Christian Friendship #
By Bishop Mikhail (Semyonov)
The Prologue tells an instructive story.
In the monastery of St. Theodosius, there were two monks who took a vow of eternal friendship.
And it came to pass that one of the brothers slipped and fell. He decided to leave the monastery for the world and began to ask his friend to release him from their vow.
His friend tried for a long time to persuade him—not to leave, but it was all in vain. Tempted by the devil, he departed. Then his friend said to himself:
“I will go as well. I shall not leave him on the path of destruction. Perhaps I might support him and save him.”
And so they lived and worked together in the city. The brother who was perishing in temptation worked during the day, and in the evenings gave himself over to debauchery and drunkenness.
Everywhere, his friend followed him. He did not go into the places where sin itself reigned, but waited outside, watching over his companion on the street—praying and weeping.
And so it continued for a long time.
They both worked on the construction of a monastery that was being built by St. Avraamy. When this saint learned that the two workers were former monks, he questioned the righteous brother and asked why he was there. He replied:
“I am guarding the soul of my brother.”
Avraamy, moved by the monk’s Christian love, said:
“Today thou hast gained the soul of thy brother.”
Avraamy declared that no man could stand against the power of such love.
And indeed, before long, the sinful brother surrendered to his friend’s love.
“You have conquered me,” he said, and returned with him to the monastery.
The story from the Prologue perfectly reveals the purpose and goal of friendship.
Friendship is a great gift from heaven.
“There is nothing holier than friendship,” says Cicero.
Friendship is a golden chain binding two souls, forged by the benevolent gods in order to make from two souls a single, great and rich one, says Plato.
And the moderns (even the pagans) agree with the ancients.
“There exists for us a kind of absolute good, and it speaks with a language so pure and so divine that in its presence the suspicious and worn-out language of (carnal) love falls silent,” writes Emerson.
And what of the poets? What hymns they raise in praise of friendship! But what is this thing, friendship, if such panegyrics are sung to it?
Certainly not what we so often and blasphemously call by the name of friendship.
Not that sometimes unwholesome companionship that led the prodigal son to feed on the husks of swine!
We often view friendship as a convenience; for us, it is an exchange of gifts, of little and great favors, of neighborly meals, tending during illness, and presence with tears at a funeral… We seek from friendship small, quick returns—at most, a chance to speak of our successes and failures and take a walk together.
No. That is not friendship. “I hate,” to repeat Emerson’s words, “the name of friendship vainly squandered, when it is applied to relationships entirely worthless and hollow. I would rather have the company of coalmen and laborers, strangers to me, than friendship that celebrates its union with outings, dinners at fine restaurants, and other such idle amusements.”
Friendship is not given merely for cheerful conversation—much less for drinking together.
It is given for shared prayer, shared struggle in life; it resounds alike in the bright days of joy and the overcast days of sorrow… for quiet, joyful conversation and for that rapture which yearns toward God.
Friendship is that bond of love which united the two monks in the Prologue.
For a Christian, friendship has two aims: first, growth in perfection through imitation—by drawing “light and strength” from one’s friend.
Friendship has no meaning if the friends do not become “richer” by it—not in gold, of course, but spiritually.
Every person has their own “soul,” with its own spiritual treasures, its own experience of the heart.
And every person can offer from their wealth a portion to another.
I once saw a bouquet made from hothouse and wild flowers—a combination that gave off a special fragrance: the simple flowers took on the subtle and intricate scent of the hothouse ones, and the hothouse flowers were as though breathed upon by the fresh, simple, physically strong and healthy scent of the fields.
This exchange of “scents” is the law of friendship.
The fiery “son of thunder,” John, from his friendship with the Lord, absorbed all the fragrance of “His love.”
David and Jonathan grew stronger and better through the bond of their friendship.
Friendship magnifies the meaning of our life. “By hearing,” say Smiles and Herbert, “the judgments of friends, we correct our own judgments and become as it were participants in their wisdom. With their eyes, we widen the scope of our own observations, benefit from their experience, and are instructed not only by the things that made up the happiness and joy of their lives but—what is even more instructive—by their sufferings. If they are stronger than us, we partake in their strength. That is why friendship with intelligent and energetic people cannot but have a significant influence on the formation of character. Such friendship increases our resources, strengthens our resolutions, elevates and ennobles our goals, and gives us the ability to act with greater skill and competence in both our personal and public affairs…”
That is why it is clear that friendship is only rightful when it is with someone from whom we hope to be enriched, to replenish our strength.
To take precisely that which we ourselves lack, and to give in return what we have to offer. On the other hand, friendship is a continual guarding of a friend’s soul. Exactly as described in the Prologue. I have always seen a symbol of true Christian friendship in the “lights of Great Thursday.”
Two Christians walk with their little flames. One’s flame goes out. The other hurries to relight it from his own little candle… so that it may keep burning… so that his friend may carry the holy light all the way home…
To walk side by side, and to watch over your friend’s “little candle,” to see whether there is “oil in his lamp,” to watch that his soul remains aflame—this is the essence of friendship.
Friendship is a companionship made for the sake of walking together toward salvation. It is a union of two people in which one guards the soul of the other, corrects the other’s sin, and gives help in the spiritually dangerous moments of life.
On a slippery path, it is better to walk arm in arm. Holding on to each other, even ten thousand blinded people could reach their homeland.
In Switzerland, hunters in the mountains—and travelers in general—tie themselves together with a rope, so that they do not fall, and so that if one does, the other might pull him out of the abyss. And a true friend, one who guards his neighbor, is a treasure.
Not long ago, a female student (in Ogolnukh, Kiev) took her own life. Why? Because, as she wrote, she had no friend; no one supported her in the dark hours of spiritual collapse.
But did she not have companions?
She did—but as she herself wrote, they turned out not to be friends, but only drinking companions. “Alas!” writes a preacher on this topic, “We often reduce our entire notion of friendship to drinking together, to working together not in the field of God, but around a bottle.”
God forbid this counterfeit of friendship, this great gift of God.
St. John Chrysostom gives a piece of advice in his homily against the spectacles.
A Christian is obliged to wait at the door for his friend, in order not to let him go to the spectacles on a feast day, but instead to lead him to church.
This “watching at the door,” this guarding of one’s friend from sin and temptation—that alone deserves the name of friendship.
Without it, friendship becomes mere revelry. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”—that is the answer of the fratricide Cain. And it is also the answer of the majority of Christians, who say: “Am I responsible for so-and-so? Am I obliged to be his guardian?”
“I am guarding the soul of my friend”—this is the reply of a Christian who sincerely considers himself responsible for the soul of every neighbor, if he has the strength to help it, to lead it away from sin.
But where can such friends be found—friends as they ought to be? Of course, they can and must be found among the living.
Seek, and you will find people who are what you need. And to approach them—if they are truly good people, capable of responding to a request for spiritual help—is not so difficult, and far better than the “drinking companions of Ogolnukh.”
But besides living friends, we may also have “dead” ones. These, first of all, are books. With a good book, one can form a living and lasting bond of friendship.
A good book can be a constant comforter and a constant teacher.
And such teachers books once were.
But that time is long past! In earlier days, a reader always had a single shelf—three or four books—but these were true “friends,” whom he “listened to” (read and reread) dozens of times, with whom he consulted as if they were living.
Today, that is no longer the case. Why? Because people are no longer faithful to books. Readers jump from one book to another, feel obligated to read whatever is “required” that day, and never have time, nor retain the ability, to enter into an intimate and sacred relationship of friendship with just one or two authors, with one or two books.
And we must learn to return to that friendship—with a good and honest book.
Besides books, there are other friends—the saints, and also the righteous people of the world who “laid down their lives for their friends,” like Dr. Haass, Damien de Veuster, and others.
And even more so, of course, the saints of the Church. The saints are always alive. St. Pachomius the Great instructed his disciples, after his death, to speak with him, because he is alive in God, will hear them, and will help them.
And certainly, among these living ones, they are the most trustworthy and richest of friends.
“There are dead men,” writes Peyo, “of whom it can be said that they bring more life than the living; and in the absence of living and active models, we may draw moral strength, a burning enthusiasm for truth, from contemplating the pure lives of these dead.”
These are the saints.
Holy souls are for us ever-bright stars, shining upon us and illuminating all the dangers we recklessly brush up against—dangers which we often seek out as though they were the highest earthly joys and pleasures. That which lives in their souls is reflected to us in their words. And on the face of a saint, in every word and thought, there is a special, grace-filled expression. Their souls, amid the noise of the world, are like wondrous cells, lit by love, filled with prayer, mystery, and holiness—and they shine for us. To use the words of St. Ephraim the Syrian (Rus’, 2nd ed., p. 157), they are “stars that shine upon the earth.”
This is the “illuminated” type, writes V.V. Rozanov—a type that heals, that brings wholeness to humanity. From them flows spiritual, and even physical, blessing.
And friendship with the saints—constant communion with them through reading of their deeds and prayerful interaction with them—inevitably imparts to us, even if only in part, some share in their holiness.
“Is it not presumption,” asks Menshikov, “to think that we can become holy from a saint?” “No,” he answers, “I do not think it is presumption. Otherwise, what would be the meaning of righteousness and veneration, if even for a moment, even for an instant, you did not become holy by contact with the spiritual image of a saint?” Here, the common law of friendship must be at work. In a moment of rapture and reverence, we become purer, more fervent, more compassionate. Repeat these rare moments of communion with the saints more often, and you will draw near the very border of holiness.
The friends of God are our best friends.