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Venerable Seraphim Rose speaks to us († September 2)
“And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God should love his brother also.” (1 John 4:21)
Father Seraphim Rose's confidence in his own mission grew as he himself became a man of the heart. In the early stages of his missionary work, he had focused on upholding true Orthodoxy, on resistance against modernism, renovationism, and ecumenism. All these were good for a start. As he himself said: “The more you learn about Christian teaching and practice, the more you discover how many mistakes you have made until then, and your natural desire is to be correct.” But all these things are only on an external level, as Father Seraphim would see ever more clearly with the passing of years. He never changed his fundamental philosophy; he by no means became more ecumenist or more modernist towards the end of his life than he had been at the beginning, when he started printing “The Orthodox Word”. Only now, especially after he had seen the bitter fruits of the “disease of correctness” in the Church, did he realize that there is something far more significant that must be preached in these latter times, when “the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
Above all, Father Seraphim became the preacher of an Orthodoxy of the heart. “True Christianity,” he affirmed in a lecture, “does not just mean making the correct choices in matters of faith – this is not enough to save your soul. Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk says: «If someone says that true faith is the right observance and confession of the true dogmas, he would speak the truth, for every believer necessarily needs the Orthodox observance and confession of the dogmas. However, this knowledge and confession cannot by itself make a person a true and faithful Christian. The observance and confession of Orthodox dogmas is always found in true faith in Christ, but true faith in Christ is not always found only in the confession of Orthodoxy. The knowledge of true dogmas pertains to reason, often being barren, arrogant, and proud. But true faith in Christ is found in the heart and is fruitful, humble, patient, loving, merciful, compassionate, hungering and thirsting for righteousness; it flees from worldly desires and clings only to God, always yearns for and seeks heavenly and eternal things, fights against all sin, and ceaselessly asks for God's help for this.»” And then he quotes Blessed Augustine, who says: “The Christian's faith is with love; faith without love is of the devil.” And Saint Apostle James, in his Epistle, shows us that “even the demons believe—and tremble!” (James 2:19).
“So Saint Tikhon shows us the beginning of understanding what Orthodoxy is: it is something that pertains, first of all, to the heart, and not just to reason – something living and warm, not abstract and cold, something that is learned and practiced in life, not just in school.”
A Wholehearted Christianity
In order to give his Christian brethren a deeper sense of a wholehearted Christianity, Father Seraphim gave the example of the Protestant group “Gospel Outreach”.
'These Protestants,' he said, 'have a simple and warm Christian faith, without too much of the sectarian narrowness that characterizes many Protestant groups. They do not believe, like some Protestants, that they are "saved" and no longer need to do anything; they believe in the idea of spiritual struggle and the perfection of the soul. They strive to forgive one another and not to remember evil. They gather vagrants and hippies from the streets and have a special center to rehabilitate them and teach them a sense of responsibility. In other words, they take Christianity seriously as the most important thing in their lives; they do not have the fullness of Christianity that we, the Orthodox, have, but even this much is good, and these people are warm and loving, with evident love for Christ. Thus, they are an example of what we should be, and much more.'
Some of our young Orthodox convert to such groups, but the reverse also happens – some of these Protestants convert to Orthodoxy. And why not? If we have true Christianity, there must be something among us that can be seen and desired by one who sincerely loves the truth. We baptized several people from this Protestant group at the monastery; they are drawn to Orthodoxy by grace and the Holy Mysteries, whose presence they feel in Orthodoxy but which are absent in their group. And once they become Orthodox, they discover that their Protestant experience, which once seemed so real, was without depth, superficial. Their leaders offer them very practical teachings, based on the Gospel, but after a while, the teachings become exhausted and they start to repeat themselves. Coming to Orthodoxy, these converts discover a richness of inexhaustible teachings, capable of leading them into the depths of Christian experience – an experience far beyond that of the best non-Orthodox Christians. We, who are already Orthodox, have this treasure and this depth right before us, and we should use it more fully than we usually do.
Father Seraphim spoke in similar terms about Africans converting to Orthodoxy. Starting in the 1960s, he followed with great interest the Orthodox mission in Africa, writing and publishing articles about Africans converted to Orthodoxy, corresponding with them, sending them clothes, food, Bibles, and the magazine 'The Orthodox Word.' He was deeply moved by the letters received from Africa, seeing in them a simple piety and a warm love for Jesus Christ and the Church, which he considered worthy of note by the overly complicated Westerners. Here is what he said in a discourse:
'In the last fifty years, there has been an extraordinary movement of conversion to Orthodoxy in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, and now, in Congo and other countries. These people often send to "The Orthodox Word" the simplest possible letters, full of the spirit of the Gospel, about their joy in the Lord. They are very, very pious and faithful to Orthodoxy. Christ desires such simple-hearted people, and precisely such people are coming into the Orthodox Church today.'
In another discourse, Father Seraphim spoke more about some of the letters received:
'There are particularly moving letters from young Africans converted to Orthodoxy. They show the highest reverence for their bishops. Some go to seminary. It is clear that these people in Africa have been given an authentic Orthodox sensibility. If the Orthodox Gospel is preached to simple people, they respond now just as they always have in the past. But with complicated people, it is much harder.'
(to be continued)
From 'The Life and Works of Father Seraphim Rose' by Hieromonk Damascene
Sophia Publishing House, 2005