Patient Endurance is The Fruit of Virtue, and it is Nourished By Prayer
A Conversation with Metropolitan Athanasios of Limasol about his book, The Church's Open Heart
In the book, The Church's Open Heart, (Sretensky Monastery Press, [in Russian] 2014) the memoirs of Metropolitan Athanasios about elders—contemporary ascetics with whom he studied in a spiritual school—are collected, as well as the sermons and teachings of Vladyka, who is well-known not only to the Orthodox world, but also beyond it. Thus, what examples do elders give by their life to us Christians who live in a very complicated world today? And what can and must we contrast with the troubles that come crashing down on us like an avalanche? Our correspondent from Pravoslavie.ru talks about these questions and more in an interview with the archpastor of Limasol while he was in Moscow.
"Pray Always"
We laypeople like stories about miracles very much, and about grace-filled gifts, but we forget somewhat about the price we have to pay for these things. Your book opens with a conversation about the holy elder Joseph the Hesychast. Tell us a little bit about the labors that he and his community performed, and about what lesson we laypeople can derive from this—without, of course, dreaming of duplicating it all.
Elder Joseph the Hesychast lived on Mt. Athos, though I did not manage to meet him while he was alive, as he reposed in 1959. But I did get to meet all his disciples.
My starets—Elder Joseph from Vatopedi Monastery—was a disciple, the first disciple of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, and so my monastic life began under the influence of his spiritual school.
Elder Joseph was one of the most outstanding spiritual figures on Mt. Athos in the twentieth century. He was a great ascetic, but also a notable hesychast.1 His life was full of miracles and the activity of God and the Most Holy Mother of God. In spite of the fact that he was a hermit—that is, he did not go out anywhere—four of his disciples subsequently became the spiritual fathers of hundreds of monks.
Right now there are approximately a thousand of us—monks who came from Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Out of the twenty monasteries on Mt. Athos, six of them were revived by spiritual children of Elder Joseph. We consider that his prayers and his presence greatly influenced our monastic life.
We inherited three important things from Elder Joseph the Hesychast and his disciples: the first consists in the value of obedience—to the Church and to one's elder. The second, in taking part in the Divine Liturgy, in the Eucharist, that is, in regular Communion. And the third is the practice of mental prayer.
Our whole monastic life was and is dedicated to these three important things. Elder Joseph the Hesychast was occupied in unceasing mental prayer for six hours every evening.
He would spend eight hours at night serving the all-night vigil. Six hours were dedicated to mental prayer and spiritual reading, and two hours to the Divine Liturgy, which was celebrated daily. This all began at sunset. On Athos, if eight hours pass after sunset, it is already sunrise—especially in the summer.
And after sunrise the fathers would rest a little, then, after a small breakfast—a cup of coffee or some kind of dried bread—they would work very hard in order to survive. In the afternoon they would have dinner, and after that they would lie down to sleep. An hour before sunset they would get up and once again perform Vespers by prayer-rope, have a cup of tea or eat some kind of fruit, and after sunset the all-night vigil would begin, which would last eight hours.
His disciples lived by such a rule, and for some time we also lived like that.
Today it is a great blessing that Elder Joseph's teaching has spread over the whole Orthodox world. But even Western Christians and people of other religions are interested in the elder and translate his few works into their own languages.
Today laypeople are so busy that in the morning when they get into the car they turn on tapes of the morning rule, and glory to God, that they manage to do even this. What should laypeople do—contemporary people who are busy at their work but who should nevertheless pray and come to church?
Prayer is the unceasing remembrance of God. God’s presence ought to be unceasing in our life. If we learn to say the Jesus Prayer, this little prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” if we fill all our time with addressing God, if we do the Jesus Prayer at all times—when we are taking a shower, eating, or when we are in the car (instead of listening to the radio), or when we’re in the subway, on a bus, or in church, that will be more than enough. The remembrance of God must accompany all the things that we do in our life.
In your book, when you are telling the story about Elder Porphyrios, you cite this episode: A woman called him on the telephone, after he had already died on Mt. Athos. He answered her: “Don’t call me any more—I’m dead.” What did he do that for, when she could find this out by ordinary means?
(Laughs) Yes, when she asked, “May I call you again, Elder?” he answered her, “You don’t need to call me any more—I’m dead”(Laughs). And the same thing happened to a nun on Cyprus. She heard about this occurrence, and, as she had very close ties with Elder Porphyrios, she started to get curious, and she decided to call him on the phone, wondering if he would answer her or not. He answered her, “Dear, what are you doing—experiments here?” and hung up the phone. (...)
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/76192.htm
