The Sacred Thread of the Church’s Lessons in the Weeks Leading to Great Lent #

I. The Publican and the Pharisee #

Old Believers have a much deeper understanding of their divine services, their order, than adherents of other confessions. Old Believers diligently (though relatively speaking), seriously, and attentively preserve the ancient order, remaining faithful to the Ustav (Typikon) and traditions of the past. Here, there is no question of the disorder and irreverence in worship that is often found, for example, in the Greek and Synodal churches.

Yet, one cannot help but acknowledge that an awareness of the general ideas of the Church, expressed in the sequence of weekly (that is, Sunday) commemorations, is quite weak even among Old Believers—not only in their more unenlightened circles. This compels us to trace the unifying thread of ecclesiastical thought that runs through these coming weeks (February and later March), revealing the progressively deepening spiritual ascent reflected in the services of the Church.

At the end of January, the so-called Pre-Lenten Sundays began.

In the temple, we saw the Pharisee and the Publican. The Pharisee stood in the forefront.

Proudly, he enumerated his virtues:

“I thank Thee, O Lord, that I am not like other men—thieves, robbers, adulterers. I fast twice a week, I give tithes to the poor,” and so on.

The Publican stood at the entrance, not daring to lift his eyes to heaven, striking his breast and repeating:

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

We are accustomed to seeing in these two figures of the parable, on the one hand—vanity, pride, and hypocrisy, and on the other—repentant humility. Yet the Gospel message is far broader than this simple understanding.

The Pharisee is not depicted as a hypocrite (the parable gives no grounds for such an interpretation). Rather, he represents an ordinary, law-abiding Israelite, self-satisfied because he has done everything as it is written, remaining faithful to the ritual and the commandments governing daily conduct.

The Pharisees, as a whole, were honest, strict in personal behavior, and devout (though some indeed were hypocritical). They truly observed the formal prescriptions concerning charity. However, their zeal for the law was not joined with deep heartfelt piety, with spiritual fervor, with a truly sensitive and expansive love for their neighbor. They were neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. Likewise, the Publican is not merely a penitent, a humble man acknowledging his sins (primarily the sin of extortion). No—he is a man who has passed through a crisis and is beginning an entirely new life.

We know many publicans from the Gospel. Upon repenting, they radically changed their understanding of life. Consider Matthew, who sat at the tax collector’s booth. The Lord said to him, “Follow Me,” and he arose and followed Him, abandoning his wealth.

Consider Zacchaeus, who was ready to give up his possessions to compensate those he had wronged.

Surely, there were many like Matthew and Zacchaeus, for the Gospel tells us that the Lord ate and drank with publicans (Luke 15:1: “Then drew near unto Him all the publicans.”).

Their repentance, as we have already said, was not a momentary plea, not a fleeting outburst of self-condemnation with words of remorse—it was a firm, resolute, and enduring renunciation of their entire past life, a transformation of their spiritual consciousness from a sinful, selfish, and evil state to one of obedience to God and love.

Thus, both the Pharisee and the Publican offer us a great lesson.

The Pharisee represents the common righteous man who lives by the ustav (church rule), who adheres to prayer and the order of worship. A man who, in life, has taken upon himself the observance of a certain set of commandments—some degree of mercy (he gives alms), some degree of abstinence (he does not drink, does not smoke, does not break the fasts)—but who is not a man living in God, not close to Christ, not close to people, not embracing them with his soul. Of such people the Lord, as revealed to John, says that He will reject them from His mouth (Rev. 3:15: “O that thou wert cold or hot!”).

The Publican, on the other hand, is justified as one who, after wandering, has come to know sin and the righteousness of God.

He is a man who longs for the life of God, for the enrichment of his soul, and who has begun the path of spiritual renewal in the image of Christ.

Tell me, with whom are we closer aligned—you and I? With the Pharisee or with the Publican?

II. The Prodigal Son #

The touching story of the Prodigal Son so beautifully illustrates the Church’s hymn: “O my soul, arise, why dost thou sleep?”

Arise, O soul. The end is near. Go to God and ask Him to open to thee His radiant chamber; prepare the garment of thy soul, worthy of the Heavenly Kingdom, and beseech the Lord for it.

The Judgment is near—hasten!

This call, contained in the parable of the Prodigal Son, is so moving. The entire scene of the Prodigal’s repentance—the moment he realizes that he cannot sustain himself on the husks given to swine, that he needs pure, divine, and sacred nourishment, that he cannot live apart from communion with the Father—this stirs the soul. But do we notice the final words of the Prodigal’s reflection?

He declares that he will be his father’s servant. He returns to his father because he loves him, because he desires to do his will.

He wishes to sow the seed of a good life and Christ’s truth in his father’s fields. He longs for the heavenly bread, but he expects it through the holy labor of bearing the cross.

This is a rich, profound lesson.

But have we ever paid attention to the elder brother?

Who is the elder son? He is the obedient servant of the father. He is hardworking and labors from morning till evening. He knows no entertainments or pleasures; he has never even feasted on a lamb with his friends.

He is, outwardly, an exemplary person.

But look—what is the inner state of this man?

When he comes home in the evening and learns that his lost brother has returned, and that a feast has been prepared in his honor—does he rejoice? Does he hurry to embrace his brother?

No. He “refuses to enter” (Luke 15:28). His heart is full of envy. He visibly fears that his own inheritance will be diminished by his brother’s return.

His heart is also clearly gluttonous—he is troubled by the thought that he has never feasted as his brother now does.

What a sea of evil emotions, what a mire of sin lies in this soul!

And we—though we may not squander our soul like the Prodigal—are we not worse than him, when we maintain an outward purity but harbor an impure heart and will?

III. The Last Judgment #

“The Judgment of God is near,” proclaims the Church on Meatfare Sunday. “Hasten to prepare yourself for it!”

The Dread Judgment. The voice of the Church calls us to repentance, but people do not hear it—the noise of the world drowns it out.

Even on the very threshold of the time of repentance, people seem to rush to show that for them “food and drink” is the highest good, the very purpose of their life.

They begin Maslenitsa.

The Church of Christ, seeing that neither the image of the Publican nor the repentance of the Prodigal Son awakens Christians who have forgotten Christ, now strikes their conscience with the whip of warning about the great and fearful Judgment awaiting man.

What a terrifying scene!

“When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.”

“And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”

“And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”

“Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand: ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”

“For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in.”

“Naked, and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.”

Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying: “Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink?”

“When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee?”

“Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?”

And the King shall answer and say unto them: “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand:

“Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

“For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink.”

“I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not.”

Then shall they also answer Him, saying:

“Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?”

Then shall He answer them, saying:

“Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”

“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”

One would think that even the most hardened conscience would awaken at this vision of the merciful yet terrible Judgment awaiting us and our past.

Think: on that Judgment Day, our entire sinful and leprous life will be revealed before us.

Every evil word we have spoken, every impure thought, every wicked deed—according to St. Basil—will be inscribed upon the tablets of our conscience, awakened in that fearful hour.

And surrounding us will be the living images of all those whom we have wronged along the paths of life; all those who, because of us, have shed a burning tear of offense; all those to whom we have inflicted a wound in their soul—whether by a glance, a word, or a deed.

Every person we have hurt, every beggar who stretched out his hand to us in vain, every soul perishing before our eyes in the cruel abyss of life—whether through poverty, crime, or spiritual downfall into unbelief—will stand before us as an accuser and a judge.

And in the mirror of the Lord, we will see ourselves as we truly are—leprous and hideous.

What are the torments of Ivan the Terrible, haunted by specters, or of Lady Macbeth, unable to wash the blood of murder from her hands—compared to the horror of seeing oneself branded with the marks of Judas and Cain before the dread judgment seat?

This horror is inevitable for us because every one of us is “covered in leprosy from head to foot.”

There was once a man in an English tale, a certain G., who saw himself reflected in a “miraculous portrait”—a portrait that recorded his every evil deed and movement in life. And when he beheld his own image, he could not bear the terror of what he saw, and he perished before the dreadful picture. Yet he had not been a murderer, nor a thief, nor a brigand.

And what awaits us—what we shall see on that great day in ultimate terror—is already revealed here and now, in the clear light of today’s Gospel, in the images of the Judgment of God.

And yet—does this loving but fearsome call awaken you? Hardly…

Saint Evdokia, Saint Moses the Ethiopian, and many others who once lived in the deep darkness of paganism, upon hearing even in passing a word about the Judgment, renounced everything, abandoned all their past, to erase the horror of their sins.

But Christians today seem not to notice what the Gospel reveals to them. They remain unmoved by the warnings of the Church, deaf to her sorrow and her prayers, and walk resolutely toward their doom—toward destruction in eternal darkness.

We cannot receive Christ because we are in bondage to the world.

We forcefully silence the holy voices, lest we feel compelled to choose God over the world, lest we be forced to renounce the sweetness of sin. And that is understandable.

Blessed Augustine speaks of this struggle with painful clarity:

“Habit gained great power over me, for I followed it without resistance, though I did not wish to go where it led. Still bound to the earth, I refused to give myself wholly to Thee, O God! I feared being freed from the burden of all my chains when I should have feared being crushed under their weight. I was like a man who wishes to wake up but, overcome by sleep, soon dozes off again. Refusing to rouse himself, he does not approve of his sleepiness, yet he lets it triumph. So it was with me: though I was convinced that it was better to surrender myself to Thy love than to my weakness, I still allowed my weakness to triumph, for it pleased me, and it held me in chains.

To Thy call—“Awake, thou that sleepest!"—I could only answer with sluggish, drowsy words: ‘In a moment… just one more minute… just a little longer…’ But that ‘moment’ never ended, and that ‘one more minute’ stretched into eternity, for I feared that Thou wouldst call me too soon, that Thou wouldst heal me too swiftly from my desires—desires I preferred to satisfy rather than to conquer…

How bitterly I rebuked my soul! Yet it shrank back, it hid, unable to find any justification for itself…

I said to myself: ‘Go forward. It is time.’ And with each new effort, I came closer to the chosen path. I almost accomplished what I willed, yet I could not complete it to the end. I made a new attempt, I drew a little closer, ever so slightly closer; I almost reached the goal, I was ready to touch it—but I hesitated, I could not grasp it; I did not dare to die to death in order to live for life. The evil rooted in me had more power over me than the better life I had not yet tasted.”

Is this not our very state?

But how can a rational being knowingly walk toward destruction?

Augustine, having realized that this “cannot be,” ultimately surrendered himself to the Lord. But we—so devoted to the order of church services, so seemingly attentive to the voice of Christ, to the words of Andrew of Crete in his Great Canon of Repentance, to Ephraim the Syrian—do we not, the very next day after hearing about the Dread Judgment, return to the same old darkness?!

This must not be! Such an attitude toward the calls of the Church is mockery—mockery of her and of the Lord Himself.

IV. Forgiveness Sunday #

With Meatfare Sunday, we have already nearly entered the Fast, yet we turn this sacred week of reflection and prayer into a pagan frenzy.

Why?

The hour has already come for us to awaken from sleep. “For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof…” (Rom. 13:11-14).

Thus calls the Apostle on Forgiveness Sunday.

“Awaken!"—proclaims the Church on this final Sunday before the Fast.

The night of sin has ended with the coming of the Lord, with His saving death—why then do you still wander in darkness, stumbling and falling, refusing to walk in the light of Christ, in His clear and luminous paths?

Tomorrow, we commemorate a jester. He walked through the streets, amusing people with empty words and crude jokes.

But one day, by chance, he entered a church and heard there the preaching of the Dread Judgment.

“Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!"—the Church proclaimed. And at once, his soul followed after Christ—his eyes were opened, he was filled with joy.

“I see my path, O Lord… Help me… Have mercy on me… Grant me to see fully and forever.”

Let these words—“Lord… I desire to see!"—be our prayer.

Babylas fulfilled the commandment of today’s Epistle—he “cast off darkness and put on the armor of light.”

He rejected all the errors and temptations of yesterday’s sinful day for the sake of today’s holiness.

And the rays of Christ’s light penetrated his soul. Life welled up within him like a spring. His soul shone, renewed—strong, radiant, and mighty. He conquered the weakness of the flesh, spiritualized his entire being, and drew near to the Source of life and happiness—our Lord Jesus Christ.

In ancient Rome, only the noble class was permitted to bear arms. And thus, when the Apostle tells us to “put on the armor of light,” he reminds us that we too—like Rome’s nobility—are a chosen race, sons of light (1 Pet. 2:9). And as such, we must carry with us weapons—not the weapons of the world, but those worthy of a disciple of Christ—the weapons of Christian virtue.

As warriors strike down their enemies with physical weapons, so must we, as warriors of Christ, strike down evil and darkness with the light of Christ, with His righteousness and truth, establishing love and the Kingdom of God upon the earth.

Babylas took up this sacred weapon—he heard the Church’s preaching about repentance, sorrow, and new life.

Above all—new life.

We may weep over our sins during the Fast. We may even pray earnestly and sincerely.

But is this enough?

Is this the essence of what is required?

If life itself does not move toward goodness, if it remains unchanged in sin, what value is there in our prayers—even in our tears of repentance?

Today’s Gospel teaches us that prayer itself is impossible, is sinful—unless it is accompanied by a change of life.

We must forgive the sins of others. Without forgiveness, there is no salvation. No one may bring a sacrifice to the altar without first making peace with his brother.

“If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt. 6:14-15).

But what does “forgiveness” mean in the language of the Church?

A mere ritual of reconciliation, a formal custom handed down from the past?

An end to a quarrel, a resolution of a recent grievance?

No—not only that.

Forgiveness is the very essence of Christianity. It is a transformation of our entire understanding of life.

Are we at enmity only with A., B., or C.—with this person, that person, or another?

No—perhaps we have no specific quarrel with anyone at all.

And yet, we are enemies to everyone.

Christ forgave the sins of the world. But what did that forgiveness consist of?

He took upon Himself the sins of the world, and for them, He endured the Cross and death.

This is how we must forgive as well.

Here is a sorrowful beggar, a wretched man, perhaps constantly hungry, struggling to feed his family. He pleads for mercy, for salvation—but we do not notice him. We pass him by. Yet he is our brother.

We have no brotherly response to his soul, no love—and if love is absent, then the enmity of the devil holds dominion over our soul. In essence, we do not love our neighbor; we hate him. Otherwise, we would regard his suffering as our own, his burden as our burden, his misfortune as our responsibility. We would give all, even our very life, to save him.

But we do not do this. And so, we remain in a state of hatred toward him.

This is the teaching of the Gospel, of the Apostle Paul, and of the saints.

We are indebted to all in love. If love is absent, we cannot be forgiven, for we have not repaid our debt.

If we see a person perishing spiritually and do nothing for him, it is evident that we are not his friend but his enemy. And enmity—this is the root of our life.

Whoever desires to overcome the devil, to cast off sin, to return to God, must sow within his soul the seeds of love, of universal forgiveness, and must begin a life of service to all, showing mercy to all, in the deep awareness of his own guilt for the evil and darkness in the world.

Let us repeat:

Forgiveness is greater than reconciliation with enemies, because in Christianity, the concepts of brother and neighbor encompass not only those with whom we interact, whom we meet, with whom we have personal ties—but all people without exception.

Whoever forgives, loves. The one who has sincerely, in the way of Christ, forgiven another has made him his friend, his beloved brother. They have become “one soul with the forgiven in Christ Jesus.”

The Church desires that the mystery of forgiveness be extended to all, that we recognize our own guilt before all—the guilt of our lack of love—and that we open our hearts to embrace everyone.

To forgive means—to love.

And the primary purpose of the coming Fast is to teach us to forgive all, as Christ forgave—He who took upon Himself the guilt of the entire world and shed His pure blood for all.

Without such forgiveness in love, the Fast does not begin.

And if we do not yet possess this forgiveness in a truly Christian measure, then today we must plant the seed of this forgiveness, so that the living waters of the Fast may nourish it into a fruitful tree.

Bishop Mikhail (Semyonov)

Published in Old Believer Thought, 1916, No. 2, pp. 81–89.