St. Eskil of Tuna

from Fr Andreas of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church (Ashland, Oregon)

Today, June 11, the Church celebrates the memory of St. Eskil of Tuna, the Apostle of Södermanland.  Eskil was one of the many missionaries who came to Sweden and Scandinavia from England in the mid 1000′s. He was a monk and was ordained a bishop in order to establish churches with full hierarchical authority – we must bear in mind that this was long before the age of trains and aircrafts, and it was not as easy to “fly in” a bishop when the need arose. It was quite common for missionaries to be ordained bishops in order to fulfill their sacred mission.

We have very few sources regarding St. Eskil’s life, but the bishop Brynolf Alogotsson († 1317) had a life written. In this narrative we learn that Bishop Eskil were of English ancestry, and that he mainly worked in Södermanland, Sweden, under Inge the Elder’s reign. King Inge was baptized a Christian through St. Eskil’s mission, but was driven out by his pagan subjects when he refused maintain riksblotet (the pagan sacrifices of the land) at the council in Old Uppsala. Instead, the Swedes made Blot-Sven their new king. The epithet Blot (“blood sacrifice”) was given to the king precisely because he agreed to uphold the old pagan sacrificial traditions.

When Blot-Sven organized a major pagan sacrifice in Strängnäs to honor the Aesir gods, St. Eskil traveled there to preach repentance to the assembled pagans. While the saint preached the pagans were enraged and stoned him. Thus St. Eskil became a martyr for his Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. The body of the holy martyr was buried in Tuna (today’s Eskilstuna) by his friends. King Inge eventually returned, and dethroned Blot-Sven. Through these events, Christianity gained a permanent foothold in the region.

St. Eskil’s repose was celebrated on June 11. Since this day was dedicated to the Apostles Barnabas and Bartholomew, the commemoration of Hieromartyr Eskils was moved to June 12. This day still remembered as “Eskilsdagen” (Eskil’s Day) in Sweden. The translation of his relics in Eskilstuna is remembered on October 6th.

Hat tip: Dn. Mikael Fälthammar

the repentant’s lamentation…

It is characteristic of the poor to beg, and it is characteristic of man, impoverished by the Fall, to pray.  Prayer is a fallen and repentant man’s appeal to God.  Prayer is a fallen and repentant man’s lamentation before God.  Prayer is the pouring forth before God of the heartfelt desires, petitions, and sighs of a man fallen and broken by sin.  ~St Ignatius Brianchaninov

On Prayer, Part One, in “The Orthodox Word,” Vol. 48, No 6 (287),November-December 2012, pp. 261-262, Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA

hat tip: Daily ~ Dynamis

The whole Triumphant Church was present…

The Proskomedia – artist unknown

hat tip: Pantanassa Monastery

There was once a priest who did not want to serve the liturgy because it was a cold winter day.

The temperature was 10 degrees below zero and the priest knew that the only person who was likely to come to the service was the chanter. The priest had no idea about the Church’s teaching on the presence of the Triumphant Church and how the Divine Liturgy benefits the living and the departed. With difficulty he forced himself to go to church. On the way to church he kept wishing that the chanter would not come so that he would not have to serve and go home. However, the chanter did come.

The priest did the Prothesis (or Proskomedia, the service of preparing the holy gifts) in a hurry and began the Divine Liturgy. Shortly after, some bishops, priests, monks and nuns and some lay people arrived. Most of them sat in the choir section and began to chant so beautifully that the priest forgot about how cold and lonely he was earlier. His whole body was warm and his whole being was all a flame…. When he did the small entrance he noticed that the church was full of people – most of them familiar – he did not pay much attention and just continued with the Divine Liturgy.

When the time came for the Sanctification of the Holy Gifts he saw three bishops, brightly clothed and radiant entering the Holy Altar. They knelt with him and prayed. The priest then stood up very carefully with fear, took the censer and in a loud voice said, ‘Especially our All Holy, Immaculate, Most Blessed and glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary…’. The soul of the priest was amazed and filled with divine joy. Peace and heavenly stillness, hesychia, dominated his inner self. When the time came for the elevation and dividing of the Host (Lamb) the whole church filled with the sweetest melodies. The whole multitude of people who were present along with the monks, priests and bishops chanted not only once but many times, ‘One is Holy, One is Lord: Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen’. Next they chanted the Holy Communion hymn, ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good, Alleluia.’

The priest was wondering what to do. Should he partake of the Holy Communion first or step aside for the three bishops who were present. Just as he was thinking this, one of the bishops nodded to him indicating that he should receive Holy Communion and then to Unify and Place the remaining of the portions of the Lamb into the Chalice along with the portions in memory of the Holy Theotokos and the Saints. Having completed this the priest then opened the Beautiful Gate … and saw no one in the Church… he turned and looked back into the holy altar, he looked to the right, looked to the left, the bishops had disappeared, he stood there speechless, amazed. He slowly opened his mouth and chanted the next petition, ‘With the fear of God in faith and love, draw near …,’ and the chanter slowly drew near to take Holy Communion. The priest was still amazed, still wondering! The whole Triumphant Church was present. All those present in the church were persons familiar to him, they were persons that had departed from this life and he would from time to time commemorate their names during each liturgy: ‘that’s why they were present, that’s why they all seemed so familiar’, he thought. As for the bishops in the altar they were the Three Hierarchs: Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory the Theologian.

So many years of study at university, so much research and so many sleepless nights he spent studying and these efforts were not able to give him not even one drop of the sweetness and divine knowledge that this one Divine Liturgy gave him.

Experiences During the Divine Liturgy p451-453

there is but one single entry…

Be at peace with your own soul
then heaven & earth will be at peace with you.

Enter eagerly into the treasure
house that is within you,

And you will see the things that are in heaven,
for there is but one single entry to them both.

The ladder that leads to the Kingdom
is hidden within your soul…

Dive into yourself and in your soul
and you will discover the stairs
by which to ascend.

by St Isaiah the Solitary

St Isaiah the Solitary lived in asceticism at Scetis in Egypt and then in Palestine, dying in Gaza in about 491. He is mentioned in Sts Barsanuphius and John’s book as a man of outstanding holiness (Answers: 240, 252, 311 etc.). He wrote much on the rebuttal of demonic provocations and on the need to be attentive to the conscience but few of his writings still exist, the majority having been destroyed. The Church commemorates the feast of St Isaiah the Solitary on July 3.

 

 

inward is the beginning of the outward…

Dmitri Petrov’s Prayer of an Expectant Mother (2005)

Take no greater care than to correct your will and inward disposition.  In this consists all the power of Christian  piety.  All outwardness without inwardness is nothing.  Whatever is not inside the heart does not exist in actual fact.  Virtue is not true virtue when it is not within the heart.  Therefore correct your heart and your will, and you shall be good and your outward deeds will be good, for the inward is the beginning of the outward.

Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, “Inward Search” (Chapter 3), Journey to Heaven,  George D. Lardas (tr), Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NY, 1991, p. 59.

hat tip: Daily Dynamis ~Church Fathers Wisdom

Our Savior Jesus, the Element of life…

Our Savior Jesus, the Element of life, came to the Spring of Jacob, the head of the patriarchs, and was about to drink water at the hand of a Samaritan woman.  But she intercepted Him by telling Him that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.  Albeit, the wise Creator turned her by the sweetness of His words rather to seek of Him the water of everlasting life, which, when she received, she proclaimed to all, saying, Come and see the Knower of secrets, God Who hath appeared in the flesh to save mankind.

~Glory on the Praises at the Orthros of the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

hat tip: Daiily Dynamis ~Church Fathers Wisdom

one method of curing the soul…

Holy Angel of Hesychia

One of the fundamental methods of curing the soul is stillness in the full sense of the word.  I believe that we have already made this clear.  Contemporary man is seeking healing for his life, especially for his inner condition, precisely because he is over-strained.  Therefore one of the messages which Orthodoxy can offer to the contemporary weary, discouraged and floundering world is the message of silence.  I think that the Orthodox tradition has a great deal to offer in this area.

~Hierotheos Vlachos: Hesychia as a Method of Healing, ”Orthodox Psychotherapy”

obstacle on the path…

Healing the Blind Man- artist unknown

A major obstacle on the path to the Gospel is the excessive preoccupation with oneself, one’s own person. There is nothing more spiritually deadly than to make oneself, be it consciously or subconsciously, the focal point of life. When man makes himself the center of his life, his own idol, he will never reach what he is searching for, i.e. real happiness. He will always be devoured by dissatisfaction and distress. Shower him with millions, give him the opportunity for unlimited entertainment and pleasures, world fame and glory, and after a short period of delight he will feel emptiness and loneliness. And he will feel that way until he can renounce himself. Without that, no matter what kind of elevated goals he sets, he will be doomed to ephemeral and illusory moments of joy, which will invariably be substituted by prolonged disappointment and boredom.

In order to be truly happy, one must consider a life goal outside oneself. The more significant and important the subject, which we consider the goal of our life, the more we dedicate ourselves to it, the more we forget ourselves because of it, and the more joyful and happy we become. Happy is the man, who unselfishly dedicates himself to his favorite activity, be it physical or intellectual. The greatest happiness, the fullness of happiness, according to the Christian teaching, is in unselfish, complete love towards God and man—not to abstract mankind, but to the neighbor who is near us— with all his infirmities and drawbacks. The life of Jesus Christ and His teaching, in particular—His Sermon on the Mount and the farewell conversation with His disciples, His sufferings and death are an example of carrying out the law of love.

And the entire salvation of our soul consists in denying oneself and, taking up one’s own cross, i.e. the burden of one’s own life, and following Christ. Only then will the heavy stone of inner dissatisfaction fall from our soul, and the soul will feel warm and light. A loving person will never get tired of living by loving. And no matter how much time his love will last, it will always seem to him that this love is just beginning. There is no danger for a Christian that his ideal will one day be fully realized or depleted, because the Christian ideal is not in outer achievements, but in inner development, which has no end.
That is why everything that was said in this section can be summarized like this: to approach the Gospel correctly, one has to be freed from the habit of considering oneself to be the focal point and goal of life, one has to humble oneself and bow down before God, Who is the Highest and Only focal point and goal of life of everything that exists.

~Archpriest Sergius Chetverikov: “Obstacles”

“If you want perfect love…

“If you want perfect love, go sell all your belongings, give them as charity and go where you find a master and sell yourself as a slave. Can you do this and be perfect? Seems heavy…”
“You cannot do this? Do something else. Don’t sell yourself as slave. Just sell your
belongings. Give them all as charity. Can you do it? Still it looks heavy…”
“Let’s go further on. You cannot give all your belongings. Give half. Give one of the three.
Give one of five. Even this looks heavy.”
“Do something else. Give one out of ten. Can you do it? It still looks heavy.”
“Do something else. Don’t give charity. Don’t sell yourself as slave. Let’s move further on;
don’t take your brother’s coat, don’t take his bread. Don’t persecute him; don’t eat him with your tongue. Can you not do this either?”
“Let us go even further: You found your brother in the mud and do not want to get him out. OK, you don’t want to do him good. DON’T HARM HIM. Leave him there.”
“How do we want to be saved, brothers, if one looks heavy and the other looks heavy. Where shall we go further down? We have no place even to descend. God is merciful. Yes, but he is also fair. And he has an iron rod.”

St. Cosmas of Aetolia

Patience is necessary…

Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Patience is necessary, like salt in food. For there is no other road for us to gain, get rich and reign. This is the road that our Christ traced out.  And all we who love Him ought to follow Him for the sake of His love.  Even though the wormwood is bitter to us, it nevertheless cleanses the blood and makes our body healthy. Without temptations, pure souls are not known, virtue does not show, patience is not discernible. Without temptations, it is impossible for the soul to become healthy. They are the cleansing fire which makes the soul pure and bright.

~Elder Joseph the Hesychast, “Letter Thirty-Eight,” Monastic Wisdom

Hat tip: Daily Dynamis ~ Church Fathers Wisdom