+Jovan
by the grace of God Archbishop of Ohrid and
Metropolitan of Skopje to the Church he is appointed by God to oversee and to
all the Churches of the oecumene assembled in the body of Christ through the
link of the Holy Spirit, from Skopje Prison where he is imprisoned even for the
sixth time during the past ten years,
Hereby forwards the following
When
we acquire the love of Christ and the virtues, properly is to bear persecutions
for Him as well, and to accept even an exile, even to hear the most impertinent
defamation for ourselves, and yet to rejoice for all that, blessed Nicholas
Cabasilas says. When divine love kindles in a man, and when virtues are lit in
him, he is ready to bear not only sufferings, to suffer not only molesting and
prison chains, but he is ready even to rejoice to them. Joy however, is not
given according to merit, it is not a reward for deeds, but grace, wonderful
and perfect gift of God’s grace caused only because the Father has chosen us to
bring us into His joy (Matt. 25:21-23). Yet again, those who have entered into
the joy of the Father, rejoice with the joy of Christ as well. So what does
Christ rejoice in – He rejoices in those who are His and thus He rejoices in
Himself intrinsically.
For
you who are members of His Body and rejoice with His joy, you will easily
recognize the joy which we are happy in. Put in chains for Christ again, we
send you this second epistle written in prison to ask you to remember our
chains and not be ashamed of us, because we are still chained by them.
When
the divine Paul urged Timothy not to be ashamed of his prison (2Tim. 1:8), he
did not do it to rebuke him because he was ashamed of Paul’s chains, but to
encourage him to accept and endure his own chains, if need for it aroses. If
somewhat may be allowed that Paul had a bit of doubt in the reluctance of some
who were still not strong in their faith, and were fed on milk food (1Cor.
3:2), and at his first confession before the court no one backed him and all
had left him (2Tim. 4:16), and therefore he told Timothy that the Spirit that
God gave us is not a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and of a sound
mind (2Tim. 1:7). We are not admitted to doubt you because you supported us at
the first and at the second and so on, until the sixth confession of faith of
ours before the civil courts in the Republic of Macedonia.
Thus,
we do not write this letter with the intention to cheer your masculinity in the
faith shown in your testimonies while we are in prison, but we send it to share
with you the joy that our Lord rejoices in, joy that pours from the chains of
Christ, and rejoices everyone who participates in bearing them one way or
another. Those who prefer His chains before to any kind of physical liberty,
they will understand our joy with which our heart rejoices when we remember you
and your care for us. None other than the one that is wounded by the foolish
love of God, does not know how to discover and recognize the joy that poured
from suffering, sorrow, difficulty, imprisonment, persecution. However, he who
has opened the heart to receive the grace of God and let to be wounded with
that inconceivable love, not only allows to be wounded by it often, but
appreciates the wounds caused by such love above everything.
Those
who know that the temptations suffered for Christ increase the gift of joy,
envy us for the shackles we are chained with in Skopje Prison, certainly not
with a pathological envy, but with a jealous one. And such envy is not the same
as the malevolent envy of those who are in every way trying to hinder us to achieve
the goal aimed at the unity of the Church. Hence, the first ones envy
undesigningly with envy that is recognized as a zeal for God, while the other
ones envy us with malice and a genuine desire to harm, disdaining even the
chains for Christ, just because they have became ours at the moment.
And
what with it? One thing is of importance, the apostle says: “What then?
Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is
preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Phil. 1:18). He who
understands will understand what follows: “For to me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Someone
can receive the death as a benefit only if the hardly bearable humiliations,
mockeries, defamations, persecutions and imprisonments for the sake of Christ
are received with joy (1Cor. 4:9-13). And only if he does not respond
revengefully, angrily, with hatred and jauntiness to the injustice he bears in
his virtues. For every kind of virtue darkens in contact with hatred. That is why
the Apostle assures the Corinthians that mockeries should be responded with
kind words, persecution with patience, slanders with friendly words.
The
weapon of spiritual warfare is the weakness of the cross, the weapon which many
people in this world do not believe cannot bring victory. In fact when it seems
that we have lost all the power, then we are the strongest (2Cor. 12:10).
Therefore we, who have chosen that way of struggle, are considered to be
foolish, just as it was in the days of the apostles (1Cor 1:23-24). Who has
suffered longer than the blessed Paul? Imprisoned many times, scourged with
unimaginable cruelty, many times in danger of being killed. Gone through
various kinds of perils in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea (2Cor.
11:23-29). ). But did that not contribute deeply inside him for engravement of
the knowledge that temptation leads to patience and patience to tried character
and tried character to hope. Hope, however, none of us will make ashamed (Rom.
5:3-5).
Can
still a villainous say that Apostle Paul was so far from God and that the wrath
of God had turned against him, so the aforesaid had happened to him? On the
contrary, he had stood it with joy because God was with him. “My grace is
sufficent for thee”, he said, “for My strength is made perfect in weakness”
(2Cor. 12:9). Blessed is the man who endured the temptations with hope.
Because, if he endured them without confusing of the faith in what was
promised, he will gain the reward of eternal life that God has promised to those
who love Him (Jam. 1:12).
No
ordeal is over the extent of the one who has been tempted. God who is
connoisseur of our hearts and knows the depths of the human soul, knows
everyone’s spiritual strength and abilities separately, so does not allow the
temptations we endure to exceed the threshold of our endurance. He who
believes, with every temptation that he receives simultaneously receives the
exit from it as well (1Cor 10:13). But the exit is not always obvious from the
very beginning. It is hidden in the tapestry of hope and patience and revealed
when we prove to be patient in our hope (Jam. 1:4).
Sure,
it is not God that sets us before temptations. Our wrongly directed will leads
us to temptations (Jam. 1:13-14), but we can be set before trials and without
the participation of our will by those who envy us, hate us, or set taking away
what we own as their goal. Sometimes it means that neither the will of God nor
a fault of ours is the reason we endure temptation, but in this case the crown
that is prepared for us is greater than the one we would have gotten if we
endured the temptation we have fallen in through wrong direction of our
autonomy. It can be called suffering when others pull us into temptation.
However the award for suffering that we have endured with gratitude and without
defiance and that we have not darkened ourselves hating those who pushed us
into unwanted suffering is greater than the one given for life adorned with
virtues.
The
blessed Job is an Example for this. When did he prove himself more worthwhile
for the crown, when he shone with virtues: hospitality, pity, mercy,
philanthropy, justice, diligence, gentleness, wisdom, restraint, and many more,
or when he proved to be patient when suffering he had done nothing to deserve,
and yet attacked because of the envy of the devil? Certainly the virtues of Job
are undisputed and quite sufficient for the crown, but the endurance of the
unjustly caused sufferings made him seven times more worthy. The endurance of
suffering are the harder part of the fight in which great patience is needed to
win, and great love for God is necessary as well.
When
we suffer unfairly for the love of Christ, we actually become partakers of His
unjust suffering, but at the same time, He becomes a participant in our pain.
It is this oneness with Christ that gives us the greatest comfort in suffering.
Our life is hidden in Christ and we have already died in Christ (Colos. 3:3),
as he died for us once. But when the authorities in our country realized that
the one who died in Christ was born again as a captive of His love, that
suffering in prison cannot cause him no pain or wound, decided to reach for the
most loved ones, for the precious Bishops and honourable presbyters, for the
monks and the nuns, not omitting the flock nor the frail elders among them.
They pressed charges against them, to make them accomplices in the misdeeds
that they have assigned firstly to us, falsely and without any remorse. Thus
they made themselves equal to the persecutors of the Church of the old times
and become the persecutors of Christ Himself, for he who persecutes the members
of His body, which is the Church, persecutes Him who dwells in each of us
individually and in all of us together.
And
if the chains of the prison had not broken us or kinked us with their weight,
the pain caused by the sufferings of our brethren: the bishops, the clergy, the
monastics and the faithful, slashed us as a sharp sickle and twitched us in
bitterness as by drinking a cup of wormwood. Much more painful is the pain
caused by the suffering of those we love, than the pain of our own suffering.
Anyway, for one who has already died in Christ, it is the love for the loved
ones that does not allow him to die himself really and completely. He who loves
is put at the disposal of the one whom he loves and waits for the moment when
need to die for his loved one arises. So teaches us the Saviour, who told us
that there is no greater love than to give our life to the one whom we love
(John 15:13).
And
yet He told us more: “And fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to
kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28). Our persecutors cannot harm our souls, although
they already succeeded to harm the bodies of some of us. In spite of the help
of the Government and its power, they failed to shake our faith in Him whom we
wait to come and dress us in a new body, worthy for the preciousness of our
souls with which our Lord embellished us. And when God is with us, who can be
against us? God had not pity even over His only-begotten Son, the blessed Paul
says, but He delivered Him over to death for our sake. So if He delivered to
suffering His most beloved one for us, it means He will not stay carefree and
idle when someone will try to reach out, not only for our body but four our
soul as well.
We
May be accused and slandered with false accusations and inappropriate
defamations, tried and condemned, be imprisoned and persecuted, our physical
sufferings may be multiplied with the power of coercion to which every
irresponsible earthly authority may resort, up to the limit of unbearableness,
but can they thus separate us from the love of Christ? Can sufferings,
narrowness, persecution, famine, nakedness, dangers or martyrdom separate us
from Christ? - Apostle asks the Romans. And he answers as everyone of us would
answer who is wounded and enslaved by the foolish love of God: “For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).
So
do not worry too much, nor for our shackles, nor for our persecutions that seem
never to see their end. Here we have no permanent city of residence and we long
for the one to come (Heb. 13:14). Try not to be alarmed either because of false
accusations used against some of you aiming to make you accomplices in the
defamations directed at us, or to abase our devotion to God and the Church. God
teaches us not to make thoughts about what we say when we are brought to
justice. He will enlighten us in that hour what to say, because we are not the
ones who will face the court, but the Spirit of the Father will speak through
us (Matt. 10:19-20). We who are in the Church and whom God had gifted with all
the charisma of the Holy Spirit, because even the smallest participation in
charisma makes us participants in all its graceful gifts, and it is inherent
for us to speak the truth because it is life itself for us. However, take it as
previous knowledge of ours by virtue of our not so little experience with the
courts in our country and their unjust and unlawful judgments against us. When
the decisions of the courts are more influenced by the political situation, as
it happens with all court cases related to the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric in
the last 10 years, then justice is deprived and truth substantially harmed.
Although it is established precisely to judge with justice and truth, courts
judge us as if they intend to do just the opposite.
So,
it seems that there will be no exit from this situation, but let us not
despair. We are vessels made of clay; weak, brittle, crumbling, and according
to some, probably worthless, but we have unsurpassed value before God (2Cor.
4:7). Let us lay all concerns before Him because He cares for us (1Pet. 5.7).
The more we participate in the sufferings of Christ, the more we receive His
support. Even when going through grief for unjust suffering that sometimes get
by us in life; it is for our support and salvation. And when God supports
someone who suffers, He supports those through the bond of love participating
in the sufferings of the one who suffers.
So
as the Corinthians who through the bond of love participated in the sufferings
of the apostle Paul, and he therefore rightly expected to be helped by God
(2Cor. 1:3-11), we expect and pray God to ignite your faith in His promise, to
strengthen your faith and support you in the fight against temptations that
pushed you to the malice of the schismatics, and finally deliver you from what
would outpass your strength to persevere and win.
But
those who have tasted the pain caused by the suffering which pushed them to the
malice of their enemies, do not need further interpretation. “It is better to
trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Ps. 118:8), and it is better
to seek refuge in the Lord than to have hope only in man or in the rulers of
this world (Ps. 118:8-9). Cruelty and insensibility of people can sometimes be
greater than that of the devil, so David, inspired by God, accepted as better
to fall into the hands of God, and to be punished by Him, than to fall into the
hands of man and be a prey of human revenge (2Sam. 24:14).
Promises
given by a man are inconsistent, variable and often depend on personal gain.
God given promises are met with confidence, certainty and in due time, when the
Lord decides it is the safest. What God promises, He seals and signs by the
blood shed on the cross. Therefore, when we feel like to sigh bent double under
the burden of suffering, lacking somebody else to rely on except God, let us
sigh without disappointment: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none
upon earth that I desire beside Thee” (Ps. 73:25).
God,
however, will certainly hear and comfort us, especially if we manage to show
the most perfect example of what has been commanded to us: to love our enemies
(Matt. 5:44). To pray for the wellbeing of your pursuers, to ask for God’s
blessing on them and not to curse them (Rom. 12:14). Oh, what grandeur, oh what
excellence! To respect the authorities seem somehow natural after what the
apostle Paul says (Rom. 13:1-7), and even to pray for them (1Tim. 2:2), but to
pray for enemies, including among them even those rulers who are hostile to the
Church, is indeed paradoxical. But isn’t the Church full of many other
paradoxes? Isn’t it incomprehensible paradox the very incarnation of the
hypostasis of the Son of God? Is not it a the immaculate conception of Christ
and His supernatural birth by a Virgin a paradox? Isn’t becoming a member of
the body of Christ eating bread and drinking wine, and thus participant in the
life of God a paradox?
So,
love your enemies, even when it is indeed paradoxical to ask for the mercy of
God for them, but it is this paradox that makes us to resemble to God the most.
The judgment and the vengeance belong to God. He said vengeance and
remuneration belong to Him. God would justify the one who is wronged (Deut.
32:35-36) and it is a fearful to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb.
10:31). He punishes the unjust always, and even when He punishes them, doesn’t
He always do it with a visible punishment. For if we punish all the culprits in
a row and when it is done by a visible punishment, then what will be left for
the final judgment?
In
this world, beloved brethren, both the good and the evil suffer. But though
suffering is equal for those who deserve it and for those who have no guilt,
still the difference between them does not cease, says blessed Augustine. There
is a difference between those who suffer even when there is a resemblance of
suffering, and even if the pain is the same, neither the condemnation, nor the
assistance from God are the same. For as gold shines in the same fire where the
reed burn, or under the same baking lid spikes break, and corn is done, so the
same force hitting the good ones tries, cleanses and fixes them, while it
punishes, breaks and destroys the evil ones. Hence, for the same trouble evil
ones curse and blaspheme God, while the good ones pray and celebrate Him. So
the matter is not how great the sufferings are and what are they, but how one
endures them.
Lastly,
aren’t the most blessed ones precisely those who are mocked, persecuted and
detracted with false pretences for Christ (Matt. 5:11)? The top of the
beatitudes is neither the meekness, nor the purity of heart, nor spiritual
peace or peacemaking, not even the righteousness. The top is the gift to persist
unfair ridicule, persecution and detracting for the life in Christ. And when a
person reaches that peak, then joy alone follows, it does not come according to
merit or as a reward for great feats, but as mentioned earlier, comes as grace,
as beautiful and perfect gift of God’s grace.
This
epistle, my precious and beloved in the Lord brothers and sisters, I send from
the detention section of Skopje Prison where we are detained for almost 10
months now. Conditions in which we are accommodated are brutal, during the
summer months we were without water almost all day long, with little food and
almost no medical care, confined for 23 hours and 1 hour in the day we can go
out in the fresh air. Any shipment that we receive is searched in detail, and
we wait for months for the court to allow that anything written in a foreign
language to be presented to us. However, man is an icon of God and has gifts to
be adaptable to external conditions, so sooner or later, each of the detainees
accepts the above described harsh reality and live in it and with it. Most of
the detainees have not been convicted yet; they either wait for the day of
hearing, or wait for the verdict. Precisely this uncertainty is something that
is the most difficult thing while in detention. One gets used to the small
space of only a few square meters shared with roommates in the cell, becomes
able to adapt to life in moisture between the mouldy walls, even the lack of
food and health care cannot affect him as can the waiting for the hearing and the
passing of the judgment of the court shake him and discourage him.
Condition
of the detainees could perhaps be compared to the one of the evil ones after
death while awaiting the interim judgment. They will serve the final sentence
even later, even after the final judgment, but the very awaiting for the
sentence is already a punishment. If evil ones say that even before getting the
deserved hell, they wait for it in a state of hell, so it can be said that
detainees are in chains, often heavier than the ones they will receive after
the trial and verdict.
So,
after all that I have written we ask you in a manner as Paul asked the
enlightened ones: “remember those who are in bonds as though you were bound
with them, and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the
body” (Heb. 13:3).
Remember
us, but do not worry too much about us. Unjust suffering freed many from sins
they have committed consciously or unconsciously. So that this suffering of
ours, if it is for sin that we have committed against someone, then it is fair,
but if we do not suffer for our sins, then this pain of ours bring us closer to
Christ and to you just more empathetically. Unjust suffering, my beloved in the
Lord, is the shortest way to the depths of the knowing of God. Of course if
that suffering is accepted willingly, without defiance, disagreement, and even
more so, with joy. Through suffering, especially when it is unjust, we discover
and confirm how much we are actually close to God, or to put it better, how
much he has approached us.
God
becomes close to us and we are close to Him, when we participate in His
sacrifice for the life of the world with our suffering. Our sacrifice alone is
not sufficient to reconcile us with God; the sacrifice for Christ is necessary,
but the sacrifice we endure can sometimes reconcile us with each other. If this
little sacrifice that we offer to God voluntarily contribute to fully
reconciling with the schismatics and to bridge the existing schism, then all
that we endured during the last 10 years, among other things several
imprisonments, evictions and more, is just our small stake for what is most
precious to the Church, and that is its unity.
We
supplicate only God the Father, to strengthen you and fortify your unity with
His beloved Son, assembled in one body through the action of the Holy Spirit,
to celebrate together God in Trinity, waiting for the coming of Christ, because
Christ died and we sheltered our life together with Him in God. And when He –
who is our real life, appears, then we will appear with Him glorified by His
presence (Colos. 3:3-4).
September
21 / 8, 2012
Nativity of the Theotokos
Detention section,
Skopje Prison
Nativity of the Theotokos
Detention section,
Skopje Prison
Yours
in the Lord
Archbishop of Ohrid and
Metropolitan of Skopje
Jovan
Archbishop of Ohrid and
Metropolitan of Skopje
Jovan
No comments:
Post a Comment