EVERYDAY SAINTS

by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov

A review and excerpts from an amazing book that eloquently speaks about the soul of Russia that is so misunderstood in the world today.

        I discovered this book while surfacing the internet at the beginning of December and I ordered it from Amazon.   I finished reading it last night and I was simply blown away by the profound spirituality that it offers to a suffering world.  The book was first published in Russian in 2011.  It was translated into English in 2012.   More than a million copies and several million electronic versions of this book were published in less than a year after its release.   Every Day Saints is the English translation of the work that has soared to the top of the bestseller lists in Russia since its publication in late 2011.  Winner of several national awards including “Book of the Year,” its readership spans philosophical boundaries.  Surpassing all competition many times over, it was voted the most popular book in Russia for 2012.

        Open the book and you will discover a wondrous, enigmatic, remarkably beautiful yet absolutely real world. Peer into the mysterious Russian soul, where happiness reigns no matter what life may bring.  Page upon page of thanks, praise, and testimonies to the life-changing effect of these bright, good hearted, and poignant tales have flooded the Russian media.

        As a retired Greek Orthodox priest in America, I would recommend especially that every priest or young man who plans to become a priest in the Orthodox Christian Church should read this book.   Every lay person in the Orthodox Church in America should read this book to grasp the triumphant spirituality that pervades our Holy Orthodox Church.  It reveals to us how the Russian Orthodox Church survived seventy years of brutal atheistic communist brutality.   This is especially important for Orthodox Christians in America who, facing rampant materialistic liberalism, need a firm spiritual foundation to defend themselves from this scourge of contemporary life.  This scourge is just as destructive as communist atheism.

Compiled by:

+Fr. Costas J. Simones, Waterford, CT, USA, December 30

EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK

          The translator of this book writes the following in the introduction of the book.  “It may surprise some of us who grew up during the Cold War, but Russia, feared for so many years as the land of godless Communists, is in fact one of the most intensely spiritual and devout nations in the world.  The profound faith of its people, Orthodox Christianity, rooted in a mystical understanding of  life as a covenant and of worship as a sacrament, has always been the secret underpinning of the mysterious Russian soul, whose elusive immanence makes Russian literature, art, and music so special.  In the twentieth century, under brutal totalitarianism of the Soviet system, Russia endured some of the very darkest days in human history.  Yet where there is darkness, as this book shows, light shines forth ever brighter to meet it.  Ultimately, though it may take a while, love and light and compassion conquer hatred and darkness and indifference.

The Greek Christian Orthodox Chapel of St. Theodora in Vasta, Megalopoli, Arkadia, Greece!

                       

  "The Greek Christian Orthodox Chapel of St. Theodora in Vasta, Megalopoli, Arkadia, Greece! A continuous and inexplicable miracle! 17 trees are on the roof of this church for over than half a thousand years. Some are huge other smaller! No way how to find where their roots are coming! Rapid wings are not able to take them from that small roof! The young saint Theodora has been condemned and beheaded for a false accusation! She didn't declare her innocence to save the life of the woman who falsely accused her (because then the other woman had to be condemned) !!!!!! Her last worlds were: "Oh Christ let my hair to be trees, my body a church and my blood refreshing water". The executors understood their mistake immediately when they discovered that she was not a man (she has been accused for being a monk that raped and left pregnant another woman who bore "his" illegitimate child). In fact she pretended to be a man so to live an ascetic and monastic life not to scandalize everybody in the wilderness. So with tears of repent they built a small chapel over her grave! Then one day a whole stream (or rather a small river) of fresh water passed underneath without destroying the fragile foundations of the small, plain, made by stones church! And by the years small trees were growing on the roof which became huge without having their roots to destroy the chapel!
                            It still stands there, in the Greek wilderness just to prove that any logical explanation stands not reasonable too!"

The icon of the Mother of God “Milk-Giver”

Type: Galaktotrophousa
One of the earliest extant of this subject matter is found in the church of the Karyes hermitage, belonging to the Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos. According to oral tradition, this icon eas originally in the Lavra of Saint Savvas, 18 versts from Jerusalem. On his deathbed Saint Savvas the Sanctified (d. 513) foretold that a royal son of the same name would come to the monastery and that at the moment of his praying tribute to the tomb the tied up episcopal staff of Saint Savvas would fall to the ground. He bequeathed the wonder-working icon of the Mother of God Galaktotrophousa
And the staff to the future monk with the name Savvas, as his blessing. Five centuries later the prophecy of Saint Savvas the Sanctified came true. The Serbian monk Sava Nemanja (d. 1236) came to the Lavra in Palestine. While he was paying tribute to the saint’s tomb, the episcopal staff fell down. When the miracle repeated the next day all doubts of the monks were gone. They knew for sure then that the Serb Sava was the one they had waited for. Returning to Serbia, Sava transferred possession of the icon to the Hilandar Monastery.
It is interesting, that, contrary to common practice in the Eastern Church, this sacred icon was placed, and remains till now, in the local row of the iconostasis, not on the left side of the Beautiful Gate, but on the right side where ordinarily the icon of Holy Trinity or the Savior is installed. The image of the Lord Almighty occupies the place on the left side where ordinarily there should be the icon of the Mother of God.
The icon’s miraculous power has been known in Russia since 19th century. In 1860, in the Kursk Gubernia a sick man who had been bedridden and unable to move for at least a year suddenly recovered when he kissed a copy of the holy image sent over from Athos. In 1862 the house of a certain believer was twice delivered from a fire due to his prayers before the icon.

THE ELDER EPHRAIM OF THE VATOPEDI MONASTERY MT. ATHOS RELATES TO US CONTEMPORARY MIRACLES PERFORMED BY SAINT PAISIUS

SAINT PAISIUS AND THE HOLY MOTHER

        The Elder Ephraim, the Abbot of the Vatopedi Monastery relates to us the following stories told to him by Saint Paisius.  "I believe that some of you have read the life and works of St. Paisius.  What is so unusual about this holy man?  That which sets him apart from other human beings is his total sacrifice for his fellow man.  He would offer himself as a whole burnt offering for the welfare of his fellow man.  I remember him telling me once when I was visiting him: He said, “My child, something happens to me that if I tell you what it is you would think I am crazy.  But what can I say, it just happens to me.  Up until 1974 I had such great love for God that when this love for God overwhelmed me I would suddenly fall down and become unconscious. I would remain in that condition for a long time praying and then the feeling would leave me.

        “After 1974 this same intense love I had for God was also expressed toward my fellow man.  I feel such love for my fellow man that I would pray for them with such intensity that people would ask me, what is wrong with you?  For example, I would pray in my cell for people who had communicated with me about their problems. Some of these people were having marital problems and others were having problems with their health. After getting these messages I would then travel in the Spirit to Sidney, to Melbourne, to Monaco, to Cyprus and to Athens.  I would invisibly visit these troubled people in the Spirit, I would bless them with the sign of the Cross and they would be filled with a sense of peace.  I would also pray for the sick in the hospitals and for those in the intensive care units.  I would visit them invisibly in the Spirit and see them personally.  I would bless them and they would become healed.  Nobody was aware of these visitations for I would visit them invisibly in the Spirit.   And this happens many times. 

        In fact, I would like to tell you something else that has not been recorded anywhere.  Neither has what I have already told you been recorded anywhere.     A theologian visited Mt. Athos who had some theological concerns about one of the hymns of the Church.  In fact he visited during the first fifteen day period of August when we honor the Holy Mother of Jesus.  There were five pilgrims in this group visiting the Holy Mountain.  He was telling his fellow pilgrims the following: “We chant the following; 'Oh you Apostles from far away are called together to come to the village of Gethsemane to bury my body’.  This theologian said to his friends: 'is it possible for the Apostles from the far reaches of the world to be brought together to be present at the funeral of the Holy Mother? I cannot believe that.  I respect the Holy Mother but that I cannot believe that happened.  Maybe the Apostles were present at the burial in thought or with their hearts but not physically present.” 

WHY DID CHRIST HAVE TO DIE FOR US?

By

His Eminence

Metropolitan Panteleimon of Antinoes

Retired Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa

Many might ask the questions:

Why did Christ, the most and only Innocent, have to face the worst form of death, the death on the cross, in order to reconcile man to God the Father?

Did Christ truly rise from the dead?

 

What would our lives have been if Christ had not died for us?

In order to understand the importance of Christ’s Sacrifice, one must know the reason for His coming into the world. In accordance to Holy Scriptures, man was formed by God out “of the dust of the earth” (Gen.2:7) and was made in the “image and likeness” of God (Gen.l:26). Man was placed as the King of all Creation in the Garden of Eden (Gen.2:8). Man was made in the “image” right from the beginning and had the ability to achieve the “likeness” of   God   through virtues and perfect obedience to God’s Will.

Man was made by God to live a godly life on earth. The first man had no obstacle to God’s knowledge and could see through his purity the Word of God with his logic. Being made by such and Holy God man lived in a sinless condition and received the voice of conscience. Man was able NOT to sin, but at the same time had the freedom to sin. Sin was not in man’s nature, but in his free decision. In other words, in how he would use his free will.

Man before the fall, was in full harmony with God’s Holiness and was proceeding towards the destiny of being in the “likeness” of   God through obedience and holiness. In Adam all virtues were not complete, nor was holiness permanent and fulfilled. Adam’s original state, before the Fall, was a condition of Grace living in God’s presence. Man was called not only to remain in such a state, but to progress in virtues cultivating his free will with God’s assistance.