The Hermit Anthony the Silent (II)

My Meetings with Father Antonie. Journal Pages

Today, September 18, 2017, I went to see Father Antonie again, the hermit who holds a vow of silence. Following certain events, he has been living for several months, known only to a few people, somewhere in the basement of a house in Bucharest. Who could have imagined that, while our cars fill the city's air with their exhaust fumes, and phones ring incessantly, overflowing with words, and everyone rushes through the day hounded by their own thoughts, somewhere, right in the belly of this whale that swallows us, hidden, full of joy, like another Jonah, unseen, an anchorite. A recluse who speaks unceasingly with God. In a time when we are absent from our own lives, a man delves deep and weeps for our sins. I sometimes saw him as a point on which this inverted pyramid of the city rests. The prayers of the saints uphold the world. Their tears dissolve the dross of our sins. How much this thought has animated and reassured me over the past few months, knowing he was there, in the belly of the whale, I cannot tell you how much!

Father Antonie spoke about his spiritual experiences only indirectly and very rarely. His life unfolded over the last twenty years in the mountains, secluded in caves where people found it difficult to reach. He spent several years in the Apuseni Mountains, in a completely isolated cave, where someone had built him a wooden room. There, for five months a year, no one would climb, roughly from November to March. He stayed confined in the cave like in a tomb; the snow sealed him in. He warmed himself by the flames of the oil lamps. Wild animals would come. Once, when I reached him in the cave, he told me that wolves had come and tried to get in, and I asked him if he wasn't afraid. He replied, amused by the naivety of my question: «How could I be afraid? I have a door!».

But another time, after I left his basement room, when I returned, unrelated to the amusing things he had told me until then, he took a piece of paper and wrote the following: «Is it possible that we have the light before us and we still seek it? It taps us on the shoulder, and we pretend not to feel it. Not all of us feel the cold, not all of us feel the warmth. What more can God show us, if we have them and do not see them?».

Another time he wrote on a piece of paper: «I am content that I did everything that depended on me». It was then that I realized how much can, indeed, depend on us.

Or when I asked him to tell me something about Prayer, he wrote this: „May you be able to do it. May you not see what you see. May you not hear what you hear. And may you not think what others think”.

„I want where He wants”

About his family, he told me: „She [my mother] wanted money. To have a lot of money. My family left for London, all of them. My parents and my three brothers received visas for London while I was in the army. Since then, [my mother] hasn't seen me again; God took her to London. That's what she was looking for! They fled with the visa and I haven't seen them since”. And, at that moment, Father Antonie, flapping his arms like little wings, imitated, laughing heartily, a small bird taking flight. He considered this departure of his family a miracle, that God had freed him from the burden of family, and thus he could unhindered follow his eremitic calling.

Once he asked me: «What is fear? A lie or truth?» «A lie», I said. «Yes, it is a lie. Because it does not exist. The devil knows this and wants to disturb us. Because it is a lie, it does not exist. If you don't have a body, does death exist? That's why death was left, so you can leave, otherwise you would stay here for an eternity».

Once he asked me a question I didn't know how to answer: „Why did Sofian keep silent more than he spoke?”. And he didn't tell me why either.

I told him about Saint Silouan and Father Sophrony. He kept asking me if they were canonized. I explained that for Father Sophrony, we are still waiting. He couldn't believe it. He marveled like a child and couldn't believe that it was possible for him not to be canonized yet. Then he wrote: «If Silouan is a saint, then the disciple must also be a saint. Sophrony is in Athos, isn't he?» «No, he is near London». (The elder marveled greatly again) «There is a very beautiful monastery there. I went to Essex, to his tomb», I continued. «You went to London? Were you scared on the plane? Why? Does Sophrony have an incorrupt body? Is it in a reliquary?». He very much wanted to know if he had an incorrupt body, but I didn't know what to tell him.

Another time I asked him: «How should we fight, Father, with carnal passions?» «What does Christ say? If your eye is evil, pluck it out. But to pluck out means not to see. To cut off the hand is to cut off sin. A person, with their mind, has the power to see everything they see as clothed. And in dreams. When a woman appears naked, you clothe her. Saints would lie next to them and not see sin. They also appear in dreams. But you should not see what you see. See animals [these naked bodies]. Become immune».

Once he wrote me a wonderful saying, which I could take as a principle for an unwavering spiritual life: „I want what He wants and I know that now I am here”.

The last two times I visited him, he didn't tell me anything special. He wasn't in the mood to talk. It was as if he didn't even want to receive me anymore. I didn't insist either.

(to be continued)

Mircea Stanciu

From „Familia Ortodoxă” (Orthodox Family), April 2019

Read also:

The Hermit Antony the Silent (I)

The Hermit Antony the Silent (III)

The Hermit Antony the Silent (IV)