from the Abbot Jonah

“The Holy Spirit gives the Church her vision, which comes from our identity in Christ as His Body. This vision is identical with the vision of all those who have gone before us precisely because it is the same Body, with the same vocation, mission, and identity: to be the Body of Christ: the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Whenever we add elements to that vision, we distort it, no matter how noble our qualifications and agendas may be. Whenever we subtract from or diminish it, we do likewise. If we change the vision in any way, we exclude ourselves from it and from the Body which it constitutes.”

Who Are These Mad Ones?

Abba Anthony said that the time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will rise up against him, saying that you are mad, because you are not like them.

- Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Anthony

From the Stories of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov…

–The king answered, “But if we alone are the sane ones, and the rest of the world is mad, then we will be the ones who everyone will consider to be the mad ones… let us make a mark on our foreheads so that we should at least know that we are mad. I will look at your forehead, and you will look at mine, and seeing this sign, we will know that we are both mad.”

Here’s what they did

“Long ago, in a faraway land, there was a strange type of mold that affected the grain in the fields. The king knew that if his people ate this grain, they would lose their mind and go mad. He discussed the problem with his chief adviser, and they decided to use the grain in the storehouses while trying to find a remedy for the afflicted grain. Time passed and the storehouses were empty, but still no remedy was found. The king decided that it would be better to feed his people the grain that would make them lose their mind than to let them die of starvation.

“I too will eat of this grain,” he told his adviser,

“so that I will be like my people –lost in madness. From that shared place, I will be able to lead them.”

“But what of me?” said the adviser,

“I will advise you, but you will not understand me.”

“You too must eat of the grain,” said the king,

“but there is one more thing. Before we eat this grain, I will order all my people to put a mark on their forehead. Every morning, they must look at their reflection and see this mark and ask themselves who they really are.”

How tragic if they forgot to look at their reflections…

From Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment:

“…He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.”

Icons Piercing Space and Time

“Like the Incarnation, the icon pierces space and time, because a physical object—a piece of wood with gesso and paint and gold leaf—is shot through with God’s eternal presence.”

This from the highly recommended post here, by Susan Cushman.

Just to Clarify

Bill Bryson, in A Short History of Everything, includes a section on most major fields of scientific inquiry, and makes them accessible to us amateurs. In a section on the laws of thermodynamics, here’s how Bryson clarifies each law for us (except the zeroth, which states, “If two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.”

First law:
“for a thermodynamic cycle the sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero”

Bryson translation:
“you can’t create energy“

Second law:
“The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium”
Bryson translation:
“a little energy is always wasted“

Third law:
“As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant”
Bryson translation:
“you can’t reduce temperatures to absolute zero - there will always be some residual warmth“

To be certain we understand how these laws came about, Bryson quotes the following from P. W. Atkins:

“There are four Laws. The third of them, the Second Law, was recognized first; the first, the Zeroth Law, was formulated last; the First Law was second; the Third Law might not even be a law in the same sense as the others.“

If only they’d have made it this clear when I was in school.

Reverse Perspective, New Perspective

The other day on a long straight run of highway I paid attention to the effect of geometric perspective and the vanishing point. Because of the geometry from our vantage point, lines (or highways) that are in fact parallel, appear to converge - coming together at a vanishing point on the horizon.

One useful effect of geometric perspective is the sense of distance it conveys. This effect is strengthened by the related effect of distant objects appearing smaller than they really are.

The effect perspective conveyed to me that day was one of “I’m here, this is the place I am, this is where my consciousness is, and whatever might be at that vanishing point is not here, is not affecting me, is less real than where I am.” My immediate environs, what all I was taking in through peripheral vision, was “what’s happening”, so to speak.

Icons depict backgrounds in Reverse Perspective. One of the resultant effects is that whatever is portrayed on the icon is the “here and now”, the “what’s happening”, and I as the observer am the one at the vanishing point, I’m the “not here”, and I’m not “what’s happening”. Here’s a crude illustration:

Reverse perspective also has, to me at least, a magnetic effect. An icon done in this way seems to be inviting participation - pulling us in. In fact, the effect seems to be one of drawing everything in - my surroundings as well as myself - functioning to reconcile here and there, then and now. Their now becomes my now, and their there becomes my there.

New Testament Presupposes Liturgical Service

From Dom Gregory Dix, widely respected Liturgical Scholar, in his work The Theology Of Confirmation In Relation To Baptism

We know now, too, that the Apostolic paradosis of practice, like the Apostolic paradosis of doctrine, is something which actually ante-dates the writing of the New Testament documents themselves by some two or three decades. It is presupposed by those documents and referred to more than once as authoritative in them. This paradosis of practice continued to develop in complete freedom from any control by those documents for a century after they were written, before they were collected into a New Testament ‘Canon’ and recognized for the first time as authoritative ‘Scripture’ beside and above the Jewish ‘Scriptures’ of the Old Testament, which alone formed the ‘Bible’ of the Apostolic Church. Now that the history of the Canonization of the New Testament is better understood, we can begin to shake ourselves free from the sixteenth century — or rather the medieval — delusion that primitive Christian Worship and Church Order must have been framed in conscious deference to the precedents of a New Testament which as such did not yet exist. The purely occasional documents now found in it do not contain, and were never intended by their authors to contain, anything like the Old Testament codes of prescriptions for the rites of worship. That was governed by the authoritative ‘Apostolic Tradition’ of practice, to which it is plain that the scattered Gentile Churches adhered pretty rigidly throughout the second century. I am not for a moment seeking to question the authoritative weight of the New Testament Scriptures for us as a written doctrinal standard. I am only trying to point out that there is available another source of information on the original and authentic Apostolic interpretation of Christianity, which the Scriptures presuppose and which must be used in the interpretation of the Scriptures. I do not deny that in time the recognition of this fact will be bound to lead to some considerable readjustment of ideas for more than one set of people. But tonight all I would say is that the liturgical tradition can be shewn to be older in some of its main elements than the New Testament Scriptures, and that down to the end of the second century, at least, it was regarded as having an ‘Apostolic’ authority of its own independently of them. We cannot look, therefore, for any attempt in this period to conform the practice of worship to them artificially. Nevertheless, the two do illustrate one another in a remarkable way.

Some thoughts on this passage:

1. “there is available another source of information on the original and authentic Apostolic interpretation of Christianity, which the Scriptures presuppose and which must be used in the interpretation of the Scriptures”… to discard this other source is to lose the ability to interpret Scripture in a consistent way, hence the extreme splintering amongst post-reform confessions.

2. “The purely occasional documents now found in (the NT) do not contain, and were never intended by their authors to contain, anything like the Old Testament codes of prescriptions for the rites of worship.”… hence the wide variety of worship rites practiced amongst the churches spawned from the reformation - a sola scriptura approach leaves one without a coherent instruction in worship

3. “in time the recognition of this fact will be bound to lead to some considerable readjustment of ideas for more than one set of people”… Dix put this out in about 1948. It’s not unusual to see a lag on the order of a couple decades between the time scholars begin publishing on a topic and the time the effects are measurable among the general populace. So I think Dix was correct judging from the growing number of converts from protestant circles to Roman Catholic and Orthodox liturgical communions.

Thanks to a guy named Andrew over at Energetic Procession for the Dix quotation.

It’s an Issue of Blood

The Gospel reading during today’s Divine Liturgy included Luke’s accounts of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter and of the woman with an issue of blood who was healed when she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. I was more engaged during the whole service today than usual, including during the readings. For twelve years this woman struggled with her health crisis, which became also a financial crisis. And Jairus’ daughter was 12 years young when she… died. One family had a joyous event 12 years prior, and one woman began her personal nightmare that same year. Now both the woman and the girl’s father ended up in the same place this day, both showing up with faith in Christ, and both drew near at about the same time. And the woman’s faith ended up bolstering the faith of the father when, after he heard the news of his daughter’s death, Jesus turned to him and used very similar words as He just used with the now-healed woman – she’ll be “made whole”. Our priest emphasized the woman’s faith that brought her there, and said she received more than she came for – she was made whole.

Sometimes when I feel that maybe it’s been too long since I’ve last been to confession, I figure that I shouldn’t go forward to receive communion. I was in that situation today – should I go forward or wait until after confession. In these situations, the words of the Church always strike me, “in the fear of God, and with faith and love draw near”. The woman with the health crisis did just that, and my mind was drawn back to her when I decided to go forward. I need Christ, and I want to push through the crowd and at least touch His hem and be made whole.

In the back of the line, I couldn’t see what was happening up front, only the back of people’s heads. But I could see people way at the front bending down (kids receiving communion), doing things… commotion. The activity up there showed that He was here, and everyone wanted to get forward (“…as he went the people thronged him”). We were more orderly than the crowd that day. As I got closer, I thought about the woman getting closer to her turn. And as always, I got more nervous the closer I got. Judging from the woman’s reaction after her healing (“…she came trembling, and falling down before him”), I’m thinking she was also pretty nervous when she first approached, before anyone knew she was there. She wasn’t so brazen as to approach from the front (she “came behind Him”), and she used anonymity to cloak herself. I had no such anonymity. It was my turn, and I was “outed” just before I got there, (as she was after her encounter)… “the servant of God, George…” Announced by name no less, and with every reason to tremble and fall down before Him as the woman had when she “saw that she was not hid”. Being immediately before the King of Glory who is surrounded by throngs of angels, and your name gets announced. I didn’t fall down before Him, but I did tremble, if only inwardly, and received the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Epistle reading today (from Ephesians) serves as a most appropriate commentary to the Gospel - “by Grace you are saved through faith, not of works…” and, we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works”. The woman was clearly saved by Grace through her faith, and apparently continued in good works. We know from the Church historian Bishop Eusebius that she later erected a statue honoring Christ in Ceasaria Phillipi. Eusebius actually saw this statue sometime around 300 A.D., and mentioned a plant that grew up onto the hem of the sculpted cloak and had healing properties.

The Bigger Picture

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Here’s the complete picture from which I got the banner at the top of this site. It’s from the tonsuring of Daniel, a monk at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY. He sent this and some other photos of the event to me - those can be seen here.

Do the Orthodox Consider Themselves Mystics?

A gentleman named Lee, who lately has been asking some interesting questions over at Energetic Procession, asked me “Do the Orthodox consider themselves mystics?”

Perry, the patriarch of Energetic Procession, offered the following answer to Lee: “We are not mystics in the sense of negating reason or thinking that salvation comes through the abolition of personhood or its absorption into one divine singularity. Mystical refers to mysteries or the sacraments so in that sense the Orthodox are “mystical.””

The term “mystic” is loaded, so we’ll start with some definitions, then I’ll list some Orthodox practices and beliefs, then the reader can decide if the question has been answered.

Inspiring a sense of mystery and wonder (American Heritage Dictionary)
Difficult to explain or understand (Houghton Mifflin Thesaurus)
A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience (American Heritage Dictionary)
An experience of direct communion with God, or union with the Absolute (Oxford University Press)
Belief in union with the divine nature by means of ecstatic contemplation (Oxford University Press)

I doubt that any Orthodox Christian would ever call themself a Mystic. However, consider what we practice and believe in light of the definitions above.

We believe in the real presence of the Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity, in the Eucharist served at each Divine Liturgy. When we participate, we are partaking of God.

In addition to the Eucharist, we believe and participate in a number of other Mysteries (sacraments), through which Grace is administered to us by God. These include for example baptism and chrismation, marriage, unction (healing), confession, ordination. The photo banner on top of this blog shows a mystery in progress - the tonsuring of a monk (Fr. Daniel at Holy Trinity Monastery). These are not merely symbols - something happens.

We believe the Incarnation changed everything, physical matter included. So we bless everything - water, icons, homes, food, each other.

We believe that there are spiritual giants among us, who we call Saints (with a capital S, recognizing that we are all called to be saints). We try to study the Lives of the Saints every day, we try to emulate them, we wonder at the manifestation of Christ in their lives, like the glowing of a sword in a fire, we love them dearly, we keep icons of them in our homes, we venerate their relics. God is glorified in them. We pray for their intercession, since the prayers of the righteous are powerful. Here’s an example from today’s commemoration - St. Varus was martyred sometime around 300 A.D. A godly woman retrieved his body from where his persecutors dumped him, and she buried him in her home. She censed and prayed there daily, and eventually moved to Palestine and took his relics with her, where she continued the practice. Many people began to come and do likewise, and miracles of healing took place. This sort of thing continues to this day, even with recent Saints, and it’s not uncommon for the relics of a Saint to be incorrupt and exuding a perfumed aroma, sometimes myrrh.

We are radical in our belief in what scriptures say, taking literally that we can “participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world”. Like Perry said, that doesn’t mean that we cease to become persons, or become absorbed into a mystical singularity. We have many great examples of Orthodox Saints who have gone far in this process, often manifesting the Grace about them with superb wisdom, a bright light like the Transfiguration (St. Seraphim of Sarov, for example), healing illnesses, reading people’s souls, prophesying, affecting time, etc. The accounts are without number at a place like Mt. Athos, the geographic soul of Orthodoxy. I met a man who had suffered brain damage in a car accident, which caused the loss of his livelihood and inability to speak properly. When he visited Mt. Athos, some unknown monk greeted him by name, put his hand on the man’s head and said “the Theotokos loves you” (Theotokos = mother of God). He was completely healed and today helps sponsor an Orthodox monastery.

No Orthodox works on becoming a mystic. We only work on repentance, and we pray constantly, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

A Cinematic Icon

As my opening post on WordPress, I’d like to copy a dialogue from my vox blog, hoping that the contributors don’t mind having their insights replicated across cyberspace.

After seeing the powerful Russian movie Ostrov (The Island), I posted these thoughts:

We recently watched Ostrov, a brilliant Russian movie highly recommended by my sponsor into Orthodoxy, Seraphim. The movie depicts a life of repentence, and the results of that repentence. One Russian commenter over at imdb.com (here) says, “For all taking the spiritual development seriously - the film will also be useful no matter what is their religion. People say that they are becoming better and cleaner after watching the film.”

If we believe comments on IMDB, the main character, Father Anatoly, is “played by unique and genius Russian actor/musician/now-hermit- Petr Mamonov. The movie actually reflects the real current life and spirituality of the actor.”As I prepared to return to work tomorrow, I was tempted to see that action as my version of hauling coal, the constant “obedience” of Fr. Anatoly. But with further reflection, I think the coal, and the shipwreck, and the rickety boardwalk that the near-monk built between his little island and the shipwreck, are all further symbols of the life he’s repenting of. At the beginning of the film, the young Anatoly is found by Nazi’s hiding in that same pile of coal, and he betrays his captain by revealing to the Nazi’s where the captain is hiding in the coal. So to me the coal is basically the symbol of Anatoly’s previous cowardice and betrayal, which he repents for throughout his life, while he at the same time converts the symbol of his shipwrecked life into heat for the church and monastery he now labors for. He daily walks that boardwalk back to the place of his failure, and hauls the remembrance of his shame back to the furnace where it’s converted by fire into a service to God.

Stretching things a bit more, it occurs to me that the Nazi’s at the beginning of the film, by ridiculing and debasing the young Anatoly, represent satan in the way he works constantly not just to prevent salvation, but to destroy human dignity. The captain, once his hiding place is betrayed, displays dignity in the face of imminent death (unlike Anatoly). I’m not sure what to make yet of his fate, though it’s interesting to contrast how his life turns out with that of Fr. Anatoly. The captain develops into one who has all the trappings of success, yet there are hints of fear in his life, having to carefully guard what he says amongst party operatives.

Getting back to Fr. Anatoly and the meaning of the coal and shipwreck… I’m a little confused, having read that one should not dwell on past sins, lest he be pulled back into them (maybe it was St. John of San Francisco?). If my take on the coal is right, then I’ll have to figure out how one should balance a remembrance of past shortcomings for purposes of repentance with St. Paul’s exhortation to forget what is behind and press on… But I’ve seen in the Lives of the Saints some hints of doing exactly what Fr. Anatoly is doing in the movie. It just seems significant to me that Fr. Anatoly lives in constant proximity to the shipwreck, and goes back to it everyday, and by the end of his life (while lamenting that his sins still weigh him down), has still not finished removing that pile of coal.

A final coal comment - I noticed that the abbot, Fr. Filaret, attempts to take on the same obedience for a while, but finds himself unable to do it. The film seems to highlight that Fr. Anatoly has to relieve Fr. Filaret of the wheelbarrow load. On the surface it seems that Fr. Anatoly is simply more fit for the work and used to it, but I think they’re telling us that each one has to offer up his own failures in constant repentance. I can’t do it like another, in part because my sin is unique and, from a centric perspective, greater than that of anyone else (as Fr. Hopko says, we are each the greatest of sinners, because we don’t compare ourselves to each other - we just know).

I think the whole movie is full of these symbols, so I may need to watch it again before we start loaning it to friends.

By the way, I don’t know how much of the movie is based on real people or real events, but I’m tempted to see Fr. Anatoly as a composite of two characters in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. He seems part (like one third) Elder Zosima, and part the “deranged” monk Fr. Ferapont who people are afraid of at the monastery. I might be totally off on this, but Fr. Anatoly was criticized for similar things that Elder Zosima was, and exhibited clairvoyance in very similar ways (the woman whose dead husband turned out to really be alive was similar to one who Elder Zosima counseled), and the “demons everywhere in the room” scene is similar to Fr. Ferapont’s ravings in Karamazov. I hadn’t respected the monk Ferepont, but will have to go back sometime after seeing Ostrov to see if he was in the part of a Holy Fool.

My sponsor in the Orthodox faith, Seraphim, responded thus:

Your reaction pretty much paralleled my own. The exchange between Fr. Anatoly and the Abbot after the soft boots and blanket had been dealt with is telling. The Abbot said that he saw now he was a man of few virtues and many faults…or something like that…then like a staretz Fr. Anotoly rejoins “virtues”?, mine stink. Then there is the instant role switch where the abbot rises to the occasion as abbot and replies, “keep smelling them and you will be saved”. This whole sequence seems to echo a saying of St. Issac the Syrian, that the soul who loves comfort can no more aspire to spiritual things than wet wood can catch fire. And Fr. Anotoly’s life was nothing else unless it was comfortlessness and fire.

It was also very interesting to see Fr. Anotoly proclaim aloud his great sinfulness in the bell tower…and yet it was with an air of complete hope and even joy. It was very…paschal in its way.

With regard to the coal imagery, did you notice that as the film progressed more and more often the coal was shown under a blanket of white snow.

One thing I was curious about in this film was the source of the intimate and insightful detail into the conduct of a deeply spiritual life and as someone at or near being a holy fool. Was the unaborted child who would be a golden child, the golden boy who was healed, and the author of the script the same person…someone who had living knowledge of someone like Fr. Anatoly? I know it was fairly common for Russian writers to just barely novelize experiences from their own lives in the last century…and I wonder if something similar happened here.

Anyway, I’m very glad you liked it. As Fr. John of St. Michaels says it is just about as close to a cinematic icon as one can get.

My response was:

Thanks Seraphim. I want to go back and see it again after your comments. I had noticed the snow on the coal, but hadn’t thought about the progression. There are a number of significant messages woven into the whole story.

If I remember right, the monk who doesn’t like Fr. Anatoly, after Fr. Anatoly fails to appreciate the coffin he had made for him, something like “I’ve made sacrifices for a number of people like you, without benefit” - I have to go back and see how he worded it. This seemed to answer very exactly Anatoly’s earlier question to him about why Cain killed Abel.

Like you, I wondered how the leading actor was able to portray the life of a holy man, including mannerisms and attitude, etc. I thought maybe he studied some men at various monasteries for awhile, but later came across the IMDB reference that suggests that the actor lives a life something like that himself. Maybe it’s a combination of personal experience and emulation, but I really like your theory.

To which Seraphim replied,

Yes I would agree that the other monk’s statement does answer the question in a way about why cain killed abel. We feel unappreciated and voids of our heart seep full of resentment. We expect to be justified in our sacrifices. We expect our benefit…though we may call it another’s benefit and find only rejection and disappointment. We are unappreciated for all our striving to do all just right and yet it is another, perhaps one who does so little right that receives the gifts. It is as if God loving the one next to us leaves nothing for us. It is the recrimination of the elder brother against the prodigal come home. I loved you. I obeyed you. I served you and to what gain. I got not so much as a kid to hold a barbeque. But your wastral son who spent his inheritance in debauchery, who found his home among the swine…this one you honor with a feast and a fatted calf.

His was the lament of the spurned pharisee who said I see, I see and whose guilt remained. But even this calculator of unaccepted sacrifice found salvation through Fr. Anatoly…when he surrendered his own labor to serve not his own will but that of Fr. Anatoly “look, I’ll make it dirty as you like it”. Recall towards the end when he looks into the box Fr. Anatoly wants to be buried in…it is full of nets. Earlier in the movie Fr. Anatoly mentioned being entangled in his sins. In that box the priest came at last to understand the genuine humilty of Fr. Anatoly, and it is shortly after that we see him laboring in the snow to bear Fr. Anatoly’s cross. Live with a saint become a saint.

There is another important recurring image in the film I think. There is an icon of Christ that makes several appearances. It is in the temple. It is in Fr. Anatoly’s prayer closet (which is immaculate compared to his sleeping and working quarters), and it is the one cleaned with the white of an egg by the Abbot in the icon studio….and that is a subtext of this whole film…the cleansing and restoration of the sooty soul which is made in the image of Christ. The white is the lean part of the egg…and the soot of our souls is cleansed by accecis under sound spirital guidance. After the cleansing…the yolk is used to make fresh paint to restore any marred place….but that restoration comes after the image has first been made clean.

Having thought some more about it, I opined,

After Fr. Anatoly advises a woman against abortion, we assume that she followed through on his advice but we never find out.
After he advises the “widow” to go find her alive and ailing husband in France, we never learn if she did, or even if her husband is in fact alive.
After he prays for the young boy and tries to get his mother to allow him to stay another day for Divine Liturgy and communion, we don’t get to see if it happened, and whether the boy in fact is healed.
When the abbot’s residence catches fire as Fr. Anatoly foretold, we don’t find out whether he caused it himself.
(we do at least know that the exorcism was effective, and that Fr. Anatoly did know in advance when he would repose).

So in the end, we believe that Fr. Anatoly is a “holy man”, gifted by the Holy Spirit - but just like in life, there’s enough uncertainty to allow anyone to question it.

If you love Fr. Anatoly, you know he is a holy man. If you are against him, you have room to argue that he’s not genuine, or that there is no such thing in the first place. Did St. Nicholas really appear to the emperor in a dream? Did St. Seraphim shine in transfiguration? We love them, and we believe it to be so. And those who don’t love them have freedom to naysay. God always seems to orchestrate events such that it remains a matter of free will; no one is ever compelled or constrained by undeniable proofs.

An anonymous Todd added,

Would Anatoly have turned to God if he thought his friend was alive?

And I responded,

I hadn’t considered whether Anatoly would ever have turned to God if he knew his friend was alive - it’s a good question. What I did wonder, toward the end when he met the admiral and realized he was alive after all, whether that would change his spirituality, whether it would interrupt his life of repentence. The answer of course turned out to be no.

Then our friend the Reader David added this insight,

I think the answer turned out to be “no” because of the sort of cycle of tension and resolution that exists in repentance. We fast, in part, so that we can break our fast w/the Eucharist. We prepare so that we can enjoy. If this discipline is fruitful, we are then blessed by that borne cross so that we might bear more crosses. Fr. Anatoly labored with his sins in mind, then found resolution in Tikhon’s forgiveness. Having found resolution, he digs deeper into his soul’s coal.