing, and indeed, as

tragically victorious as God is both tragic and victorious, awe-inspiring,

and shining the quiet, joyful light which we sing in vespers.

Let us then make ourselves ready to meet this event, the vision of the

Cross, look at it, and see in it the sign of the Divine love, a new certainty

of our possible salvation. And when the choir sings this time more

loudly the canon of the Resurrection, let us realise that step by step God

leads us into a victory which He has won, and which He wants to share

with us.

And then we will move on; we will listen to the Saints who teache us

how to receive the grace which God is offering, how to become worthy

of Him. And a step more - and we will see the victory of God in Saint

Mary of Egypt and come to the threshold of Holy Weak.

But let us remember that we are now in the time of newness, a time

when God's victory is been revealed to us, that we are called to be

enfolded by it, to respond to it by gratitude, a gratitude that will make us

into new people - and also with joy! And joy full of tears in response to

the love of God, and a joy which is a responsible answer to the Divine

love. Amen!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Sunday of the Cross

18 March 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

As we progress deeper and deeper into the weeks of Lent, we can say

with an ever-growing sense of gratitude and of joy, of a serene and

exulting joy the words of a Psalm, My soul shall live, and with gratitude I will give glory to the Lord'.

In the first week of Lent we have seen all the promises of salvation

given in the Old Testament fulfilled: God became man, salvation has

come, and all hopes are possible. And then, in the second week of Lent,

we had the glorious proclamation of all the Saints of Christendom that

not only did God come and dwell in our midst, but He has poured out

upon us, into the Church, and into every human soul ready to receive

Him the presence, the transforming gift of the Holy Spirit that makes us

gradually commune ever deeper to the Living God until one day we

become partakers of the Divine nature.

And today, if we ask ourselves, 'But how that? How can we be forgiven,

how can evil be undone?' - one step brings us deeper into gratitude,

deeper into joy, deeper into certainty when we consider, when we

contemplate the Cross.

There is a passage of the Gospel in which we are told that when Christ

spoke of salvation and of its conditions, Peter said to Him, 'Who then

can be saved?' - and Christ answered, 'What is not possible to men is

possible for God!. And He Himself came; the fullness of God abided in a human person, and He has power to forgive because He is the victim

of all the evil, all the cruelty, all the destructiveness of human history.

Because indeed, no one but the victim can forgive those who have

brought evil, suffering, misery, corruption and death into their lives.

And Christ does not only forgive His own murderers, when He says,

'Father, forgive - they don't know what they are doing': He goes beyond

this, because He had said, 'Whatever you have done to one of My

smaller brethren and sisters, you have done it to Me - not only in good, but indeed, the worst: because in compassion, in solidarity He identifies

with every sufferer: the death, the pain, the agony of each of those who

suffer is His. And so, when He prays, 'Father, forgive! They do not

know what they are doing, what they have been doing, He prays for each of us not only in His own name, but in the name of all those upon

whom evil has visited because of human sin.

But it is not only Christ who forgives; everyone who has suffered in

soul, in body, in spirit, - everyone is called to grant freedom to those

who have made him suffer.

And so, we can see why Christ says, 'Forgive so that you may be

forgiven' because both the victim and the culprit are tied in one knot of

solidarity and reciprocal responsibility. Only the victim can say, 'Lord -

forgive him, forgive her, and only then can the Lord say, I do!.

But do you realise what responsibility it puts on each of us with regard

to all and everyone? But also the depth, the glorious depth of hope

which opens up to us when we look at the Cross and see that in

solidarity with all mankind Christ taking upon Himself all the suffering

of the world, accepting to die an impossible death has said in the name

of all the sufferers, 'Yes, - we forgive!

This is one more step towards freedom, this is one more step towards

the moment when we will be faced with Christ's resurrection that

engulfs us also because the risen Christ is risen and is offering all and

each of us the fullness of eternal life.

And so again, and again we can say that Lent is a spring of a new life, a

new time, a time of renewal, not only in repentance, but in being taken

by Christ Himself as the shepherd took the lost sheep, as the Lord took

up His Cross, brought it to the place of death, and undid death, undid

evil by forgiveness and giving His life. Once more we are confronted

with another step of our freedom and of newness. Let us enter ever

deeper into this mystery, into this wonder of salvation, and rejoice in the

Lord, and rejoicing, step after step, more and more, let us also express

our gratitude by newness of life. Amen!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh SAINT JOHN OF THE LADDER

9 April 1989

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Lent is a time of repentance, a time when our heart of stone must be

made by the power of God into a heart of flesh, from insensitive to

become perceptive, from cold and hard to become warm and open to

others, and indeed, to God Himself.

Lent is a time of renewal when like spring, everything become new

again; when our life that had gone into a twilight becomes alive with all

the intensity which God can communicate to us, humans, by making us

partakers of His Holy Spirit, by making us partakers, through the Holy

Sacraments and the direct gift of God, of the Divine nature.

It is a time of reconciliation, and reconciliation is a joy: it is God's

joy, and it is our joy; it's a new beginning.

Today is the day of Saint John of the Ladder, and I want to read to

you a few phrases of his which are relevant to the particular time of the

year in which we live:

Repentance, that is our return to God is renewal of our baptism; it is our effort to renew our covenant with God, our promise to change our

life. It is a time when we can acquire humility, that is peace; peace with

God, peace with ourselves, peace with all the created world.

Repentance is born of hope and rejection of despair. And one who

repents, is one who deserves condemnation - and yet, goes away from

the tribunal without shame, because repentance is our peace with God.

And this is achieved through a worthy life, alien to the sins we

committed in the past. Repentance is cleansing of our conscience.

Repentance implies carrying off all sadness and pain.

And if we ask ourselves how we can achieve it, how we can come to

this, how we can respond to God Who receives us as the father received

the prodigal son, a God Who has waited for us, longingly, Who,

rejected, never turned away from us - how can we respond to Him?

Here is a short word about prayer :

Don't use in prayer falsely wise words; because it is often the simple and uncomplicated whispering of children that rejoices our heavenly

Father. Don't try to say much when you speak to God, because

otherwise your mind in search of words will be lost in them. One word

spoken by the publican brought Divine mercy upon him; one word

filled with faith saved the thief on the cross. The use of the multiplicity

of words when we pray disperses our mind and fill it with

imaginations. One word spoken to God collects the mind in His

presence. And if a word, in thy prayer, reaches you deeply, if you

perceive it profoundly - dwell in it, dwell in it, because at such

moments our Angel guardian prays with us because we are true to

ourselves and to God.

Let us remember what Saint John of the Ladder says, even if you

forget the short comments (which I introduced) to make his text more

readily understandable. Let us remember his words because he was a

man who knew what it means to turn to God, to stay with God, to be

Gods joy and to rejoice in Him. He is offered us in this time, when we are ascending towards the days of the Passion, he is offered us as an

example of what grace Divine can do to transform an ordinary, simple

human being into a light to the world.

Let us learn from him, let us follow his example, let us rejoice in

what God can do by His power in a human being, and let us

confidently, with faith, with an exulting and yet serene joy follow the

advice, listen to God begging us to find a way of life and telling us

that with Him, in Him we will be alive, because He is the Truth but

also the Way and also Life eternal. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh SAINT MARY OF EGYPT

16 April 1989

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We keep today the memory of Saint Mary of Egypt in the gradual

progression from glory to glory which Lent is, and which must lead us

step by step to facing the supreme glory of the Divine Love crucified,

the sacrificial love of the Holy Trinity.

Saint Mary of Egypt was a sinner, someone whose sin was known

to everyone and not to God alone; perhaps she was the only one who

was least of all aware of it because sin was her life. And yet, one day,

she wanted to go and venerate an icon of the Mother of God in a

church. The supreme beauty of womanhood in the Mother of God

reached her heart, touched it. But when she came to the gate of this

church, a power prevented her from crossing the threshold. The

Publican had been able to stand there because his heart was broken;

Mary of Egypt had no broken heart, and the entrance of the church was

forbidden to her. And she stood there, aware that what she was, was

incompatible with the holiness of the Presence, the presence of God,

the presence of the Mother of God, the presence of all that is holy on

earth and in heaven.

And she was so profoundly shaken by this experience that she left

all that had been her life, retired into the desert, and with a life which

the service books define as extreme, fought to conquer her flesh, her soul, her memories - everything that was sin, but also everything that

could lead her away from God. And we know how glorious her life

was, the kind of person she became.

What lesson can we receive from her life? How often is it that we

have knocked at the door of God in the way in which Mary tried to

come into His presence? How often have we tried to pray, to be in His

presence in silence? How often has our longing been to God, and how

often have we felt that between our prayer and Him, between our

silence and Him, between our longing and Him there was a barrier

which we could not pass. We were crying, praying into an empty sky,

we were turning towards icons that were silent; all we could perceive

was the Divine absence, and an absence so frightening, because not

only could we not reach Him, but we perceived that unless we reached

Him, our soul was laid waste, there was within us nothing but

emptiness, an emptiness that if it continued, if it became our definitive

condition would mean more than death - ultimate separation.

But how often also has God knocked at the door of our heart. You

remember the word of the Book of Revelation: I stand at Thy door and

I knock... How often has God, in the words of the Gospel, in the events

of our life, in the weak promptings of our soul, in a whispering of the

Holy Spirit, in all the ways in which God tries to reach us - how often

has He knocked at this door, and how often have we made sure that this

door does not open. Either didn't we simply care to open it because we

were busy with things that mattered to us at that moment more than His

interrupting, disturbing presence; and how often did we refuse to open

the door because the coming of the Lord to us would have meant the

end of things which were precious to us, which mattered to us... And

the Lord stood knocking, and the door was shut in His face: exactly in

the same way in which every door was shut in the face of the Mother of

God and Joseph on the night of the Nativity.

We may not be aware of it with the intensity which should be ours;

and yet for each of us, simply, the proof of it is that we are here, and

millions of other people at some moment have suddenly perceived the

presence of God, have heard His knocking, have let perhaps the door

ajar, have listened to what He was saying, had a moment of elation, a

moment when suddenly we came to life, and then we shut the door

again. We chose our aloneness, we chose to be without Him, and what

we imagined to be free from Him: we are never free; we are never free not because He enslaves us, not because He hunts us down. We are

never free because He is ultimately in the end the only supreme longing

of our whole being, because He is the fullness of life, the glory of life,

the exultation of life for which we long and which we try to glean right,

and left in vain.

Mary of Egypt confronted with the Divine absence, with Gods refusal to allow her into His presence, confronted with a shut door

within herself felt that unless the door opened, everything was vain.

And she turned away from everything that stood between her and God,

and life, and fullness, and exultation.

Isn't she for us an example, a call, an image of what could be the

life of each of us? But we may say, Yes, this applied to her, she was a

prospective saint Each of us is called to commune with God in such a way, that God and each of us should become one, that each of us

should become partaker of the Divine nature, a living member, a

brother, a sister, a limb of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a son and

a daughter of the Living God! This is our vocation; but can that be

achieved by our own strength? No, it cannot! But it can be achieved by

God in us if we only turn to Him with all our mind, all our heart, all our

longing, determinably, yes: it is determination, and it is longing, a

passionate, desperate longing... And then - and then all things become

possible. I have said so often that when Saint Paul asked God for

strength to fulfil his mission, the Lord said to him, My grace suffitheth

unto thee, My power deploys itself in weakness... And at the end of his

life, having fulfilled his vocation, Paul, who knew what he was saying,

said, all things are possible unto me in the power of Christ Who

sustains me... All things are possible, because God does not call us to

more than can be achieved by Him with us and in us.

How much hope, how much inspiration can we find in each of the

Saints of God, as frail as we are, and in whom the power, the glory, the

victory, the life unfolded itself, deployed itself gloriously.

Let us once more receive inspiration from what we hear, receive

inspiration from what we meet face to face in the Gospel, in Holy

Communion, in prayer, in the silence in the presence of God. And let us

move one step more forward towards the vision of the love of God

made manifest in Holy Week, in the last steps of the way of the Cross,

in the final victory of crucified Love, and in the victory of the

Resurrection of God. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh THE LORDS ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM

1980, 30 March

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy

Ghost.

Today Christ enters the path not only of His

sufferings but of that dreadful loneliness which

enshrouds Him during all the days of Passion week.

The loneliness begins with a misunderstanding; the

people expect that the Lord's entry into Jerusalem

will be the triumphant procession of a political

leader, of a leader who will free his people from

oppression, from slavery, from what they consider

godlessness - because all paganism or idol-worship is

a denial of the living God. The loneliness will

develop further into the dreadful loneliness of not

being understood even by His disciples. At the Last

Supper when the Saviour talks to them for the last

time, they will be in constant doubt as to the meaning

of His words. And later when He goes into the

Garden of Gethsemane before the fearful death that is

facing Him, His closest disciples, Peter, John and

James - whom He chose to go with Him, fall asleep,

depressed, tired, hopeless. The culmination of this

loneliness will be Christ's cry on the cross, "My God,

My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Abandoned

by men, rejected by the people of Israel He

encounters the extreme of forsakenness and dies

without God, without men, alone, with only His love

for God and His love for mankind, dying for its sake

and for God's glory.

The beginning of Christ's Passion is today's

triumphal procession. The people expected a king, a

leader - and they found the Saviour of their souls.

Nothing embitters a person so much as a lost, a

disappointed hope; and that explains why people who

could receive Him like that, who witnessed the

raising of Lazarus, who saw Christ's miracles and

heard His teaching, admired every word, who were

ready to become His disciples as long as He brought

victory, broke away from Him, turned their backs on

Him and a few days later shouted, "Crucify Him,

crucify Him." And Christ spent all those days in

loneliness, knowing what was in store for Him,

abandoned by every one except the Mother of God,

who stood silently by, as She had done throughout

her life, participating in His tragic ascent to the

Cross; She who had accepted the Annunciation, the

Good Tidings, but who also accepted in silence

Simeon's prophecy that a sword would pierce her

heart.

During the coming days we shall be not just

remembering, but be present at Christ's Passion. We

shall be part of the crowd surrounding Christ and the

disciples and the Mother of God. As we hear the

Gospel readings, as we listen to the prayers of the

Church, as one image after another of these days of

the Passion passes before our eyes, let each one of us

ask himself the question, "Where do I stand, who am

I in this crowd? A Pharisee? A Scribe? A traitor, a

coward? Who? Or do I stand among the Apostles?"

But they too were overcome by fear. Peter denied

Him thrice, Judas betrayed Him, John, James and

Peter went to sleep just when Christ most needed

human love and support; the other disciples fled; no

one remained except John and the Mother of God,

those who were bound to Him by the kind of love

which fears nothing and is ready to share in

everything.

Once more let us ask ourselves who we are and

where we stand, what our position in this crowd is.

Do we stand with hope, or despair, or what? And if

we stand with indifference, we too are part of that

terrifying crowd that surrounded Christ, shuffling,

listening, and then going away; as we shall go away

from church. The Crucifix will be standing here on

Thursday and we shall be reading the Gospel about

the Cross, the Crucifixion and death - and then what

will happen? The Cross will remain standing, but we

shall go away for a rest, go home to have supper, to

sleep, to prepare for the fatigues of the next day. And

during this time Christ is on the Cross, Christ is in

the tomb. How awful it is that, like the disciples in

their day, we are not able to spend one night, one

hour with Him. Let us think about this, and if we are

incapable of doing anything, let us at least realise

who we are and where we stand, and at the final hour

turn to Christ with the cry, the appeal of the thief,

Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom! Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh EASTER MESSAGE

9 April 1972

(Romans VIII:34-39)

Christ is risen!

When Christ first rose from the tomb and appeared to His disciples

and the myrrh-bearing women, He greeted them with the word

"Rejoice!". And then later when He appeared to the Apostles His first

words were "Peace be unto you!"; peace, because their confusion was

very great - the Lord had died. It seemed as though all hope had

perished for the victory of God over human wickedness, for the victory

of good over evil. It would seem that life itself had been slain and light

had faded. All that remained for the disciples who had believed in

Christ, in life, in love, was to go on existing, for they could no longer

live. Having tasted eternal life they were now condemned to expect

cruel persecution and death at the hands of Christ's enemies. "Peace be

unto you", proclaimed Christ. "I have arisen, I am alive, I am with you,

and henceforth nothing - neither death nor persecution - will ever

separate us or deprive you of eternal life, the victory of God". And then,

having convinced them of His physical resurrection, having restored

their peace and an unshakable certainty of faith, Christ uttered words

which may in the present age sound menacing and frightening to many,

"As the Father sent Me, so I send you". Only a few hours after Christ's

death on the cross, not long after the fearful night in Gethsemane, the

betrayal by Judas when Christ had been taken by His enemies,

condemned to death, led out beyond the city walls and died on the cross,

these words sounded menacing. And it was only faith, the conquering

certainty that Christ had risen, that God had conquered, that the Church

had become an invincible force that transformed these words into words

of hope and triumphant God-speed.

And the disciples went out to preach; nothing could stop them. Twelve

men confronted the Roman empire. Twelve defenceless men, twelve

men without legal rights were out to preach the simplest message, that

divine love had entered the world and that they were willing to give

their lives for the sake of this love, in order that others might believe and

come to life, and that a new life might begin for others through their

death. [I Cor. IV :9-13]

Death was indeed granted them; there is not a single apostle except St.

John the Divine who did not die a martyr's death. Death was granted

them, and persecution and suffering and a cross (II Cor. VI: 3-14).

But faith, faith in Christ, in God Incarnate, faith in Christ crucified and

risen, faith in Christ who brought unquenchable love into the world, has

triumphed. "Our faith which has conquered the world is the victory."

This preaching changed the attitude of man to man; every person

became precious in the eyes of another. The destiny of the world was

widened and deepened; it burst the bounds of earth and united earth to

heaven. And now we Christians, in the words of a western preacher, in

the person of Jesus Christ, have become the people to whom God has

committed the care of other people; that they should believe in

themselves because God believes in us; that they should hope for all

things because God puts His hope in us; that they should be able to carry

our victorious faith through the furnace of horror, trials, hatred and

persecution - that faith which has already conquered the world, in the

faith in Christ, God crucified and risen.

So let us also stand up for this faith. Let us proclaim it fearlessly, let

us teach it to our children, let us bring them to the sacraments of the

Church which, even before they can understand it, unite them with God

and plant eternal life in them.

All of us, sooner or later, will stand before the judgment of God and

will have to answer whether we were able to love the whole world -

believers and unbelievers, the good and the bad - with the sacrificial,

crucified, all-conquering love with which God loves us. May the Lord

give us invincible courage, triumphant faith, joyful love in order that the

kingdom for which God became man should be established, that we

should truly become godly, that our earth should indeed become heaven

where love, triumphant love lives and reigns. Christ is risen!

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh ST THOMAS SUNDAY

April 30,1995

To-day we are keeping the day of St Thomas the Apostle. Too often

we remember him only as a doubter; indeed he is the one who

questioned the message which the other Apostles brought to him when

they said: Christ is risen! We have seen Him alive!

But he is not one who doubted throughout his life or who remained

unfaithful to the fullness of the divine revelation of Christ. We must

remember that when the Apostles and the Lord heard of the illness of

Lazarus, Christ said to them: Let us return to Jerusalem. To which the

others said: But the Jews wanted to kill you there. Why should we

return? Only Thomas the Apostle answered: Let us go with Him and die

with Him. He was prepared not only to be His disciple in words, not

only to follow Him as one follows a teacher, but to die with Him as one

dies with a friend and, if necessary, for a friend. So, let us remember his

greatness, his faithfulness, his wholeness.

But what happened then when after the Resurrection of Christ, the

Apostles said to the one who had not seen Christ risen, that they had

actually seen the risen Christ? Why did he not accept their message?

Why did he doubt? Why did he say that he must have proofs, material

proofs? Because when he looked at them, he saw them rejoicing in what

they had seen, rejoicing that Christ was not dead, rejoicing that Christ

was alive, rejoicing that victory had been won. Yet, when he looked at

them he saw no difference in them.. These were the same men, only full

of joy instead of fear. And Thomas said: Unless I see, unless I probe the

Resurrection, I cannot believe you.

Is it not the same thing that anyone can say to us who meets us?

We proclaimed the Resurrection of Christ, passionately, sincerely,

truthfully, a few days ago. We believe in it with all our being; and yet,

when people meet us in our homes, in the street, in our place of work,

anywhere, do they look at us and say: Who are these people? What has

happened to them?

The Apostles had seen Christ risen, but the Resurrection had not

become part of their own experience. They had not come out of death

into eternal life. So it is also with us; except with the saints, when they

see them, they know that their message is true.

What is it in our message that is not heard? Because we speak, but are

not. We should be so different from people who have no experience of

the living Christ, risen, who has shared His life with us, who sent the

Holy Spirit to us as, in the words of C.S. Lewis, a living person is

different from a statue. A statue may be beautiful, magnificent, glorious,

but it is stone. A human being can be much less moving in his outer

presence, yet he is alive, he is a testimony of life.

So let us examine ourselves. Let us ask ourselves where we are. Why

is it that people who meet us never notice that we are limbs of the risen

Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit? Why?

Each of us has got to give his own reply to this question. Let us, each

of us, examine ourselves and be ready to answer before our own

conscience and do what is necessary to change our lives in such away

that people meeting us may look at us and say: Such people we have

never seen. There is something about them that we have never seen in

anyone. What is it? And we could answer: It is the life of Christ abroad

in us. We are His limbs. This is the life of the Spirit in us. We are His

temple. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh SUNDAY OF THE MYRRH -BEARING WOMEN

April 21, 1991

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We remember today the Myrrh-bearing women, Joseph of Arimathea

and Nicodemus, people who in the course of the Gospel are hardly

mentioned, yet who, when Christ was seemingly defeated, when death,

rejection, betrayal and hatred had conquered, proved to be people of

faithfulness and courage, the faithfulness of the heart and the courage

that can be born only of love. At the moment of the Crucifixion all the

Apostles had fled save one, John, who stood at the foot of the Cross

with the Mother of God. Everyone else had abandoned Christ, only a

small group of women stood at a short distance from the Cross, and

when He had died, they came to anoint His Body which Joseph of

Arimathea had sought from Pilate, unafraid of being recognised as a

disciple, because in life and in death love and faithfulness had

conquered.

Let us reflect on this. It is easy to be Christ's disciples when we are on

the crest of the wave, in the security of countries where no persecution,

no rejection is endured, no betrayal can lead us to martyrdom, or simply

to becoming the victims of mockery and rejection.

Let us think of ourselves not in regard to Christ alone but with regard

to one another, because Christ has said that what we have done to any

one of us, to the smallest, to the most insignificant, we have done to

Him.

Let us ask ourselves how we behave when someone is rejected,

mocked, ostracised, condemned by public opinion or by the opinion of

those who mean something to us, whether at that moment our heart

remains faithful, whether at that moment we find courage to say, He was, and he remains my friend whether you accept or reject him. There is no greater measure of faithfulness than that faithfulness which is

made manifest in defeat. Let us consider this, because we all are

defeated, we are defeated in so many ways. We all strive, with whatever

energy we have - a little or much, to be what we should be, and we are

defeated at every moment. Should we not look at one another not only

with compassion, but with the faithfulness of friends who are prepared

to stand by a person who falls, falls away from grace, falls away from

his own ideal, frustrates all hopes and expectations which we have set

on him or her. At that time let us stand by, at that time let us be faithful

and prove that our love was not conditioned by the hope of victory but

was a wholehearted gift, gratuitous, joyful, wonderful. Amen.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh SUNDAY OF THE PARALYTIC

21 May 2000

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

How tragic today's story of the life of Christ is. A man had been

paralysed for years. He had lain at a short distance from healing, but he

himself had no strength to merge into the waters of ablution. And no

one - no one in the course of all these years - had had compassion on

him.

The ones rushed to be the first in order to be healed. Others who

were attached to them by love, by friendship, helped them to be healed.

But no one cast a glance at this man, who for years had longed for

healing and was not in himself able to find strength to become whole.

If only one person had been there, if only one heart had responded

with compassion, this man might have been whole years and years

earlier. As no one, not one person, had compassion on him, all that was

left to him - and I say all that was left to him with a sense of horror -

was the direct intervention of God.

We are surrounded by people who are in need. It is not only people

who are physically paralysed who need help. There are so many people

who are paralysed in themselves, and need to meet someone who

would help them. Paralysed in themselves are those who are terrified of

life, because life has been an object of terror for them since they were

born: insensitive parents, heartless, brutal surroundings. How many are

those who hoped, when they were still small, that there would be

something for them in life. But no. There wasn't. There was no

compassion. There was no friendliness. There was nothing. And when

they tried to receive comfort and support, they did not receive it.

Whenever they thought they could do something they were told, 'Don't

try. Don't you understand that you are incapable of this?' And they felt

lower and lower.

How many were unable to fulfil their lives because they were

physically ill, and not sufficiently strong But did they find someone

to give them a supporting hand? Did they find anyone who felt so

deeply for them and about them that they went out of their way to help?

And how many those who are terrified of life, lived in circumstances of

fear, of violence, of brutality But all this could not have taken them if there had been someone who have stood by them and not abandoned

them.

So we are surrounded, all of us, by people who are in the situation

of this paralytic man. If we think of ourselves we will see that many of

us are paralysed, incapable of fulfilling all their aspirations; incapable

of being what they longed for, incapable of serving others the way their

heart speaks; incapable of doing anything they longed for because fear,

brokenness has come into them.

And all of us, all of us were responsible for each of them. We are

responsible, mutually, for one another; because when we look right and

left at the people who stand by us, what do we know about them? Do

we know how broken they are? How much pain there is in their hearts?

How much agony there has been in their lives? How many broken

hopes, how much fear and rejection and contempt that has made them

contemptuous of themselves and unable even to respect themselves -

not to speak of having the courage of making a move towards

wholeness, that wholeness of which the Gospel speaks in this passage

and in so many other places?

Let us reflect on this. Let us look at each other and ask ourselves,

'How much frailty is there in him or her? How much pain has

accumulated in his or her heart? How much fear of life - but life

expressed by my neighbour, the people whom I should be able to count

for life - has come in to my existence?

Let us look at one another with understanding, with attention.

Christ is there. He can heal; yes. But we will be answerable for each

other, because there are so many ways in which we should be the eyes

of Christ who sees the needs, the ears of Christ who hears the cry, the

hands of Christ who supports and heals or makes it possible for the

person to be healed.

Let us look at this parable of the paralytic with new eyes; not

thinking of this poor man two thousand years ago who was so lucky

that Christ happened to be near him and in the end did what every

neighbour should have done. Let us look at each other and have

compassion, active compassion; insight; love if we can. And then this

parable will not have been spoken or this event will not have been

related to us in vain. Amen.

CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Metropolitan Anthony Sourozh

Sermon on the Samaritan woman

8 May 1988

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost

The Holy Gospel has not given us the name of the Samaritan woman.

But the Tradition of the Church remembers, and calls her in Greek -

Photini, in Russian - Svetlana, in the Celtic languages - Fiona, in

Western languages - Claire. And all these names speak to us of one

thing - of light.

Having met the Lord Jesus Christ she has become a light shining in

the world, a light that enlightens those who meet her. Every Saint is

offered us as an example; but we cannot always emulate the concrete

ways in which a Saint lived, we cannot always repeat their way from

earth to heaven. But we can learn from each of them two things. The one

is that by the grace of God we can achieve what seems humanly

impossible; that is, to become a person in the image and likeness of

God, to be - in this world of darkness and tragedy which is in the power

of lies - a word of truth, a sign of hope, the certainty that God can

conquer if we only allow Him access to our souls. Because if the

Kingdom of God is not established within us, if God is not enthroned in

our minds and hearts, a fire that destroys everything unworthy of

ourselves and of Him, we cannot spread God's light around.

And the second thing which the Saints can teach us is to understand

the message which their names convey to us. And today's Samaritan

woman speaks of light. Christ has said that He is the Light of the world,

the light that enlightens all men; and we are called to give shelter within

our souls, minds and hearts - indeed, within our whole self - to this light;

so that the word spoken by Christ, "Let your light so shine before all

men, that seeing your good deeds they may give glory to your Father

who is in heaven", may be fulfilled and accomplished in and through us.

It is only through seeing our deeds, through seeing how we live that

people can believe that the light is God's light; it is not in our words,

unless they are words of truth and of power like those of the Apostles, or

of Christ Himself indeed. And let us reflect, each of us, on the meaning

of our name and on the way in which we can become what we are

called.

The Samaritan woman came to the well without any spiritual

purpose; she came, as she came daily, to fetch water - and she met

Christ. Each of us may meet our God at any turn in our life, when we are

about our most homely tasks, if our hearts are turned in the right

direction, if we are prepared to receive a