Tag: Christianity

The decision came after an escalation of violence made daily life almost impossible in Haiti, with at least 80% of the capital city Port-au-Prince in the hands of gangs and more than 300,000 displaced citizens.

Henry said in a video address late March 11 that his government would leave power after the establishment of a transitional council. “Haiti needs peace. Haiti needs stability,” he said.

Haiti stands on the brink of civil war, according to Archbishop Max Leroy Mésidor of Port-au-Prince, president of the Haitian bishops’ conference.

Archbishop Mésidor conveyed to the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need that armed gangs operate with alarming organization, overpowering the efforts of law enforcement. This has severely hampered the church’s charitable activities, exacerbating a dire situation, the prelate said.

Criminal groups have been coordinating attacks on police stations and were able to release more than 3,000 inmates from a penal institution over the past weeks, including murderers and kidnappers. Some gang lords, including former policeman and most-feared gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who heads an alliance of nine bands known as G9, affirmed that their goal was to provoke the prime minister’s resignation.

Henry took office after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021. Gangs have been rapidly growing and expanding their reach in Haiti’s society since then, adding to an already chaotic situation in the North American continent’s poorest country.

The church has been trying to assist the poor, with several social programs in working-class neighborhoods. But violence has made it impossible for many missionaries to go on. In 2023, for instance, a Brazilian inter-congregational mission established 13 years ago had to be closed after armed men invaded its headquarters.

Catholic missionaries have been among the major targets of kidnappers, something that has spread fear in the Haitian clergy.

In 2024, a large number of priests and sisters have already been kidnapped. Gang members claim the church and Catholic organizations will generally pay a ransom for the abducted missionaries, so they have become the preferred targets for abduction.

The most recent kidnappings include the abduction in January of six nuns, who were released after five days, but a driver of the bus they were on when they were taken was killed. On Feb. 23, a group of six members of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart were taken by armed men along with a teacher as they went to John XXIII School where they work; the school is run by their congregation. On March 5, three religious sisters, members of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, were kidnapped at the orphanage they ran. The institution is located in an area dominated by a gang named 400 Mawozo.

The three sisters were released the following day and are now safe at home. Among the six Sacred Heart brothers, four have been freed, besides the lay teacher, according to a statement published by the congregation on March 10.

“Two brothers remain in captivity. We’re negotiating with the criminals,” Father Gilbert Peltrop, secretary-general of the Conference of Religious of Haiti, told OSV News.

Father Peltrop said that the three Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny were released without a ransom. Commonly, gangs ask for large sums of money in exchange for the abducted victims, something that requires extended negotiations till more viable amounts are agreed upon.

According to Salesian Father Morachel Bonhomme, who heads the Conference of Religious of Haiti, the current scenario for clergy members in the country is extremely hard.

“We try to be cautious, but we continue to be present. We have a mission to accomplish. Our mission is to accompany the poor, the homeless, the neediest in society, even when it’s hard to do it,” Father Bonhomme told OSV News.

Several analysts, including members of the church, affirm that international assistance is mandatory to deal with the current crisis in Haiti.

The United Nations decided to send a Multinational Security Support mission to the country. The peace force would be led by Kenya, which agreed to deploy 1,000 police officers. But the measure is being questioned in the Kenyan judiciary system and it is not yet clear whether the African country will be able to lead the mission.

On March 7, the Latin American Justice and Peace Ecclesial Network released a document demanding “the international authorities and the global community not to remain indifferent to the sufferings of the poorest and weakest among the dear Haitian people.” The letter asked for an “urgent intervention of the international peace forces.”

“We strongly believe in the democratic way as a trustworthy manifestation of the peoples’ will to attain Justice and Peace in all nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, and especially in Haiti. We also believe in the need of a legitimate and active political authority,” the declaration read, adding that its signatories would pray for “the fruits of dialogue, reconciliation, and peace in Haiti.”

U.S. prelates have urged prayers for Haiti, including Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn, New York, who has invited the faithful of the diocese to join him in praying for the Caribbean nation at an evening Mass March 18 at Holy Innocents Church in Flatbush. The church is that day’s stop on the Diocesan Lenten Pilgrimage.

“Please pray for peace in Haiti and a peaceful resolution to this political crisis as we stand in solidarity with so many here in Brooklyn and in Queens who are concerned about loved ones in Haiti,” said Bishop Brennan.

Prespa, North Macedonia, March 12, 2024   

Photo: liturgija.mk Another hierarch of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric is speaking out about the issue of his Church’s autocephaly.

Macedonian Church received autocephaly “without conditions, pressure, concessions, hidden interests,” says Macedonian hierarch in fiery defense of MOC-OA name and statusThe Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric (MOC-OA) has full and complete autocephaly, and does not need to change its name in order to receive a new tomos from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, an elder bishop of the MOC-OA writes in a new statement.

“>Yesterday, OrthoChristian reported on a recent statement of His Eminence Metropolitan Agathangel of Povardarie in which he firmly defends the full autocephaly and of the MOC-OA, granted by the Serbian Patriarchate, against those who say autocephaly can only come from Constantinople and that the MOC must cease identifying as “Macedonian.”

His Eminence Metropolitan Petar of Prespa and Pelagonia also recently addressed similar issues as a gudest on the show Studio 10 on TV 24, reports the MOC-OA’s site liturgija.mk.

Referring to the Macedonian Holy Synod’s recent decision to create a commission to “study the status” of the schismatic OCU (which it Macedonian Church rejects communion with Ukrainian schismaticsThe Holy Synod of the MOC decided to wait until the OCU’s status is finalized for the whole Church.

“>previously declared it would not concelebrate with), Met. Petar said the issue should be studied completely, because there are clergy and hierarchs of the MOC-OA who do not truly understand what is happening in Ukraine.

With the granting of a tomos to the Ukrainian schismatics by Constantinople, “the problem was not only not solved, but also further complicated,” the hierarch stressed.

Further, “Metropolitan Petar emphasized that it’s necessary to put an end to the notorious lies being promoted in the Macedonian public, that the receipt of a tomos by the Patriarchate of Constantinople is unconditional.”

In fact, Met. Peter explains, there exists an official document with three conditions:

1. That the MOC-OA be named as simply the Church of Ohrid

2. That any version of the name “Macedonian” is impermissible, even in communication with Local Orthodox Churches that have no objection to the name “Macedonian Orthodox Church”

3. That the territory of the MOC-OA be limited to the territory of North Macedonia, which means giving up its diaspora

Met. Petar revealed in an interview Constantinople doesn’t want Macedonian Church to use its own name even for internal use, says MOC hierarchHis Eminence Metropolitan Petar of Prespa and Pelagonia’s comments to TV Thelma come against the background of the question of the MOC’s precise status within the Orthodox world.

“>last April that Constantinople is so against the idea of the MOC-OA using the title “Macedonian” that it insists it not even refer to itself as such for its own internal uses. However, as stated Macedonian-Ohrid Church issues statement on its name and autocephalyThe hierarchs of the Synod gathered in a regular session yesterday, February 21. Among the topics discussed was the Church’s relations with other Local Churches.”>last February, the MOC Synod explicitly understands itself as the guardian of the Church’s statutory order and norms, including its full name of “Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.”

And in his recent comments, Met. Petar appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople that communication between the Churches should go through official channels, and not simply through Bigorsky Monastery and its abbot Bishop Partenij, who is known to a major supporter of the Constantinople within the MOC-OA.

“The rules must be respected; communication must go through the relevant commission, and not through Bp. Partenij, who promises them something that cannot come to pass,” said Met. Petar.

And if Constantinople wants to grant a tomos to the MOC-OA, “it should be without conditions. Otherwise, such a tomos wouldn’t be acceptable to us,” the Metropolitan stressed. Met. Agathangel had stressed precisely that the tomos from the Serbian Church came without any conditions or pressure.

It was unanimously decided at three separate sessions of the Macedonian Synod that the Church will not give up the name of “Macedonian Orthodox Church,” Met. Petar noted. It is acceptable for Greek-speaking Churches to refer to the MOC-OA as simple the “Church of Ohrid,” but the MOC-OA will continue to use its full name internally, he explained.

Regarding the issue of the MOC-OA’s diaspora, consisting of dioceses in Europe, North America, and Australia, Met. Agathangel said in his recent statement that the Church must not “leave its diaspora to those who have not sown there, and therefore have no right to reap.”

Likewise, Met. Petar stated: “The diaspora is ours, we created it. A diaspora is a feature of an autocephalous Orthodox Church.”

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What’s really going on in the Catholic Church in the United States right now? 

In many parts of the country, the hard numbers reflect a sobering reality: declines in baptisms, marriages, and ordinations to the priesthood; closing parishes and shrinking dioceses. In others, signs of growth where immigrants seem to be counteracting those trends. 

What’s harder to pin down is the overall “mood” of Catholics in the U.S. Lately, they’ve witnessed a reawakening of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, endured the effects of a pandemic, and been largely indifferent to an ongoing synod styled as a listening exercise that sought out their input on the state of the Church. 

At the same time, words like “vibrant” and “robust” are frequently used by leaders — particularly bishops — to describe thriving ministries and success stories. Enthusiasm is building toward the National Eucharistic Revival planned by the country’s bishops, set to culminate with a large-scale pilgrimage to Indianapolis this summer.  

But rather than try to break down the numbers and figures, veteran Church communicator Francis X. Maier had a different idea: Talk to Americans serving the Church — bishops, priests, and laypeople — give them the option of remaining anonymous (in order to be able to speak more freely) and gather their thoughts in a book.

The result, titled “True Confessions” (Ignatius Press, $24.95) represents a doctor’s checkup of sorts on the state of the U.S. church, offering a snapshot of its hopes and fears, as well as its strengths and its sicknesses. After reading it, I asked Maier, who’s had a storied career as a screenwriter, journalist, and senior adviser to retired Archbishop Charles Chaput (in both Denver and Philadelphia) about his experience with the project and what he took away from it. 

You frame this book as a big undertaking: an attempt to take a “snapshot” of the Church in the United States at this moment in history. What prompted you to take something like this on?

I had the kind of experiences that allowed me to do it: I worked in and around the Church for nearly five decades, first as a journalist, then as a diocesan staffer, and then 23 years as senior aide to a metropolitan archbishop. The clergy and laypeople I worked with were overwhelmingly good people. I loved the Church when I started, and over the years I saw both the best and the worst in the Church in an intimate way; a way laypeople rarely do. At the end of it all, I love her even more now than when I began. So when you approach the end of a good career, you want to take stock and sum up what you’ve learned and seen as a record to be shared with others.

“True Confessions” is based on 103 interviews I did over a 17-month period with bishops — 30 of them from 25 different states and one overseas diocese — other clergy and religious, and laypeople. I avoided the extremes in the Church. I focused on faithful people sincerely trying to live what the Church believes and teaches. And I think what emerges is an honest portrait of American Catholic life in the third decade of the 21st century: There’s a lot of very sobering candor. There’s nothing Pollyannaish about any of the content; but there’s also a deep well of fidelity, energy, and hope that rarely gets mass media attention.

I’ve been disappointed with foreign, including Roman, criticism of the U.S. church over the past decade. It hasn’t been fair, and the people I worked alongside deserve better. I was struck some years ago by a piece in La Civilta Cattolica, which was remarkably ill-informed. I could have done a better and more accurate job of naming the problems in U.S. Catholic life myself. The article was a disservice to the many people in this country who actually live and do the work of the Gospel. It operated out of an ignorance and questionable spirit that left a permanent bad taste. And it hasn’t been an isolated example.

In the book’s introduction, you write: “The Church is the soul of the world and the leaven of a just society. To live that mandate, she needs to recover her health and mission. But an illness can be addressed and healed only when it’s named.” So, after all the work you put into this book, what is the illness?

In the process of assimilating, we tend to absorb the flaws of American culture along with its positives. We forget our history and therefore our identity and missionary mandate as a believing community. We become unmoored from our foundations. As a result, a lot of Catholics live their faith as a good ethical code that more or less guides their sense of right and wrong. But the supernatural stakes at the heart of the faith are forgotten, and that eventually kills belief. You can see it in a variety of ways: the urgency to conform ourselves to popular opinion on sexuality issues, for example. There’s a great desire not to be different; not to be cut out of the herd.

Tocqueville noted 200 years ago that Americans, for all our talk about democracy, equality, free will, and individualism, tend to be creatures of public opinion. If public opinion is running against the Church, then many of us will lean in that direction. So that’s a huge problem now: this desire to not be embarrassed by Church teachings that are inconvenient for secular society.

There’s a lot of talk these days about polarization and political ideology in the Church. But is there a deeper “illness” you think might be afflicting Catholics, regardless of whether they’re so-called liberals or conservatives?

Look, I want to get to heaven, and a Christian life lived well is the way to do it. But that gets obscured, particularly in an election year, by whether you’re voting for Biden because of this, or for Trump because of that. I think both men are embarrassments to our system of government, and a further sign of the turmoil in our culture. 

Politics is about getting and using power, and power is our favorite golden calf, no matter how we dress it up with moralizing language. That’s especially true in a time of rapid social change, which is where we are right now. Confusion feeds anxiety, which feeds our appetite for control, which makes us unhinged in some of our most important choices. 

We’re living through a kind of new Reformation. I mean a literal re-formation or restructuring of the way we look at the world and ourselves. And it can get very painful and very dangerous. In a technologically dominant society, the supernatural can seem implausible. The political environment will reflect that. So if we really believe there’s something more than this world and this life, then we can’t be purely political animals. We have to see beyond politics, because it always has a dark side. But that’s very hard to do when you’re wrapped in a 24/7 media cocoon that’s often toxic and misleading.

The question of whether Trump or Biden is “better” from a Catholic perspective is almost irrelevant to the real issues of the moment. Both men are expressions, more than the cause, of our culture’s deeper contradictions. You can’t build a healthy society on the worship of more and better stuff, faster. But that’s what American life now tries to do. I want a world where my kids and grandkids can feed their souls as well as their stomachs; where they can deepen their faith in a loving and just God and practice their religious convictions in a way that makes the world better. I just don’t see that happening this year or next, no matter who gets elected. 

It doesn’t absolve us as Catholics from political involvement, but we need a cold shower in reality about what politics can accomplish, what it can’t, where it’s leading us, and where it stands in our priorities.

The concerns that people voice in “True Confessions” track pretty closely with what I’ve just said. They know there’s something more than all this turmoil, and they want something deeper and more life-giving than a culture of relentless conflict and name-calling, both of which invade even the Church.

One of the bishops you interviewed said:  “I think we all need to realize, not just bishops but all of us, that we’ll face a much less friendly climate in this country going forward.” After your work on this book, what do you think the Church can do to equip my generation to have kids and raise families in this less-friendly future?

We can start by helping our people be more uncomfortable with this country. Patriotism, properly understood, is an important Christian virtue. It’s a form of filial love for the best ideals of our nation. But real love is always anchored in truth, and the truth is — I heard versions of this again and again while working on “True Confessions” — we now have a culture that turns mature citizens into self-absorbed consumers led by even more self-absorbed and self-flattering leaders. That doesn’t end well.

My generation, the Baby Boomer Catholics, were educated to be good Americans, to assimilate, to be part of the program. And we can be proud of some of the things we’ve contributed and achieved. But we don’t really “fit” here on some fundamental level. Again, that doesn’t give us the right to abandon our public engagement — quite the opposite. But this world, this country, isn’t our home, and we’ve lost that knowledge, which is biblical. The New Testament says that here “we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.” We need to recover that wisdom.

Unless we develop a more reserved and critical relationship with our current culture, we’re not doing our job as a Christians.

Two of the biggest “disruptor” moments for priests in the last couple of decades have been the sexual abuse crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on your interviews with priests for this book, which of the two left a bigger mark?

The abuse crisis. Quite apart from the damage done to victims by a minority of bad clergy, the other lingering wound — innocent priests not fully trusting their bishops — comes from the worry that they could be thrown overboard to protect the institution based on a false allegation. It’s not a universal feeling. But as that 2022 survey of priests from the Catholic University of America suggested, it’s a significant issue with a lot of priests.

Somebody might read this book and dismiss it as kind of a dark assessment of things. How would you respond? Is there hope out there?

“True Confessions” is only “dark” if you over-focus on the words of criticism. But there’s much more than that to the text.  

Every good Christian marriage has a framework of love and a spirit of trust; it also has a boatload of candor that can sometimes get pretty blunt. A faithful life in the Church is very much the same. People don’t invest their lives and waste their time on things they don’t love. And the voices in “True Confessions” are passionate about their love for the Church: their confidence and hope and joy in the Church. They prove it with their lives. In the end, we’re defined by what we do; that’s why it’s called the Acts of the Apostles, and not their big ideas or frustrated complaints. 

Every person interviewed in “True Confessions” confesses Jesus Christ by the witness of his or her life. I’ve read the interviews in Chapter 6, with parents of children with special needs, more than a hundred times. I’m moved every time. I don’t know where that kind of unselfconscious love and heroism comes from, but I’ve found it again and again throughout my life in the Church. 

It’s impossible to come away from such people afraid or discouraged. So I believe very strongly that if you read “True Confessions,” you’re going to finish it with a spirit of hope. Because people really do believe. They really do have joy. And they’re committed to the future of the Church. 

Francis X. Maier is currently a Senior Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Thessaloniki, March 12, 2024

Photo: ​vimaorthodoxias.gr     

The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Thessaloniki is protesting movie posters advertising a film being shown as part of this year’s 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (March 7-17).

According to Metropolitan Philotheos, posters for the movie Stray Bodies by Elina Psykou, “exceed the limits of malicious provocation … under the guise of a dubious artistic approach.”

In particular, the poster features a topless pregnant woman hanging on a cross, reports Vima Orthodoxias.

Expressing his concern and distress as an Orthodox pastor, Met. Philotheos asked Elise Zalandos, the general director of the film festival, not to display the poster. The matter “has troubled [him] considerably,” he writes.

The hierarch writes:

Besides the fact that the [poster] seems unrelated to the content of the [film] －the exploration of bodily autonomy in the Europe of many freedoms－ as roughly mentioned in the program, even if one tries to make a liberating or morbid connection, it’s deeply provocative to the religious sentiment of the Christians of our city, regardless of denomination and confession: a cross with a semi-nude woman, possibly the Panagia, surrounded by the stars of the European Flag (referring to the Immaculate Conception icon of the Virgin Mary or the Virgin Mary of Lourdes, two globally respected Christian symbols?).

Such abuse of holy images has unfortunately become a trend among “artists” lately, “touching, and sometimes even exceeding, the limits of malicious provocation and malicious intent.”

The Metropolitan continues:

The Church, of course, does not act reactively, fearfully, or vindictively. After all, no one and nothing has the power to fundamentally stain or tarnish the sacred figures of the faith. However, we, the members of the Church, who in the person of Christ see a father, brother, Friend, He Who embraces fallen man, forgives anyone who wants to return to Him, and as a “manic lover” attracts every repentant soul, are obliged in the name of this love, but also the truth about Him and all the sacred figures of the faith, such as our Mother the Panagia, to testify and protest, even if some “Christianophobic” circles deny this right and turn a blind eye, attributing non-existent intentions to the Church and the expression of its positions, speaking of “darkness and division, sermons of hate, witch hunts, rejection, punishment, the Middle Ages, incitement to acts of violence.”

Despite all this, the Church and those of us who freely belong to It will continuously pray, not arrogantly and disparagingly, not distinguishing between “sinners” and “the saved,” not for “fire to fall,” but for the repentance of us all, our spiritual ascension and resurrection, the restoration of humanity to the original beauty of the Godhead.

In our Orthodox Christian tradition, freedom is not an idea, but a Person, Who is none other than the Person of Christ. Therefore, freedom as a conscious choice of life necessarily presupposes respect and responsibility, both for ourselves and for others. In this exact context, we ask you not to consent to offending the free disposition of our love for Christ, His Church, and the sacred persons of our faith, by displaying the poster for the documentary Stray Bodies.

Esteemed Madam General Director,

I am confident that you understand and comprehend my concern and distress as a Christian shepherd and spiritual father of the Orthodox Christians of Thessaloniki. I earnestly beseech you, in your prudent judgment and conscience, to do what is appropriate. Wishing the 26th Festival to be crowned with success and you personally to have God’s blessing in your life and good deeds, I remain,

With love and honor in the Lord,

METROPOLITAN
† Philotheos of Thessaloniki

Blasphemous black metal concert canceled after protest from Orthodox ChristiansThe band was formed by Krzysztof Drabikowski in Białystok, Poland, in 2015. Drabikowski spent six years studying at the famous Supraśl Monastery and is well acquainted with Orthodox services and hymnography. But instead of honoring the Lord, he uses his music to mock and blaspheme all things sacred.

“> In November, a concert by the blasphemous Polish black metal band Batushka scheduled for Belgrade was canceled after an outcry from faithful Orthodox Christians. Argentina: Orthodox hierarchs protest blasphemous “art” at local museumThe statement the hierarchs handed to the museum management expressed protest against the display of such objects, which are “a blatant encroachment on the religious sensibilities of believers and a violation of moral and ethical principles accepted throughout the world.””>In February 2022, three Orthodox hierarchs in Argentina protested the blasphemous disfigurement of an icon of Christ the Savior at the Enrique Larreta Museum of Spanish Art in Buenos Aires.

***

The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival provides the following synopsis of Stray Bodies:

Robin is pregnant, but does not wish to become a mother. Katerina is not able to have a child, even though she wants to. Kiki’s sole desire is to end her life with dignity. Unfortunately, abortion, in vitro fertilization and euthanasia are not legal in their respective countries. Stray Bodies explores the notion of body autonomy within Europe, a place where you are allowed to travel, work and consume freely, but not necessarily to live or die according to your wishes.

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“The Father spoke from all eternity just one Word. And he spoke it in an eternal silence. And it is in silence that we hear him.” 

— St. John of the Cross

“Into Great Silence” is an award-winning 2005 art-house documentary about the Grande Chartreuse, the famed Carthusian monastery high in the French Alps.

German director Philip Gröning approached the monks in 1984, asking for their permission. “We’ll get back to you,” they said. Sixteen years later, they finally gave the green light.

Gröning filmed alone for six months, following along as best he could with the monks’ rigorous schedule. Their lives are ordered to the Divine Office. The main prayer begins at midnight and continues for two to three hours. Mass is at 8 a.m. Most of the rest of their time is spent alone praying in their cells.

Their meals are delivered from a wheeled wooden trolley, pushed by a brother through the kind of metal slots you see in prison movies.

They never sleep for more than three hours at a time. They don’t talk.

The documentary has no soundtrack, no music. Philosophy professor Zena Hitz observes: “The film, like the place, is silent. Our feelings are invited, rather than provoked or managed. Yet it hides a truth about monastic silence from its viewers: Our thoughts make a racket.”

The sounds are of sandal-shod feet on stairs, a knife on a cutting board, twittering birds. The turn of a page of Scripture. Water being poured from a dishpan. The scrubbing of a spoon. A monk softly beckoning the resident cats to their meal.

The snip of heavy hand-forged shears on the thick creamy fabric that will be made into sumptuously-draped robes and cowls.

How tenderly the tailor takes the measurements of his brother!

Doors, stalls, paneling, shutters, cupboards, and floors are all of a rich honeyed wood. In the kitchen, food is prepared on thick marble counters. Walls are of ancient stone; roofs of glazed tile.

The bell calls the monks to prayer. They process down a long arched colonnade that looks like a keyhole, or the entrance to the womb of creation. In the chapel’s shadowed candlelight, they chant. 

In his blue workaday robe, one monk makes his way through the winter snow, slipping and groaning. He laboriously shovels out a raised vegetable bed, then returns to a wooden shed to sort through packets of carrot and cauliflower seed.

Another monk walks split wood up a flight of stairs in a special carrier.

A note is passed, hand-written in black fountain pen: “Chère Frère — asking for extra bed coverlets.”

Light falls upon a page of the breviary. A finger dips into a font of holy water. Curtains billow. The camera lingers on a two-handled pottery cup, complete in itself, long-used, well-loved … dare we think, like us?

How can a cup make you want to cry?

Spring comes. Deep gold crocuses push through the earth.

A Cézanne still life: a wooden bowl of oranges and pears, heartbreaking in their simple beauty, caressed by the afternoon sun.

The film returns again and again to two passages from Scripture: “He who does not give up everything cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33); and “You seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced” (Jeremiah 20:7). Finding a balance between the two, observed Gröning in an interview with Steven D. Greydanus of “Decent Films,” is “the field of tension in which monks live.”

“On the one hand, you do have to be very hard on yourself, and strict, and get rid of a lot of things. On the other hand, if you only follow this path of discipline, then you’re just a masochistic person and you’re not going to be a good monk either. So you have to have this other level of letting yourself go, letting yourself be seduced, and the balance between the two of them is sort of the eternal struggle. … And this is very similar for us.”

On Sundays and solemnities the monks meet in the refectory for a meal. After Nones, the mid-afternoon prayer, a period of conversation is allowed. “Rejoice, be of one mind, be at peace,” is their guiding concept.

In one such conversation, they discuss whether to discontinue the canonical practice of washing their hands before the refectory and drying their hands on a linen curtain. They note what other monasteries do: “At Sélignac they haven’t washed their hands before refectory for 20 years.”

Another monk opines: “When we abolish the signs, we lose our orientation. Instead, we should search for their meaning.”

We’re plunged momentarily into the outside world: one monk is leaving at noon sharp the next day for Seoul.

One of the final shots is of the monks, in a rare hour of recreation, frolicking in the snow and somersaulting down a slippery hill in their robes.

At the conclusion of filming, the monks asked Gröning what he’d learned from his time at the Grande Chartreuse.

“I realized that what I had actually learned,” he responded, “was that it is possible to live very much without fear, because this is what they do. They live without fear.”

fMaslenitsa – Cheese-fare Week

“>Maslenitsa—Cheesefare Week—has begun. It is the last week before Great Lent, called in the Church, the “Week of the Last Judgment”. During this time, both fasting and the absence of fasting, festivity and thoughts of death, resurrection, and the Last Judgment are paradoxically united. We asked the rector of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Kadyshy, and the dean of the School of Church Arts, Archpriest Alexander Saltykov, to tell us about how the Church prepares Christians for Great Lent during Cheesefare Week.

Archpriest Alexander Saltykov. Photo: Alexander Philippov     

On fasting and Cheesefare Week

Maslenitsa is probably Russia’s favorite holiday after Christmas and New Year. But is Maslenitsa a holiday? In pre-Christian times, Maslenitsa was a festival of spring and sun after the long, cold winter. The new year began with the month of March. Spring is always a joyful time, and in the Church it coincides with Great Lent. I would like to talk about the spiritual side of the days of Cheesefare Week, the essence of which is preparation for Lent and Pascha.

First of all, do non-religious people notice that the date of this festival is movable and different every year? This happens because the date is tied to the Church calendar, the Paschal cycle, and is dedicated to our preparation for the greatest, most joyful, yet most difficult event—the feast of Pascha. According to the Church’s teaching, these days are dedicated to the remembrance of the Last Judgment. True, only the Church is talking about the Last Judgment and Great Lent. Why does this happen? Many talk about the Church in society, but there are things more pleasant and interesting to us, and there are things that are not so pleasant.

Cheesefare Week is of course interesting for us, but Great Lent may not be so pleasant as to talk about it much. I am referring not only to atheists, but also those who consider themselves believers, but only “in their souls”, and don’t go to church.

Maslenitsa is viewed as a time to have fun. By the way, we also need a little fun, especially for children. Christians have a reason to be joyful because Great Lent is the spiritual spring, the renewal of the human heart. And after all, Cheesefare week is a time to think about the Last Judgment. But why? Because we are to remember the meaning of human existence, the beginning and the end of human history. And the Church helps us in this by establishing a special time for this. During these days we imagine the end times, when after inescapable terrible trials for all mankind, the end of history will come—the whole world, the whole universe will be shaken and catastrophically changed, the victorious sign of the Cross will appear in the heavens, and people will see the Son of God, the God-Man, Lord Jesus Christ in unfathomable, great, and incomprehensible glory. And on the last day before the fast, on Forgiveness Sunday, we remember the beginning of history—the casting out of the first people, Adam and Eve, from paradise on earth, having lost their original grace.

Cheesefare Week is already Lent

Maslenitsa is dedicated to Lent, and not only that; it is already a partial fast in and of itself. Everyone knows that Cheesefare Week means abstaining from meat. We can eat only milk products—cheese and butter, which is where it gets its name [fish is also allowed]. The Catholics have another name for these days—Carnival, which means literally, goodbye, meat. It is the time when they no longer eat meat, only cheese and eggs. In other words, Carnival is also a fast, but this has been long forgotten, and Carnival has become a time of fun and at times unbridled revelry. Anyone who goes to carnivals should know and remember this.

But what is Lent? Even other Christians who have fallen away from Orthodoxy have fasts. For example, Catholics have Ash Wednesday. Other religions also have fasts. But none of them, not the Catholics, the Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, or others, have such a fast as our strict and lengthy Great Lent. This is one of the features of Orthodoxy. The only religion that teaches temperance in a real way and goes against the mainstream movement of all mankind towards intemperance is Orthodox Christianity.

Fasting is our wealth. In the twenty-first century, when everything is directed towards entertainment and all money is the measure of all things, man is completely losing all control over himself. He doesn’t even want to think about being obligated to restrict himself in anything. Practically everyone lives that way, both children and adults. The most important thing to us is pleasure.

During the fast, a person forces himself to restrain from the foods, entertainments, and pleasures that attract him. He must conquer himself. Only by conquering oneself does someone truly come into personhood. Victory over oneself is the most difficult task, with which everyone who enters into this struggle can agree. The main goal of this war with oneself and the reward for victory is communion with God.

Do we need abstinence, training of the will; do we need to learn to do not what we want but what we must? All can agree that this is an important and necessary ability. But how can we achieve it? It is quite obvious that only the Church is the power that can reward a person for such a path. But not all go to the Church.

During Cheesefare Week, read Revelation

In the final years of the Soviet regime, people in Russia started celebrating Maslenitsa as a pagan spring festival. But the fact that Cheesefare Week is dedicated to the Last Judgment was forbidden to even discuss publicly. “What Apocalypse? That is all something the priests dreamed up to deceive the people.” I recall a comical slogan from those days: “We won’t allow an apocalyptic dead end!” How is it that we “won’t allow” it, when everything was directed at pushing mankind into the abyss! Moreover, the Apocalypse, quite contrary to being a dead end, shows the only escape from the current situation.

Archpriest Alexander Saltykov. Photo: Alexander Philippov     

The theme of the Last Judgment occupies an important place in the New Testament. Christ spoke of it in the Gospel, the apostles talked about it, and part of the New Testament is the book called the Revelation of St. John the Theologian.¹

The Word of God forces us to remember the end times. The Bible begins with judgment and ends with judgment. Adam and Eve violated the commandment not to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and God pronounced judgment. The Creator asks, “Adam, what have you done?” To put it in modern terms: “What motivated you to commit your crime?” Adam has no explanation, only an attempt to justify himself: “The wife You gave me…” Adam and Eve did not want to admit their guilt, and God judged them and cast them out of Paradise. After being cast out, they sat down across from paradise and wept, because they had lost so much: paradise and eternal life. But paradoxically as it sounds, certain features of our world nevertheless have a distant resemblance to paradise—there are corners of extraordinary beauty, there are unforgettable moments of communion with nature and good, bright people… In man’s memory remains a vague concept of paradise, from which our fore-parents came. And we, the faithful, all want to get to paradise.

After death, everyone will have his own lot. Every person will go through his own personal judgment—in this life he is judged by his conscience, and God will judge everyone after death. This is the personal judgment. And if a person is not forgiven, then he remains in expectation of the Last Judgment. Thus, the story of Adam and Eve is repeated with all people. Nevertheless, in Scripture it says that the righteous will not come to the Judgment. But the Church prays every day for sinners. Such is the spiritual-moral establishment of the Bible from the first to the last pages.

Thus, if the Church established that the remembrance of the Last Judgment be established just before Great Lent, then the faithful should think about the final days of the world, which will come in the future.

We know of many incidents in history when people awaited the end of the world. Catholics, you could say, were accustomed to expecting the end of the world in the Middle Ages, and now they almost never talk about it, because it seems “too indefinite” for a rational person. From our point of view, they hope too much in their own reason, in the “evolution” of society, but not in faith. Rationalism, of course, has a specific basis, because God gave man reason so that he would properly order his life. But the mind should assist faith, and not reject it. We see that much that is irrational and as if unwise in the world. People often do crazy things. During the revolutionary period in our country, there was truly insane behavior, atrocious murders, the mad destruction of churches. Even our own generation witnessed much of the same. What was this? In history, sometimes the mind prevails, and sometimes mindlessness. Christians should rely not only on the mind, but to a much greater degree on faith in God. Faith proceeds from the heart. And in faith there is wisdom, which is higher than the mind. But even the mind suggests to us that man needs fasting because it organizes and cultivates personal qualities in a person.

The Last Judgment and Forgiveness Sunday

The last day of Cheesefare Week is Forgiveness Sunday. This is a remarkable institution; on this day, we have the opportunity to forgive each other and receive forgiveness ourselves before the Last Judgment. We are often resentful and hold onto so much in our hearts that is not conducive to good relations with each other. So often we offend our close ones and people we do not know very well, both consciously and accidentally, as if fleetingly, in our thoughts, glances, and the thoughts of our hearts, and in many and different ways. I will be so bold as to suggest that Forgiveness Sunday is a sort of small image of the Last Judgment for a Christian, who on this day repents and receives not condemnation, but forgiveness.

St. Theophanes was born in Greece around the year 759. His parents died when he was young, but left him with a large inheritance. Theophanes’ guardian coerced him into marriage when he was a young man, but he and his wife vowed to live celibately. After many years of living together, his wife joined a religious community, and Theophanes became a hermit.

Theophanes was well-known for his holiness and wisdom. He used his inheritance to form two monasteries for the men who sought his advice, becoming abbot of one.

While living at the monastery, Theophanes began writing a history of the Christian world, beginning with the end of the Diocletian persecution through the early ninth century. This effort earned him the nickname “The Chronicler.”

At that time, the iconoclast heresy was causing problems for the Church. The emperor of Constantinople encouraged the destruction of icons and tried to sway Theophanes to his side, but Theophanes remained loyal to Rome and the Church. Eventually, he was arrested and died in prison around the year 818.

    

“I won’t go to the hospital, not for the world! The Church heals me,” a woman, whose mental state worries everyone who knew her, told me. Without observing positive dynamics, I advised her to contact a specialist:

“Let the doctor see you and give his diagnosis.”

The woman refused. Some of her relatives suspected that this is what they teach in the Church. They came and asked me about it, and I answered that the Old Testament sends a sick person to the doctor after reminding him of the need to pray to God and abandon sin. The book called Sirach says much about the benefits of the medical profession, since the Lord created doctor doctor and gave him his work (cf. Sir. 38:1). Her kin relented and left, trying to guess at other possible reasons for rejecting medicine.

But it took me some time to understand that sometimes the Old Testament is not in favor with the Orthodox, and the Apostle Paul’s words to the Colossians: Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you (Col. 4:14) do not particularly impress opponents of official medicine. Neither do the words of Christ, quoted by the Evangelist Matthew, that They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick (Mt. 9:12).

But where did this rejection of medicine come from? Is it really the notorious conflict between Has science rejected God?The first chapter of the book of Genesis, as we remember, speaks about how God created the world and man. Perhaps no other Biblical narrative causes such aggressive attacks as that on the creation of the world. “It’s not scientific!” is the main argument. But are science and faith truly contradictory; can scientists be believers? And are those theories that contradict the Bible truly “scientific?” Should science, in principle, concern itself with questions of the origin of the world? Religious historian Andrei Ivanovich Solodkov contemplates these questions.

“>science and religion, which is so talked about in a secular society? Is it the fanaticism and obscurantism of religious people?

Here I deem it necessary to note that not all of my former fellow students at the Medical Academy got excellent grades. I personally know doctors who themselves receive treatment only from colleagues they know for sure to be competent. Medicine is a developing science. Certain methods of treatment are eventually recognized as inappropriate, and certain medicines that are accepted at one time are prohibited later. And one or another doctor, because of negligence or incompetence, now and then cures his patients to death. Distrust gradually accumulates and sometimes results in rejection.

And so Orthodox Christians come to a priest in whom the level of people’s trust is quite high. And they ask him:

“Should I have an operation or will it heal itself?”

“Should I get vaccinated or not?”

“What about hormones? Some still say that HIV is a fiction! Maybe it’s better not to be treated after all?”

“What do you think about homeopathy, iridology and kinesiology?”

And sometimes the priest has never even heard of these things. We don’t study medicine in theological schools. No seminaries prepare the future pastors for the job of healing or divination. But there are on occasion priests who, despite a total lack of medical education, boldly answers these questions, as if he were Dr. House or a holy visionary who has already reached the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom.

I am personally not afraid to admit to parishioners that I do not have sufficient knowledge in medicine and recommend that they find a good specialist for medical consultation, diagnosis, and treatment. But what if I actually know something?

“Father, so what do you think of vaccinations?”

“You know, a notable immunologist of our city believes that the effects of vaccination are ephemeral, but the harm is obvious. And another, also well-known doctor, hold the diametrically opinon,” I reply.

“And do you get vaccinated yourself?”

“I don’t, because I find the arguments of the first specialist more convincing.”

No playing Nostradamus or Pythian oracles.

Can we rely on the omnipotence of medicine and a particular doctor? No, because no one is immune from mistakes. Should we trust in God alone, rejecting the help of doctors? But the Holy Scriptures say: Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him (Sir. 38:12). I would like to remind those who object to the study of the Old Testament, especially its non-canonical books, that Sts. John of Damascus and Athanasius of Alexandria, following Canon 85 of the Apostles, recommended this book for young men and catechumens preparing for Holy Baptism. The following question may be fair: If it is in the Bible, then why are there so many cases when a doctor is good and a medicine is new, but a patient gets worse and worse? There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that, which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life (Sir. 38:13-14), Jesus the son of Sirach teaches us.

They pray for their patients.

That is why St. Panteleimon was more successful than other doctors in the capital. Do not forget about the prayer of faith that saves the sick, about which James the Apostle reminds us. After all, Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain (cf. Ps. 126:1), testifies the Psalmist, who prayed to God and put watchmen on the city walls, and not just anyone, but the best ones.

The Irish prime minister, known as the Taoiseach, has conceded that his government was defeated “comprehensively” when voters rejected amendments to the constitution that the country’s bishops warned would have weakened supports for marriage and undermined motherhood.

Despite opinion polls showing a clear majority in favor of the government plan to widen the definition of the family to include other “durable relationships” as well as marriage, when votes were counted March 9, 67.7% of citizens rejected the amendment, while 32.3% supported it.

A second amendment proposed removing a provision from the 1937 document that said women should not be forced by economic necessity to take a job “to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

Again, polls showed it was likely to pass, but this proposal was rejected by an even wider margin, 73.9% to 26.1%. It is the highest-ever “no” vote in Irish referendum history.

The amendments had been supported by all political parties except the small Aontú party, which only has one member in the national parliament, known as the Oireachtas.

Speaking at the national count center in Dublin Castle March 9, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was disappointed by the results. However, he stated, “The people were asked questions, the debates happened, the arguments were heard.

“The public comprehensively took the view they did not want to make changes to the constitution that we proposed. We accept that, we respect that and we take responsibilities for the results,” he said.

The referendums were held March 8, designed to coincide with International Women’s Day, and the results were announced March 9, just a day before Ireland traditionally celebrates Mother’s Day.

David Quinn, director of the pro-marriage think-tank the Iona Institute, told OSV News that the rejection of both proposals were “the best possible present ahead of Mother’s Day.”
He said that “the government asked voters to remove the word ‘mother’ from the constitution and they answered with a resounding ‘no.’ They also rejected by a huge margin the attempt to foist the extremely nebulous term ‘durable relationships’ on the constitution.”

Maria Steen, a Catholic lawyer who campaigned against both proposals, described the result as “a great victory for common sense.”

She said it is also a “rejection of a government that seems more concerned with social media plaudits than actually getting on with the business of governing the country.”

Steen described the results as “expression by the Irish people of gratitude and of love — gratitude to women for the work that they do in their homes, that is often unseen and unsung.”

“Gratitude to mothers for the unique and irreplaceable role that they play in their children’s lives, and in the lives of their families, and a recognition of the special place that marriage has in our constitution and that they want to retain there,” she said, speaking to OSV News at the count center.

Brandon Scott, a representative for the only political party to oppose the proposals, Aontú, said the lack of political opposition to the referendum in light of the public rejection is “a damning indictment of how politics has become inaccessible for so many.”

“I’m delighted that the voters have correctly understood that this was a campaign marked by government virtue signaling that was not going to make a difference to the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary struggling citizens,” he told OSV News.

The government spent nearly $22 million running the referendum. Ahead of the poll, in a pastoral letter, the country’s Catholic bishops had warned that the amendments could weaken the incentive for young people to get married.

The bishops stopped short of call for a “no” vote on either proposal, but in a statement read at Masses the weekend before the vote, they said the family is the foundational cell of society and is essential to the common good because it is based on “the exclusive, lifelong and life-giving public commitment of marriage.”

The prelates had warned that the second amendment would have had “the effect of abolishing all reference to motherhood in the Constitution” and left “the particular and incalculable societal contribution” that mothers in the home have made, and continue to make, in Ireland unacknowledged.

Adopted in 1937, Ireland’s Constitution has been subject to proposed amendments 40 times, 20 of those proposed amendments in its first 63 years, and 20 more since the year 2000.

In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by way of a popular vote when the constitution was amended by 62% in favor of it to 37% opposed. In 2018, voters opted to remove the right to life of unborn children from the constitution legalizing abortion by a margin of 68% to 33%.

Abbess Mariam (Zacca) heads a monastic community in the Archdiocese of Mount Lebanon of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. In her youth, she was spiritually led by The Theology and Memory of Elder Sophrony (Sakharov)”Coming into contact with Father Sophrony was always an event of a most especial kind. His monastics, first and foremost, but also those who made up his wider spiritual family, ‘lived,’ as Father Zacharias put it, ‘in an abundance of the word of God.”’

“>Elder Sophrony (Sakharov), who blessed her to found a sisterhood near the village of Douma. Below are her spiritual reflections on loving one’s enemies.

​Abbess Mariam (Zacca)     

At the door of every house, amidst the nighttime darkness and the heat of the day, in the white frost of dawn, the Lord stands knocking. He says to us: My son, give Me thine heart (Prov. 23:26). He asks for our heart in order to wash it with His tenderness, to warm it with His love, to illuminate its darkness with His light, and to cleanse it with the fire of His love.

He asks specifically for the heart so it might learn the Divine love that it fell away from at the Fall: Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart (Mt. 11:29), for a heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise (Ps. 50:19). If a man gives himself to God in this way then the Lord will hear him, because his heart wants to be washed, to be cleansed from sin, to love God and neighbor, and his enemy. Such a heart wants to receive the love of God and the Spirit of God, and it receives them through the touch of God, through the grace poured out on it and through its consent to God’s call.

When a man surrenders himself to God to be cleansed from all the defilements of his soul, body, and spirit, and to be made a receptacle of the Holy Spirit, he begins to follow the long and narrow path of love throughout his entire life. Beloved, this can only be realized through the strict observance of the Gospel commandments throughout our entire lives. This is the work of a Christian’s whole life, and there is no other work that would be more noble, more difficult, and more luminous.

The love that is required of us is the love that takes us out of the narrow confines of our “I” so we can see God in our brother, neighbor, and friend. But the Lord expects more from us, because God’s love knows no bounds. In addition to loving Him and neighbor, He asks us to love our enemies.

What is the meaning of Christ’s commandment to Love your enemies (Mt. 5:44)? Why did the Lord say: If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself (Jn. 7:17)? How did St. Silouan the Athonite understand this?

God is absolute love, which embraces all of creation in its abundance. God is present as love even in hell. By giving man a true knowledge of his love as far as he is able to receive it, the Holy Spirit thereby reveals to him the path leading to the fullness of his existence. Those who have attained the Kingdom of Heaven and are in God see in God all the abysses of hell, because there is no place in all of creation that does not know the presence of God. Dwelling in Heaven, the saints also see hell and also embrace it with their love.

    

St. Silouan of Mt. Athos: “I have many sorrows of my own, and they are my own fault…”There are moments when it seems that circumstances are indeed beyond our power, when life breaks down and it’s painful even to look at the world around us. Reality is cruel, and the soul can truly become sick. And no one knows when sorrows will knock at doors of the heart. But we must know in that moment how to answer these unawaited guests…

“>Elder Silouan said: “Heaven and all the saints live by the Holy Spirit, and nothing in the whole universe is hidden from Him. Those who hate their brother and reject him belittle their own existence. Such people have not come to know the true God, Who is all-encompassing love, and have not found the path that leads to Him.”

The commandment of Christ On the Love of Enemies: the Teaching of St. SilouanAlthough it is natural and usual to love those who love us and to do good to those who do good to us, to love our enemies is distasteful to our nature. One can say that it isn’t in our power but is an attitude that can only be the fruit of grace, given by the Holy Spirit. This is why St. Silouan the Athonite writes, ”The soul that has not known the Holy Spirit does not understand how one can love one’s enemies, and does not accept it.”

“>to love your enemies is a reflection of the perfect love of the Triune God in this world; it’s the cornerstone of our entire Orthodox teaching. It’s the final synthesis of our all theology, that we might have life, and … have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10). This is what St. John the Baptist says about it: He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire (Mt. 3:11). The commandment to love your enemies is that fire that the Lord came to bring to earth; it’s the Kingdom of God within us, come with power (Mk. 9:1); it’s our likeness to God.

However wise, learned, and noble a man may be, if he doesn’t love his enemies, that is, every person, he hasn’t yet known God. And on the other hand, no matter how simple, poor, and ignorant a person may be, if he bears this love in his heart, then he dwelleth in God, and God in him (1 Jn. 4:16). To love our enemies with compassion is impossible without God Himself, said St. Silouan. The bearer of such love partakes in eternal life and has an undoubted testimony of it in his soul. Such a man becomes a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and a friend of Christ.

Beloved, these words are very difficult to apply in our daily lives, in the community we live in, even if it’s a monastic community, and more so in the world. What then is the solution? All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). But the glory of God was revealed on the Cross. This is why a man must remain submissively on the Cross of Christ every minute of the day and night, and then God won’t leave us.

    

I’m not going to go into the mystery of pain here, when, like Christ, we crucify ourselves even for the sake of those who don’t love us. For the face of my Christ is my refuge, His Gospel my food, and the fulfillment of His commandments my life. Thus, in crucifying himself, man leaves the realm of the reasonable and possible for the Divine, for the discovery of the Kingdom of God already here on earth, and enters into that life that none can embrace. But first he must repent and tearfully pray for his sins. Such a man seeks how to please his Lord and spends his life in tears and prayers, because he understands that his heart is unclean, weak, self-willed, full of pride, and devoid of the ability to love truly. Such a man begs God to teach him to love…