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On Why the World Has Not Ended

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 By 2 Comments

2 Pet. 3:11-12 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

St. Nikolai Velimirovich 1880-1956

The Church’s craving for comfort is indeed her craving for death. Like a noble knight who descends into prison to liberate the enchained slaves, to whom the prison is painful and liberation still more painful, so is the Church’s position in this world. But how regrettable should it be if the noble knight accommodated himself in the prison among the slaves and forgot the light from which he descended and to which he ought to return! “He is one ourselves,” the slaves will say. So might today all the worldly institutions about the Christian Church in this valley of slavery: “She is one of ourselves.” She is destined to quicken the world end, and she is postponing it. One millennium past, another is nearby, yet the Church does not think of the world end: she loves this world; that is her curse. The world still exists because of the Church’s hesitation and fear. Were she not hesitating and fearing she had been dramatically struggling and suffering, and a new heaven and a new earth should be in sight. Why has the Church stopped being a drama? Why is she hesitating and fearing? Doubts and comfort have weakened the Church. The most tragical religion has climbed from Golgotha to Olympus and is now lying there comfortably, in the sunshine and forgetfulness, while Chronos, appeased, continues to measure time by thousands of years, as before. (The Works of Rev. Nikolai Velimirovich Chap. 2: The Drama of the Church)

Filed Under: All, Eschatology, Holy Fathers, St. Nikolaj Velimirović 1880-1956, The Church

On Holy Wisdom

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

St. Nikolai Velimirovich 1880-1956

The most magnificent sanctuary of the Eastern Churches is called St. Sophia (Holy Wisdom), whereas the most magnificent sanctuaries in the Western Churches are called St. Peter’s,St. Paul’s, orSt. John’s, etc. As every hair on our aged head and every line on the palm of our hand has a certain significance, so these dedications of the Church have doubtless certain significance. And this significance is typical of the religion of the East and the West. Western Christianity, grown upon the soil of a youthful individualism, preferred this or that apostle’s personality and dedicated their best temples to him. The aged East, tired of individualistic ambitions, tired of great men, flagellated the phantom of human greatness, was thirsty for something higher and more solid than any human personality. Adoration of great personalities being the very wisdom of this world, the East stretched its hands to a superhuman ideal, to the Holy Wisdom. It is a psychological fact that youth sees his ideal in personal greatness, progressed age in holiness. The East asked for something more eternal than Peter, Paul or John. There is wisdom, and there is holy wisdom. Philosophical or personal wisdom existed from the beginning of mankind, but Holy Wisdom entered the world with Jesus Christ. Christ was the embodiment of God’s wisdom, the very incarnation of Holy Wisdom. This wisdom stands above all human wisdom and revives and illuminates it. Holy Wisdom includes the essential wisdom of Peter, Paul, John, and any other Apostle or seer, or any other thing or creature, as the ocean includes the water of many rivers. In the darkest times of dissension, uncertainty or suffering, the Christian East did not so rely so much upon the great apostles, either Peter, or Paul, or John, but looked beyond time and space to the eternal Christ, the Logos of God, and asked for Light. And it looked to Eternity through this church inConstantinople, St. Sophia, as the all-embracing and all-reconciling, holy symbol. Whenever Peter, or Paul, or john, or any other apostle, or prophet, became the ground upon which believers quarreled, it was in the Holy Wisdom that they sought refuge and healing from their intellectual one-sidedness and ill-will.

Yet if Holy Wisdom has only in the East a magnificent symbol, Holy Wisdom is the very foundation, substance and aim of the Western Churchas well as the Eastern, yea of the one, holy Catholic Church. For Christianity had been destined neither for the East alone nor for the West alone, but for the whole globe. And what means the so-much abused word “Catholic” if not inclusiveness? Even such is, too, the meaning of the Divine wisdom as revealed in Christianity from the beginning. (The Works of Rev. Nicholai Velimirovic, Chapter 1: The Wisdom of the Church Sophia)

Filed Under: All, Holy Fathers, St. Nikolaj Velimirović 1880-1956, The Church

The Eucharistic Prophecy

Sunday, March 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

St. Nikolai Velimirovich 1880-1956

The Eucharist does not mean a memory only but also a prophecy. The prophecy of it is, that the whole earth will become Christ’s body, Christ’s flesh and blood, so that whatever we eat or drink we eat and drink Him. (The Works of Rev. Nicholai Velimirovic: Introductory Thoughts)

Filed Under: All, Eucharist, Holy Fathers, Sacrament, St. Nikolaj Velimirović 1880-1956

On the Power of Repentance to Save a Soul

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 By 2 Comments

St. Nikolai Velimirovich 1880-1956

Can a sinner, in the space of ten days, make full repentance of his sin? By the immeasurable grace of God, he can. In the time of the Emperor Maurice, there was a well-known bandit in the region around Constantinople. Both in the countryside and in the capital itself, he inspired fear and trembling. Then the Emperor himself sent him a Cross, as a pledge that he would not punish him if he gave himself up.The bandit took the Cross, and did indeed give himself up. Arriving in Constantinople, he fell at the Emperor’s feet and begged his forgiveness. The Emperor kept his word, had mercy on him and let him go free. Immediately after that, the bandit fell gravely ill and sensed that death was near. He began to repent bitterly of all his sins, and implored God with tears to forgive him as the Emperor had. He shed many tears in his prayer, so that the handkerchief with which he wiped them became soaked, and he died after ten days of prayerful weeping. The night of his death, the doctor who had been attending him had a strange vision in a dream: when the bandit on the bed breathed his last, a number of little black men gathered round him, flourishing bits of paper on which his sins were written, and two glorious angels also appeared. A pair of scales was placed in the middle, and the little black men gleefully put all the bits of paper on it, and their side of the scales was loaded while the other was empty. ‘What can we put in?’, the angels asked each other.’Let’s look for something good in his life.’ Then there appeared in the hand of one of the angels the handkerchief soaked with tears of repentance. The angels quickly placed it on their side of the scales, and it at once outweighed the other with all its papers. Then the little black men fled, howling in anguish, but the angels took the man’s soul and carried it to Paradise, glorifying God’s love for mankind. (The Prologue From Ochrid, Vol. 4 Lazarica Press, Birmingham, 1986 pp. 81-82)

Filed Under: All, Holy Fathers, Post-Mortem, St. Nikolaj Velimirović 1880-1956