We
say that because real Christianity, the Apostolic Christianity proclaimed for
2,000 years by the Orthodox Church, is thoroughly ascetic. And asceticism is despised by the vast
majority of folks in the States (even by those who declare themselves to be the
standard-bearers of ‘muscular Christianity’ like Mr Bryan Fischer). Fr Alexey Young once wrote concerning the
ascetic dimension of Orthodoxy,
Several of the 20th-century teachers of
the Church – men like St. John of Shanghai, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky,
Fr. Seraphim Rose, and others – have explained to us more than once and in
several ways that Orthodoxy is, above all, an “ascetic” Faith. What does this
mean? . . .
Our word “ascetic” comes from the same
root as the word “athlete,” and this is not a coincidence, for the ascetic and
the athlete have some common characteristics.
The athlete works out, trains hard, and
exercises in order to develop the muscles of his body so that he can compete in
various kinds of sports or special events. He works very hard. He may go to an
exercise gym every day and work for several hours. He follows a special diet
and in every possible way takes good care of himself.
The ascetic is an athlete, too – an
athlete of the spirit rather than of the body. The ascetic also exercises;
however, he exercises not his biceps or other physical muscles, but the various
dimensions and faculties of his soul. He “works out,” spiritually, through
prayer and fasting, through standing at vigil, and by preparing properly to
receive the sacraments. He, too, must compete, but not in a sports arena with a
javelin or in some other event; no, the ascetic competes in the wide arena of
this world, and his adversary, his opponent, the Devil, is quite real – as Holy
Scripture teaches us. The athlete runs a race, but we, too, as Saint Paul tells
us, run a race, a race to obtain the crown of immortal life with Christ in
heaven. But to run this race, we must be athletes of the spirit.
It is this ascetic dimension of
Orthodoxy that makes Orthodox Christianity different from every other Christian
religion on the face of the earth. But from what I’ve said thus far,
“asceticism” is still just an abstract concept. What does it mean in practice?
Again I turn to Saint Innocent of
Alaska. While he was working with the Aleut and Klingit Indian tribes of the Alaskan
peninsula, he was very anxious to properly communicate to them this “essence”
of Orthodoxy. So he wrote a little booklet that has become a kind of classic
and is widely read and studied today by people like us who are otherwise very
far removed from the native Americans of the Northwest. The little book is
called The Indication of the Way to the Kingdom of Heaven. In this
important little book Saint Innocent talks about asceticism in the same way
that our Lord Himself does: he compares it to the carrying of a cross. Our Lord
said: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and
whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:24-25), and: “Whosoever
doth not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple” (Luke
14:27).
Now in life there are two kinds of
crosses, Saint Innocent explained. The first kind of cross consists of those
daily annoyances, temptations, and difficulties that come to everyone just
because we are human beings. Ill health, financial setbacks, misunderstandings
with others, various kinds of afflictions – all of these are crosses, but they
are what Saint Innocent calls “involuntary crosses.” That is, they come to us
according to God’s will, whether we want them or not. If we bear these crosses
without complaining, without murmuring, then they become ascetic labors that
are for our salvation; but if we complain and murmur, then they are for our
condemnation. It is extremely important to understand this.
The second kind of cross, according to
Saint Innocent, is what he calls “voluntary crosses” – that is, those special
ascetic exploits or labors that we voluntarily take upon ourselves, such as
strictly keeping the fast days and seasons of the Church year, standing for
long hours at vigil services, and other kinds of asceticism or crosses that we
may, with the blessing of our spiritual father, take upon ourselves.
These are some of the ascetic aspects
of our Holy Faith which are signs of true and authentic Orthodoxy, ancient
Orthodoxy, the Orthodoxy of the saints.
One
ensample of this asceticism, and the seriousness with which it was taken, from
Church history comes from England when she was an Orthodox kingdom:
Note
2. This festival has been
celebrated in the church with great solemnity ever since the sixth century. It
was enacted in the ecclesiastical laws of King Ethelred in England, in the year
1014, “That every Christian who is of age, fast three days on bread and water,
and raw herbs, before the feast of St. Michael [the Archangel], and let every
man go to confession and to church barefoot.—Let every priest with his people
go in procession three days barefoot, and let every one’s commons for three
days be prepared without anything of flesh, as if they themselves were to eat
it, both in meat and drink, and let all this be distributed to the poor. Let
every servant be excused from labour these three days, that he may the better
perform his fast, or let him work what he will for himself. These are the three
days, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, next before the feast of St. Michael. If
any servant break his fast, let him make satisfaction with his hide, (bodily
stripes,) let the poor freeman pay thirty pence, the king’s thane a hundred and
thirty shillings; and let the money be divided to the poor.” See Sir Henry
Spelman’s Councils, vol. i. p. 530, and Johnson’s Collection of the Canons of the
Church of England, t. 1, an. 1014. Michaelmas-day is mentioned among the great
feasts in the Saxon Chronicle on the year 1011; in the Saxon Menology of the
ninth century, published by Mr. Wanley (in Lingue. Aquilon. Thes. l. 2, p.
107,) and in the English Calendar published by Dr. Hicks. (in his Saxon
Grammar, p. 102, &c.)
--Rev Alban Butler, https://www.bartleby.com/210/9/291.html
Standing
during long services? Entire fasting
seasons? Difficult processions? Spiritual fathers with authority over our
lives? Few in ‘Christian America’ would
put up with any of that. Most simply
want an exhilarating emotional experience from their ‘churches’ with as little
effort on their part as possible, together with all the comfort, ‘fun’, exotic
food, and self-direction they can muster.
Ever
since post-Protestantism arose in its fulness at the Great Awakening, very few
in the colonies/States have been willing to submit voluntarily to ongoing,
rigorous asceticism. However, there is
one exception: Southerners during Mr
Lincoln’s War carried a very heavy ‘voluntary cross’ to defend their homeland
and their old inherited traditions from the atheistic radicalism (dressed up as
Christianity) of the Northern invaders.
The Rev John Girardeau of South Carolina describes just one incident
about his brigade’s march away from Vicksburg, Miss., that bewords the
suffering much of the South experienced in one form or another for five years:
The hardships of this
march were almost unbearable. The road
was ground into a fine dust several inches deep; there was no water to be had
except from cow ponds, which were stagnant and pregnant with the seeds of
pestilence and death. All this, under a
July sun, contributed to the hardships.
--The Life Work of John
Girardeau, D.D., LL.D., George Blackburn, edr., The State Company, 1916,
pgs. 115-6
But
now most Southerners also have capitulated to Yankee materialism. On them, too, therefore, the full weight of
Rev Robert Lewis Dabney’s prophetic-like condemnation of Babylon America falls:
God gave the people of
this land great and magnificent blessings, and opportunities and responsibilities.
They might and should have made it the glory of all lands. But they have
betrayed their trust: they have abused every gift: above all have they insulted
him by flaunting in his face an impudent, atheistic, God-defying theory of
pretended human rights and human perfectibility which attempts to deny man’s
subordination, his dependence, his fall and native depravity, his need of
divine grace. It invites mankind to adopt material civilization and sensual
advantage as their divinity. It assumes to be able to perfect man’s condition
by its political, literary, and mechanical skill, despising that Gospel of
Christ which is man’s only adequate remedy. It crowns its impiety by laying its
defiling hands upon the very forms of that Christianity, while with the mock
affection of a Judas it attempts to make it a captive to the sordid ends of
Mammon and sense. Must not God be avenged on such a nation as this? His
vengeance will be to give them the fruit of their own hands, and let them be
filled with their own devices. He will set apart this fair land by a sort of
dread consecration to the purpose of giving a lesson concerning this godless
philosophy, so impressive as to instruct and warn all future generations. As
the dull and pestilential waves of the Dead Sea have been to every subsequent
age the memento of the sin of Sodom, so the dreary tides of anarchy and
barbarism which will overwhelm the boastful devices of infidel democracy will
be the caution of all future legislators. And thus “women’s rights” will assist
America “to fulfil her great mission,” that of being the “scarecrow” of the
nations.
--‘Women’s Rights Women’, The
Southern Magazine, 1871 (thanks to Mr Boyd Cathey for the quote; Mr Cathey
does some writing here: http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/)
Notwithstanding
this gloomy vision, all is not lost.
Orthodox churches and monasteries are now in many places across the
South and the other States. Within them
is salvation - havens for the storm-tossed, hospitals for those in need of
healing of soul and body.
Your
Momma, the Orthodox Church, is calling you home, Southron. Hurry on back to her so she can nurse you and
make you well.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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