Episode 9: “Tradition & Scripture”; “Three Forms of Prayer”, Saint Silouan the Athonite, with Prof. C. Veniamin

Episode 9: “Tradition & Scripture”; “Three Forms of Prayer”
Unit 16: “Sts. Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites: Principles of the Christian Life”, by Prof. Christopher Veniamin
 Series: “Mystical Theology"
 
Based on the reading of excerpts from the Sections, “Tradition & Scripture” and “Three Forms of Prayer”, from St. Sophrony’s masterpiece, Saint Silouan the Athonite, this ninth episode includes such themes as the Holy Spirit in the Church, person vs institution, and the place of pain and suffering in the life of the Christian. Dr. Christopher Veniamin is a spiritual child of St. Sophrony.

It is hoped that these presentations will help the enquirer discern the interwoven character of Orthodox theology and the Orthodox Christian life, and to identify the ascetic and pastoral significance of the Orthodox ethos.

Q&As related to Episode 9 available in The Professor’s Blog.

Recommended background reading: Saint Silouan the Athonite, by St. Sophrony the Athonite; and The Enlargement of the Heart, by Archimandrite Zacharias

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I wish to express my indebtedness to the spoken and written traditions of Sts Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites, Fr. Zacharias Zacharou, Fr. Kyrill Akon, Fr. Raphael Noica, Fr. Symeon Brüschweiler; Fr. John Romanides, Fr. Pavlos Englezakis, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Prof. Constantine Scouteris, Prof. George Mantzarides, Prof. John Fountoulis, Mtp Kallistos Ware, and Prof. Panayiotes Chrestou. My presentations have been enriched by all of the above sources. Responsibility however for the content of my presentations is of course mine alone. ©Christopher Veniamin 2023

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I'd like to read a little passage to you from the first part of Saint Silo on the Athenite concerning tradition and the scriptures. I think you'll find what Father Sophrony has to say quite interesting. The starage's regard for obedience as the essential condition for learning the spiritual life is closely linked with his attitude towards sacred tradition and the divine word. This is, by the way, on page 87. It's part of the starage's doctrinal teaching. For the starage, the life of the church meant life in the Holy Spirit, in sacred tradition. The unceasing action of the Holy Spirit in her Sacred tradition, as the eternal and immutable dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the church, lies at the very root of her being and so encompasses her life that even the very scriptures come to be but one of its forms. Thus, were the church to be deprived of tradition, she would cease to be what she is For. The ministry of the New Testament is the ministry of the Spirit, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stones but in the fleshly tables of the heart. Suppose that, for some reason, the church were to be bereft of all her books, of the Old and New Testaments, the works of the Holy Fathers of all service books. What would happen? Sacred tradition would restore the scriptures, not word for word, perhaps the verbal form might be different, but in essence, the New Scriptures would be the expression of that same faith which was once delivered unto the saints quat an quat. They would be the expression of the one and only Holy Spirit, continuously active in the church, her foundation and her very substance. The scriptures are not more profound, not more important than Holy tradition, but, as said above, they are one of its forms, the most precious form, both because they are preserved and convenient to make use of, but removed from the stream of sacred tradition. The scriptures cannot be rightly understood through any scientific research. If the apostle Paul had the mind of Christ, how much more does this apply to the whole body of the church of which Saint Paul is one member?

Speaker 1: 3:41

Now, remember, there's a story about Saint Porphyrios disagreeing with something that Saint Paisios had said, and the person who was trying to figure out what was going on between them said perhaps, father, you really agree on a certain level? No, saint Porphyrios said we don't agree, father. How is it possible that the saints would disagree? How would we resolve a disagreement between the saints? The church would resolve. It said Saint Porphyrios. And if the writings of Saint Paul and the other apostles are Holy Scripture, then new scriptures of the church, written supposedly after the loss of the old books, would in their turn become Holy Scripture. For according to the Lord's promise, god, the Holy Trinity, will be in the church even unto the end of the world.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Can you imagine our Protestant brethren turning all kinds of shades of pink and purple and absolutely flabbergasted by this kind of talk? It challenges everything. But Father Sophrony goes on to say men are wrong when they set aside sacred tradition and go, as they think, to its source, the Holy Scriptures. The church has her origins not in the Scriptures but in sacred tradition. The church did not possess the New Testament during the first decades of her history. She lived then by tradition, only the tradition Saint Paul calls upon the faithful to hold.

Speaker 1: 5:54

It is a well-known fact that all heresiarchs have always based themselves on the Holy Scriptures, only their interpretations differing. The apostle Peter spoke of this perversion of the meaning of the Scriptures when they are construed personally by the individual reader. Individual members of the church, not excluding her finest sons and teachers, do not achieve the whole fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and so their teachings and writings are marred by one or another imperfection, sometimes even error, whereas as a whole the church's schooling, possessed of the gifts and knowledge, remains true for all time. Unwavering faith in the concilia church's teaching and profound confidence in all that the church has recognized and confirmed in her experience, lie at the root of the Athonite monk's life, preserving him from non-conformist dilettantism and fumbling research. Thus entering, through faith, into the life of the Universal Church, the monk becomes co-possessor of her boundless riches, and his own personal experience acquires an absolutely authentic character.

Speaker 1: 7:48

By studying the holy scriptures, the works of the holy fathers and the inexhaustible dogmatic and prayerful treasures contained in liturgical books, the monk meets with ineffably great riches, and so he is not disposed himself to write on the same themes without introducing some basically new material, but when a real need arises in the life of the Church, then new books are written. Did you notice that? What does that mean If these people, who are, in a certain sense, our specialists? They devote their whole lives to following the way of Christ, to studying, as the passage says, holy scriptures, the works of the holy fathers and the treasures of the liturgical tradition, if they are reluctant to say anything unless there is a specific need. Then what should we do? That's why orthodox theology is difficult If you don't know, it's better not to say anything. That's a delicate matter, because many of us we're placed in situations where we may not know and yet we are required to say something. Right? What do you do then? But let's continue reading this interesting passage.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Each new book with claims to inclusion in the teaching of the Church is considered from every aspect, and especially with regard to the influence it might have on the lives of men. I'm reminded of how genuinely concerned Father Sophrony was that his book, this book St Siloan the Athernite, be accepted on the Holy Mountain. That was his. I guess that was his criterion. He cared about how it was received on the Holy Mountain. This last criterion, its influence, is extremely important because of the close connection between dogmatic consciousness and life.

Speaker 1: 10:34

It's interesting that the ones who are most concerned about the doctrines of the church, this dogmatic consciousness to which Father Sophrony refers here, are the ascetics. The ascetic is the one who is most sensitive to the significance of the doctrines of the church. Why they understand the practical significance of the doctrines of the church. It means that they've reached the point where they had to test the doctrines of the church, in the sense that the divinity of Christ is an absolute prerequisite, the divinity of the Savior. They know that because they reached the point where only the Savior, who is the God, can save. So they understand the practical significance of the doctrines of the church in all their subtleties. I mentioned the basic one, the most fundamental, that Christ, our Savior, is our God. Only God can save. Well, they don't know that here. I mean, they know it here as well, but they know it here because they've lived it. They've reached the point where it was life and death. Because that's asceticism.

Speaker 1: 12:24

By the way, why are the monks? Why are the monks regarded as continuators of material life? Because their life is a martyrdom. Their life is on the brink of life and death. It's no joke. It's like we have an army and we have people on the front lines. That's why I refer to them as our specialists. We're all in this army by the grace of God, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 12:57

But that's a good point, I think, for us to turn to the question of prayer, the three forms of prayer that Father Sophrony refers to, and the development of intrusive thoughts which is so important for us to know something about, especially if we're in a position where we are called upon to advise and guide others. But before I do that, let me just go back to this point about the Holy Scriptures and tradition. I have noted over the years that some people really find it difficult to accept what Father Sophrony is saying, that example of if we lost the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers and the liturgical books, I mean, goodness me, what a disaster. I think many people say, thankfully, that tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the church. But what do they mean by that? And the reason why I ask that question is because I think I've mentioned to you before somewhere in passing that there is the understanding of the life of the church which is seen, on the one hand, chiefly in institutional terms, and there is the life of the church which is seen in hypostatic terms. And if you remember, I asked the question it was a strange question because I transferred it to the Roman Catholic situation and I said if you had the Pope standing next to Mother Teresa, which one would you say is holier, which one would you say is the greater saint? And you know that.

Speaker 1: 15:28

The reason why I put it in that context is because the Roman Catholic Church has an explicitly institutional approach to the life of the Holy Spirit in the church. And so I submit that most Roman Catholics, at least the ones who are well informed in terms of Roman Catholic teaching, would unhesitatingly say the Pope. Unhesitatingly, they would choose the Pope Because it's not the hypothesis, it's not the person that they're looking at, they're looking at the institution of the papacy, they're looking at the station of whoever it might be who holds that position. It doesn't really matter who the Pope is standing next to, it's the institution that comes first, and that is a direct result of the filiokoi. I won't go into that right now, but when you enter a monastic order in the West, there is the rules of that order, specific mission of that order, and unless you leave, you cannot go contrary to that order. That means, again, the institution comes first. If you reach a point in your life where you need a certain freedom to do things differently, well, you can't do that in the context of that order.

Speaker 1: 17:19

There are many such examples. As I say, it's interesting that we have to switch to looking at the Roman Catholic Church because it's such a good example of these things, and the reason why it's a good example is because you see the influences on people in the Orthodox Church which do not come from within the Orthodox Church. They come from outside. And I refer back to the story I told you about Porphyrios and Baesius. Notice that Fr Sophrony says that no one individual person has the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That's a very interesting statement and it's a very helpful one. And of course, we're reminded of St Paul, who says not all are apostles, not all are prophets, not all are teachers, and so on and so forth. But together the Church possesses all of these gifts, and these gifts are shared among the members of the Church by the communion of the grace of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the Church, and the stronger members support the weaker members. Having remembered all the saints again and again, let us pray unto the Lord. Individual members of the Church do not achieve the whole fullness. Christ, when we say the Church, we mean that institution that bears witness to the theanthropus. The Church is a theanthropic institution because it is the body of Jesus Christ, and so the Church remains true for all times. Okay, so let's move now. I'll just take a couple of minutes to say something about pure prayer and mental stillness. Chapter 6 in the first part of St Silvan the Athonite, page 131.

Speaker 1: 19:58

The three forms or the three aspects of prayer. Basically, we have prayer which is characterized by the imagination. This is particularly common in beginners. We have prayer which is characterized by what the text calls meditation, but it actually means thought, thinking and indeed reasoning, logical reasoning. This is the kind of prayer Father Sophrony says that when the heart and mind are wide open to all that is extraneous, one is left continually vulnerable to the most heterogeneous influences from without, unable to discern what exactly is happening. Objectively, when we reach the point where we live, at least on the surface, a fairly Christian life, we run the risk of becoming content or satisfied with ourselves and we cease to strive upwards. Because we have become content, we acquire a certain knowledge about the things of the Church and we mistake that knowledge for true knowledge of God, whereas in fact we have learned some speculative theology, we have learned some history, we have learned some terms, and of course that's important and all of that has its place. But if we stop there, the journey towards our goal has been interrupted, and so the soul decreases in grace in the experience of grace, and the loss of grace is intensified as it develops.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Father Sophrony says this form of prayer, which is characterized by the concentration of attention in the brain, we're thinking too much. It leads to rational, philosophical intuition and it opens the way to a contrived world of the imagination. And this form of abstract, conceptual imagination is less naive than the first, which is almost pure imagination, fantasy. But it is less naive than the first, but it is nevertheless far from the truth. The third form of prayer is where we learn to focus the mind in the heart, and this kind of prayer is characterized by attentiveness, focusing on the heart and the Lord gives us abundant opportunities, first of all to discover that we have a heart. That's why pain and suffering are regarded as a blessing, certainly not as an evil, because they give us the opportunity to discover that we have a heart.

Speaker 1: 23:49

When you suffer, when you experience pain, let's begin with physical pain, because we understand that most easily. If you cut your finger, as Father Zacharias says, if you cut your finger, where does your mind go? It goes to your finger. And as we live in the life of the church, the climate of the church and we become more refined. We experience more and more pain Because things that we never even noticed before, suddenly we notice and we become sensitive to them and we're constantly challenged, because the commandments of Christ teach us to react in one way and the law of the world, the instinct for survival, encourages us to respond in a totally different way. And that tension as we become aware that really, really, there is no other way than the way that Christ shows us. There's no solution as such. You can find temporary fixes in abundance, but we grow and we realize that there's no solution outside of Christ. And the way of Christ is the way of the cross. The way of the cross leads to the resurrection, but the cross is real, and so we experience more and more pain.

Speaker 1: 25:29

And where do we experience that? Well, the center of man's being. Generally we refer to it as the heart, the center of man's spiritual being, and we feel that pain in the heart. If my brother offends me, my heart feels that and there's a reaction that takes place in my heart. So immediately I become aware of my heart. That's the blessing. The pain itself is a blessing, because it helps you to discover your heart and at that point you have a choice. You have a choice to react in one of two ways, as we said before either the way of the world or the way of Christ.

Speaker 1: 26:23

And by responding according to the commandments of Christ, we inevitably see our weakness, our inability to live the commandment of Christ, to put it into practice, and so we know that we have to cry out for help. There's no other way. Humanly speaking, the commandments of Christ are impossible. How are we going to respond to everyone and everything in Christ-like love? We see that by myself I'm not able to do that, and I know that this is the only way. And so I have to deny myself and call upon the name of the Lord for help, real help, because now I'm facing a metaphysical, quote-unquote pain. I'm facing the prospect of death If I react on the human level, in a human way, that way will lead to eternal death. So the blessing is that we discover that we have a heart. We call upon the name of the Lord from the heart. So finally, at that moment, our noose is focused on our heart, in our heart, and we can pray. It may be for a split second, but in an undistracted manner, standing honestly and truly before God, where we have laid aside all other cares. So I'll hide behind Father Zacharias.

Speaker 1: 28:35

Again, a brother says something to you that offends you and you're tempted to think how could so-and-so treat me this way? Look how many times I've done this for him, I've done that for him, I've shown him many kindnesses and this is how he repays me. He's not a good man. That's a reaction, normal reaction, psychological reaction, emotional reaction. But the spiritual antidote is to say Lord, I see that I'm weak, forgive me for not responding to this situation as I should, as a Christian. Enlighten me, teach me to understand what you want me to learn from this. Forgive me and enlighten me. And by the prayers of my brother, so you put yourself below your brother, you don't judge, you put yourself lower. You say have mercy upon me.

Speaker 1: 29:58

Very painful initially, very painful. But as we force ourselves to take up that cross and we say those words, first we don't really mean them. Later we're ashamed that we don't really mean them and we see that we should mean them and we're reminded that the Lord shed his precious blood not only for me but also for him. That brings a sense of shame and honor and you begin to feel the pain has a healing character to it. And you say, ah, the Lord is well pleased that I am praying for my brother, asking for mercy through his prayers, even though he has caused me pain and perhaps injustice, doesn't matter, because we enter that way into the stream of the Lord's unjust and voluntary suffering. And that's where we meet Christ, that's where he becomes our fellow traveler and our comforter, our comforter and resurrection, because at that moment, where we go right down voluntarily to the foot of the cross, we meet the resurrection who is Christ, the true paschal that passing over from death to life.

Speaker 1: 31:50

We have to learn this way. Father Zacharias says we have to learn this way in order to survive as Christians in this world, and he describes it in terms of transforming psychological states into spiritual ones. So the first reaction is a psychological, emotional reaction. You might be watching the news on the TV, for example, and some disaster has taken place, terrible disaster in the world, and you can really be moved to tears looking at the extent of the suffering of our fellow human being. But if you remain on that level, these are psychological tears, these are tears of emotion and one would say there's a kind of despair because look how many lives have been lost, how many lives have been destroyed. We are left despairing of anything good coming of it. On the other hand, if we take that energy and, by the way, that energy, that psychological energy, that emotional energy, never encourages us to pray you might say Lord, have mercy. But it's not an energy that is prayerful, it doesn't engender real prayer. But if you say, even as you're weeping those psychological tears, lord, you turn to God and you offer the suffering to Him and ask Him for healing, you raise that psychological, emotional experience to the spiritual plane where God is able to bring healing and consolation. And in God it's not the end of the story, no matter how many lives have been lost, no matter how many lives have been destroyed in worldly terms because they're dead or they're injured or whatever it may be. But it's not the end of the story.

Speaker 1: 34:28

St Pausel gives a wonderful sermon on Job and he's one of the first to point out that when Job came through all of those misfortunes and did not sin, the Lord blessed him so that everything was double. Everything that he had lost he received twofold, except for what His children and St Pausel the Great explains, he had the same number of children again, not twice the number of children. Why did he have the same number of children again? Because his children were not lost. His children were with God. That is the consolation that this is a temporary life. This life is like a dream. One day, just seemingly out of the blue, father Sophrony said to me you know, christopher, that even if we lived a thousand years, one day we will die. So we shall face the question of eternity. No one can escape that. But you see that in God it's not the end of the story in a real, real sense, it's the beginning. He who loses his life for my sake, the Lord says, shall gain it.