Stop Saying “Glory to God for All Things!”

“A few years ago, I was the parish priest of St. Vasileios church (Piraeus) and was called to hear the confession of a young man, Xenophon, 42 years old.

When I arrived, his days were numbered. Cancer with rapid metastases had affected his brain too. He was all alone at the ward, the bed next to him was empty, so we were all alone.

This is what he told me about how he came to Faith, since he was a “hardened atheist” in his own words:

‘I arrived here about 35 days ago, in this ward of two beds. Next to me was another patient, about 80 years old. He was suffering from cancer too, in his bones, and although he was experiencing excruciating pain, he was constantly praising the Lord “Glory to God! Glory to God for all things!” He also recited more prayers which I heard for the first time in my life since I was an atheist who had never set my foot to church.  Often, all those prayers comforted him and he slept for a couple of hours. Then, after 2-3 hours, he woke up again from the excruciating pain, and he would start over “My Christ, I thank you! Glory be to Thy Name! Glory to God! Glory to God for all things!” I was moaning with my pain, and this patient at the next bed to mine was glorifying God. I was blaspheming Christ and the Theotokos, and he was thanking God, thanking him for the cancer which he had given to him, and for all the excruciating pain he was suffering.

I was so rebellious and indignant at this! Not only for the excruciating pain I was suffering, but also for his never-ending Doxology. He was also partaking daily of Holy Communion, while I was throwing up in disgust.

– ‘Will you please shut up! Shut up and stop saying all the time ‘Glory to God’! Can’t you see that this God, Whom you are thanking and glorifying, this same God is torturing us with such cruelty? What kind of God this is? No, He does not exist!’

St. John of Cronstadt from Russia narrates this vision he had on January 1901.

‘The blessed people of God would not betray their faith not even with one word".

     Following the evening prayers, being tired, I laid down for a while to relax in my poorly lit cell. My lampada was hanging in front of the icon of the Mother of God. Half an hour had hardly passed when I heard a creak. Someone touched my left shoulder and with a gentle voice told me, "rise servant of God John, and follow the Will of God!"
     I rose and I saw near the window a glorious elder (staretz) with grizzly hair, wearing a black mantia  and holding a cane in his hand. He was looking at me tenderly and I had difficulty standing up because of my great fear. My hands and feet trembled, I wished to talk but my tongue would not oblige. The elder made the sign of the Cross on me and soon I was filled with peace and joy. I then crossed myself.
     In turn, he indicated with his cane the western wall of my cell, so that I would observe a specific sign. The elder had scratched the following numbers on the wall: 1913, 1914, 1917, 1922, 1924 and 1934. Suddenly the wall disappeared and I walked with the elder in a green valley and observed a large number of crosses, in the thousands, as markers of graves.
     They were wooden, ceramic or gold. I asked the elder what was the reason for the crosses. He answered peacefully, "the crosses were for those who suffered and were murdered for their faith in Christ and for the Word of God and became martyrs". We continued to walk.
     Suddenly I saw a whole river of blood and I asked the elder, what is the significance of this blood and how much was spilled. The elder looked around and answered, "This is the blood of the true Christians!"  He then pointed at some clouds and saw a large number of lit oil lamps that burned with a white flame. They began to fall to the ground one after the other in tens and hundreds. Having fallen their light went out and they turned into ashes.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

Open the wise book of the world, open holy Scripture, and search somewhere there in the beginning. You will see there were five cities in a rich land. The grass was five meters high; they had goats and cattle; they had wealth. And what happened? They fell into sin, they fell in the flesh: they fell into fornication, into adultery, in sins against nature. They became “oka”. For man is spirit, which rises upwards; while he who has become “oka”, you weigh him and his whole value is only 50, 60, 80 okas of body. So they became people of “okas”. Flesh only, without spirit, without ideals, without anything high and sublime. In that society only one just man remained. And he would tell them: My brethren, stop, depart from sin… It fell on deaf ears; they couldn’t care less; they kept doing what they were doing, their pleasure. Partying, entertainment, woman, fornication. They had nothing more in their brains beyond the flesh and wine and entertainment. They were building houses, palaces, all these things. What was the end? One day, there where the sun shone brilliantly, suddenly the sky became black. There was lightning, thunder, and in a short time there fell not water nor snow nor hail. But what fell? Fire and brimstone! The region lit up. The trees were burned, the sheep were burned, the goats were burned, the houses were burned, their kings were burned, their judges were burned, their teachers were burned, all were burned. Their gold, their silver, everything melted. God passed them through a furnace. And then, after all things were burned, suddenly the earth sank to the depth of 500 – 600 meters, into a chaos. There a sea was formed, where nothing lives. In all the waters fish live; in this not a single fish lives. Sodom and Gomorrah became the Dead Sea.…

ELDER EUMENIOS (SARIDAKIS), THE SAINT FROM THE LEPER COLONY

Gevorg Kazaryan

Elder Eumenios (in the world, Constantine Saridakis) was born January 1, 1931 in the Cretan village of Efia, to the family of the pious George and Sofia Saridakis. He was the eighth and last child in this poor family, which lost its breadwinner early. The difficult years of Nazi occupation in Greece did not allow little Constantine to receive an elementary education. Nevertheless, the boy stood out not only for his intelligence but also for his special piety. A wondrous event had a decisive influence on the future elder’s choice of path in life. It happened in 1944. During a festive dinner an extraordinary, blinding radiance appeared, which, as Fr. Eumenios later related, penetrated deep into his soul. Amazed and shaken by the divine light, the youth cried out, “I will become a monk!” Constantine’s path in life was foreordained. As the elder himself said, “If a person has a calling from God for something good, then God works and helps him.”

In 1951, Constantine Saradakis entered the monastery of Prophet Elias not far from his village. In that monastery, besides the abbot there labored two elderly, blind monks, whom the young novice served with great love. Three years later Constantine received the monastic tonsure with the name Sophronios.

How Does an Orthodox Way of Life Begin?

Our deeper spiritual life begins when our soul begins to long for God and assert itself in our conscience. When this happens it leads us to change our way life.

Elder Aimilianos says,

When it is, then, that a soul says: “l must live a Christian life, I must live differently”?
When it acquires the sense that it is a soul in exile; when it realizes that it is something that has been cast away, and now exists outside of its proper place, outside of Paradise, in a foreign land, beyond the borders within which it was made to dwell.

To begin to think about changing our way of life, to live according to the ten points of an Orthodox Way of Life, we must begin to acquire the feeling that we are separated from God. This is a feeling where we sense there exists some invisible barrier between us and God.

Spiritual life does not begin from any kind of intellectual analysis. On the contrary such efforts may only increase the size of the barrier.

Elder Aimilianos says,

The Spiritual life, you see, begins with a kind of vision, with the feeling of banishment, and this is not arrived at by means of any intellectual analysis or evaluation. I simply feel within myself the presence of a wall, a barrier, and I don’t know what’s beyond it.

This is a feeling that there is an insurmountable obstacle that we must overcome, that there is a “dividing wall” (Eph2.14) between us and God. We realize how distant we are from God. We begin to understand that He is Spirit but we ourselves are only flesh. We realize that we don’t really have any conversation with God, but only talk at Him, often only out of obligation.
As this feeling of separation, of being in exile, develops, we begin to seek God in earnest. First must come this feeling of being separated from God.

Elder Aimilianos says,

But if the soul doesn’t have this feeling, it can’t even begin to embark upon a spiritual life. It may live a Christian life, but only in a manner of speaking, only in appearance, only on an intellectual level, only within the limits of its own conceptions.

This feeling of separation provides the proper motivation to participate in divine services, personal prayer and ascetic practices voluntarily without the sense of obligation or “l must.” The soul will move us forward based on a divine vision, one where we begin to see our fallen nature and realize we belong in paradise.

The beginning is not a fear of condemnation to a burning fire in hell, but a desire to be united with a loving God. This feeling of separation leads us to try to understand why we are separated and the desire to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to unite us with Him.

Ten points for an Orthodox Way of Life

Reference: The Way of the Spirit, Archimandrite Aimilianos, pp 2-6