A homily on Peace - Ομιλία για την Ειρήνη

 

Pan-Orthodox Vespers 2023

 

Στον πρόσφατο Πανορθόδοξο Εσπερινό, στην ρουμανική εκκλησία του Bristol, ο παρών ιστολόγος έδωσε την παρακάτω ομιλία, στην αγγλική γλώσσα:
 

Romanian Orthodox Church Bristol

 

1^st Sunday in Great Lent, Bristol, 5^th March 2023

 
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
Reverend Fathers, My dearest Brethren,
 
It is such an important and even more of a sacred opportunity for all of us to gather this evening together and pray in a united Pan-Orthodox Service, where we enjoy the richness of our Holy Orthodox Tradition and we are blessed with the fellowship of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ.
 
For me personally it signifies a great privilege to have been invited to address you at this special occasion, at the beginning of Great Lent, a period of repentance and intensive prayer, having especially in mind that many of our fellow Orthodox Christians, instead of praying together this evening, they are fighting each other, with such a hatred and rivalry.
 

I wish that there was an ordinary and regular kind of way of life, where everything was normal and quiet, and our only concern was how to deal with our spiritual advancement during this sacred Lenten period. In that case, I would have spoken to you tonight about the fasting rule of the Lent, or about the importance of Saturdays and Sundays during Lent, or about the distinctive Liturgical Services of the current period, or even about the women of Lent -a really interesting subject.
 
But, in the present climate I regard such themes to be really a luxury. With the whole past year spent in a distractive war of one Orthodox nation -namely the Russian- attacking another -the Ukrainian-, which is regrettably still on, I thing we need to look into this with our eyes open and try to understand what is actually happening and why this unacceptable state of affairs is still continuing.
 
At the beginning of almost each one of our Orthodox Services we chant what we call The Litany of Peace or Great Litany. The words are quite powerful and put our minds and hearts in the correct place right at the start of our prayer.
 
The Deacon or (in his absence) the Priest chants:
 
In peace, let us pray to the Lord.
 
For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.
 
For the peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.
 
The people respond with “Lord, have mercy”, after each petition.
 

This prayer shows clearly that the Holy Fathers of our Church have given much emphasis and underlined the importance of peace, which they regard as the basis of our prayer endeavours. Without peace we cannot progress in our spiritual life and above all we cannot pray in a way that will be beneficial to us, as well as to those that we share our prayer with.
 
St. Nicholas Kavasilas, commenting on this Litany of Peace, states evidently that:
 
“In this instance the term peace has some kind of a catholic meaning; because the peace is the fruit of all virtues and of all spiritual wisdom. It is not possible for a man to gain perfect peace, if he lacks even a single virtue; but it is necessary that he who would like to possess peace to get to it through all of the other virtues. Peace is a gift of God. Talking about this peace we do not only refer to the peace among us, but also to our inner peace. The benefit that we gain from peace is great, as it is needed in everything. For the troubled mind is quite impossible to come into relationship with God... We are also called to pray for others with kindness. This is why the Priest says: “For the peace of the whole world”. This happens basically because the Christians know that their God is God for all and that as Creator He cares about all”.
 
Unfortunately, for the last year, although we curried on praying with the above verses, we have experienced a terrible war, happening between two Orthodox nations. This hostility and the bitterness that it brings into the lives of our fellow Orthodox brethren that are suffering because of this aggression it is like a sword that pierces the soul of our Church and of every individual member, especially in the areas that the warfare continues without any hope of an immediate end.
 

St. Ignatius of Antioch, teaches us that we should:
 
“Take heed often to come together to give thanks to God and show forth His praise. For when you assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.”
 
And I repeat:
 
“Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.”
 
One may say that we are probably not qualified ourselves to analyse and explain in a more detailed, in a geopolitical, in an historical, or in a military strategic way the current conflict, between the two spiritually and culturally brother nations; but we are certainly allowed and even obliged to pray for them, to call for a PanOrthodox chain of prayer and even to call them, the two nations, to stop immediately all fighting and to try and solve their differences, by means of prayer and of certain spiritual ways, like fasting, like being charitable to each other and by keeping for a while the spiritually productive measure of ascetic silence. 
 

If and when silence prevails there will be inner peace and thus they will allow the Spirit of God to speak to them, to enlighten them and to guide them, in a way that their only way forward with be the Sunrise, the fair Sunrise, the Sunrise which is the essence and a quality of our Risen Lord, the Sun of Righteousness.
 
Thus, their peace will be based on the fixed and immovable cornerstone, which is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
 
St. Anatoly of Optina, has clearly stated that:
 
“Wherever God is - there is peace. And the opposite is self-evident: where there is envy, enmity, impatience, self-love - there is the devil. Wherever the devil is - there, everything is ruinous, proud and hostile.”
 
I really think that this quote explains perfectly and in just a few words what is the important elements that we should take care about in this present moment. But we should first of all pause, be silent and listen… listen to the Spirit of God, listen to our own conscience and act accordingly.
 
Let us also remind ourselves of the Beatitudes, which are sayings of Jesus and in actual fact constitute part of the Sermon on the Mount, as it is found in the Gospel of St. Matthew. These are actually eight blessings and the seventh of them is dedicated to peace. It reads:
 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Mt 5, 9).
 
«The blessed peacemaker is the one who bears witness to Christ and takes up his cross and loses his life for the Lord without fear or anxiety. He is the one who enters every human conflict until the end of time, fortified by the peace of God. He is the one who does not deny the Lord or compromise His truth by the exercise of violence, but bears witness by his own peace in the midst of conflict, the peace which is “not as the world gives” (Jn 14.27). Thus, the peacemaker does not provoke others to irritation or violence, except by the truth and love of his life, and leaves all vengeance to the Lord. He is the one who follows Jesus in overcoming evil only by good» (https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/the-beatitudes/peacemakers).
 
Our Lord Jesus Christ is named by Prophet Isaiah as the “prince of peace”, (Is 9, 6), who offers generously the peace of God to those who believe in Him.
 
In the Gospel of His beloved disciple, the Word of God declares:
 
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14, 27).
 
Reverend Fathers, Dear Brothers and Sisters,
 
Let us make peace a priority theme in our Lenten prayer this year and let us pray to our Holy God to grand to us His sacred peace, pacify the spirits and calm the hearts of all our brethren who are at this time under the influence of the demonic forces of violence and war.
 

I would like to finish my humble words by quoting His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania, one of my eminent Professors at the University of Athens, who has eloquently and movingly declared that:
 
"Ultimately I am convinced that the opposite of peace is not war but self-centeredness - the individual, the collective, the national, the tribal."
 
And the Archbishop continues:
 
"Egocentrism enlists the various forms of violence, which kill peaceful coexistence in various ways. This is the instigator and fueler of major or minor conflicts and it ceaselessly renews hatred".
 
Then he concludes by boldly stating that:
 
"The antidote to self-centeredness is not general advice, nor the various laws and state mechanisms of repression, but the strengthening of love, which is not limited by borders, prejudices or other discriminations and in this matter a healthy religious conscience is called upon to contribute".
 
My Brethren,
 
“May the peace of God which transcends all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
 
Amen.