T E H HE NLARGEMENT OF THE EART Archimandrite Zacharias THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE HEART “Be ye also enlarged” (2 Corinthians 6:13) in the Theology of Saint Silouan the Athonite and Elder Sophrony of Essex edited by Christopher Veniamin MOUNT THABOR PUBLISHING 2012 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE HEART: “BE YE ALSO ENLARGED” (2 CORINTHIANS 6:13) IN THE THEOLOGY OF SAINT SILOUAN THE ATHONITE AND ELDER SOPHRONY OF ESSEX Copyright © 2012 by The Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Essex, UK First edition 2006 Second American edition (with minor corrections) 2012 Mount Thabor Publishing 106 Hilltop Road Dalton, PA 18414 USA www.thaborian.com Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Mount Thabor Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9800207-3-1 Contents Foreword by Christopher Veniamin Saint Silouan the Athonite and his Disciple the Elder Sophrony Man’s Birth into Eternal Life “Keep Thy Mind in Hell and Despair Not” God’s Work of Salvation and Man Prayer: The Way of Creation On the Jesus Prayer Spiritual Fatherhood as a Ministry of Reconciliation Between Man and God The Presentation of Christ that Justified God and Man Appendix On Monasticism I On Monasticism II S S A AINT ILOUAN THE THONITE A D E S ND HIS ISCIPLE THE LDER OPHRONY W HILE THE BLESSED ELDER and Founder of our monastery, Fr. Sophrony, was still with us, some of us, his monks, would eagerly seek out an opportunity – “in season, out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2) – to visit him and speak with him, in order to be edified by his word. Every contact with him was a source of inspiration, and new horizons in life would open up before us. The Elder lived in a little house at the edge of the monastic enclosure. In his last years he was considerably weakened by old age, and he would sleep in intervals in an armchair. It often happened that in our contact and our conversations with the people that visited us, a question or a problem would arise that solicited the Elder’s attention. We would go to him seeking the appropriate answer. Occasionally, we would find him asleep, gently shake his armchair and wake him up. We then presented him with the question that had arisen. He would open his eyes and almost immediately the answer would flow from his mouth. It was a marvellous and wondrous event. His voice came from beyond, from heaven. The grace that was in his words would inform and irresistibly convince not only our own hearts but also the hearts of the people that had sought the will of God, and to whom we transmitted his words. Aside: The great miracle that impressed me (living near Fr. Sophrony) more than anything else, was the word of God coming from his mouth, and the energy of grace with which it was loaded. We had seen so many miracles when he was praying for people, and none of us cared for that, because he himself did not pay attention to them. But we were all astonished, amazed, at the word proceeding from his mouth. As I was saying last night to our Bishop, once he prayed for an ill person a second time and the person was not healed, but he was very happy, because, while he was reading the prayers the second time, he lifted up his stole from the sick man and he said to him: “Look! We are not wonderworkers, we are priests, and pray for the reconciliation of people with God.” And somehow Fr. Sophrony was sad and did not want to pray any more. Then the man looked at him with a smile, and said: “Yes, I am not healed physically, but my soul is healed.” Because he was a man who did not have faith, he doubted, and it was his wife and his mother-in-law who brought him almost by force to the monastery for Fr. Sophrony to read prayers for him. And I am telling you, the joy of Fr. Sophrony for that was much greater than when he was reading prayers, and miracles were happening in a very astonishing manner. Once, a man who had his face deformed by a stroke was in bed and almost dying. Fr. Sophrony taking Fr. Kyrill, our Abbot, with him went and read prayers for him. And Fr. Kyrill came back in great awe saying to me, “You know, while Pappous – “Grandfather”, as he called Fr. Sophrony – was reading the prayer, the face of the ill person was straightening up.” And the prophecy of Ezekiel came to my mind about the dry bones coming up, forming a skeleton, nerves and flesh, and the spirit of life coming to them (Ezek. 37:1–14). And even for such healings he was not so happy as that time when the man said, “My soul is healed.” End of aside. Our Elder had one belief and one desire. He was totally convinced that the word of God, for our generation, was given to his Spiritual Father, St. Silouan. He fervently desired to make this word known if possible to all the peoples of the earth, for whom the saint himself had prayed that they may know God in the Holy Spirit. He wanted us also to participate in this fervent desire of his, thereby repaying as far as possible our sacred obligation to the saint. One day, during one of our conversations, he urged me to write down the thoughts that, from time to time, I had expressed to him concerning the significance of St. Silouan’s words. Rather perplexed, for I was acutely aware of my own poverty and insignificance, I asked him, “But Father, what can I write?” His answer was to be my guiding star. In a decisive tone he said to me, “Repeat what I have said!” From that moment I understood a phenomenon which is frequently observed in the history of monasticism. Every time that the word of God would be born in the heart of a holy monk, and by which word God would announce the deep judgments of His will to the people, then generations of monks from that same monastery would repeat the words of that holy monk. They would analyse his thought and enlarge upon his teachings. Thus, they would rekindle in the souls of their contemporaries the true faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints (cf. Jude 1:3). In this way, they would minister to the word of the saints, they would build the Body of the Church, and at the same time work out their own salvation. A characteristic example of this was at work for centuries in the Monastery of Studios, in Constantinople. Consequently, the suggestion and the request of our Elder Sophrony to occupy ourselves with the word of his holy teacher, Silouan, is both meet and right according to tradition. The only stumbling block is my own unworthiness. The Elder himself, humbly and without doubt, believed that the direct and revelatory word of God came to St. Silouan; while Fr. Sophrony likened his own work to that of a postman delivering a letter that he has not written himself. He is merely transmitting the word of his Father, Silouan, whose word merits the closest attention and profound study, not just in an objective manner, but by personally living it. With apostolic conviction, St. Silouan’s word gives the answers to the urgent problems and impasses of his generation. It also defines with Christlike authority the sure criteria for determining the authentic knowledge of God in the Orthodox Church. For example, he says somewhere that the criterion for the presence of the Holy Spirit, the criterion of the truth, is the love for one’s enemies. This God-inspired servant of the word of Christ, Silouan, is the subject of today’s lecture. The basic and main source that informs us about his life and teaching is the book Saint Silouan the Athonite by Fr. Sophrony. From the very first page, this book deals with deep issues and poses the question about the meaning of life in all its tragic gravity. It reveals the inscrutable abyss of the judgments of our God on the one hand, and on the other, the impossibility for man, in his present state, to fathom the divine will, and be incorporated in the pre-eternal design of the Holy Trinity concerning him. According to the testimony of his closest disciple, St. Silouan’s exterior life does not present any special interest. A few events prior to his becoming a monk bear witness to his strong constitution, his dynamic character, and his religious profundity. Otherwise, his life passed by almost unnoticed. Even during his monastic years, comparatively few people recognized him for what he was. But blessed Silouan was an event so magnificent that he attracted God’s attentiveness, and the love of all the saints in heaven. His whole being – soul, mind and body – became a scented vessel, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit. His heart was like a beautiful garden, full of flowers, in the depth of which the Lord was well-pleased to have a luminous and beloved dwelling. St. Silouan was born in 1866 in the village of Shovsk, which was in the district of Lebedinsk in the province of Tambov. He came from a rather wealthy peasant family, which had been freed from serfdom but a few decades earlier. He arrived on Athos in 1892, and received the monastic tonsure in the Great Monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon in 1896. He became a great schema monk in 1911. He fulfilled various obediences in the monastery of his repentance, where he also served as a steward for many years. There he led the ascetic life for forty-six years. The greatest spiritual event of his life was the vision of the living Christ, whom he was counted worthy of beholding six months after his entry into the monastery. During those months he had given himself over with great ardour to unceasing and agonizing prayer. This vision filled both his heart and his whole body with the strength of the Holy Spirit, and illumined his mind with the knowledge of the great mystery of Christ. In the ensuing long years of his life, he tirelessly and ceaselessly witnessed to the fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) – indescribable and infinite love. Full of days, and replete with peace and grace, he departed to the Lord in 1938. By God’s providence, Fr. Sophrony also dwelt in the same monastery for about fourteen years. During the final years of St. Silouan’s life, especially from 1931 until the day of his repose, it happened that Fr. Sophrony was his closest disciple and certainly the one most able to relate the saint’s life. He assumed this undertaking after much thought and hesitation. Fr. Sophrony’s exclusive aim in portraying the spiritual life of the saint was to benefit the faithful, for in the person of the saint the most precious aspects of the mystery of our faith were recapitulated. As the Elder mentions, it was in fear that he presented this testament. As all the works of the Lord are awesome and wonderful, so too is a spiritual testament awesome and wonderful, and in order for this testimony to divine love to be received, a readiness for struggle and self-denial is required. Aside: Our God is a difficult God, because He offers a cross; but that cross is the expression of His love “to the end” (John 13:1). That is why love is so terrible. End of aside. St. Silouan came from a pious family that was permeated with the spirit of evangelical love. This spirit also marked his own life, but he nevertheless did not escape the temptations of the world, nor the errors of youth. Two events precipitated his turning to repentance. The first was when he heard an account of the life and miracles of a Russian saint, John Sezenov (1791–1839). As he was listening to the story of the saint’s holy life, he reflected, “If he was a holy man, it means that God is here with us, so there is no point in me going off to search for Him”;1 and his faith was rekindled. God had given him this thought in order to dispel the doubts concerning the existence of God that had been instilled into him by a travelling book-peddler, when he was but four years old. Thus, with this thought, he had regained his faith, and ardently clung to the memory of God, praying much and with tears. It was during this time that the desire for the monastic life was born in his heart. His father, though, firmly advised him to wait for a while, and to go to a monastery after finishing his military service. Meanwhile, he remained in this unusual state of grace for three months. Thereafter, this first grace of God’s calling departed, and Simeon, which was Silouan’s name in the world, returned to the usual worldly ways of the youth of his village. It was then that God allowed him to fall into two grave sins for which he later repented all his life. Thus did the clamour of youth begin to drown the first summons to a monastic life of spiritual striving, and he lost the grace that initially visited him. But God, who had chosen him, foreseeing his grateful fidelity, called him again, this time by means of a vision. As his biographer, the Elder Sophrony relates, after one of those days of wild living, having fallen asleep, he dreamt that he saw a snake crawl down his throat. Feeling revolted, he jumped up, whereupon he heard a voice saying to him, “Just as you found it loathsome to swallow a snake in your dream, so I find your ways ugly to look upon.”2 This voice was extraordinarily sweet and beautiful. St. Silouan was convinced beyond doubt that it was the voice of the Blessed Virgin. This voice, with its beauty, meekness and unutterable sweetness, transmitted to the youth the energy of divine grace, which overwhelmed him and shook him to the core of his being. To the end of his life he gave thanks to the Mother of God for not despising him in his sinful state, but deigned to come to him herself and to lift him from his fall. The fact that he had not been deemed worthy of seeing the Mother of God he attributed to the state of his impurity that possessed him at that time. This new calling, which occurred a short while before his military service, radically changed his life and decisively determined the course of his future. He felt terribly ashamed about his past, and this shame was transformed into the most fiery and ardent repentance before God. Aside: It is the same in the sacrament of confession: the more shame we feel when we make ourselves naked before God, the more strength is given to us to overcome sin and the