On the obedience of monks and laity
Archimandrite Rafafil (Karelin)
The Gospel commandments are the union of God with the soul of man. Figuratively speaking, this is a contract into which a person enters at baptism. He is obliged to comply with all the terms of this agreement so that his soul is in communion with God. In exchange for this, the Lord promises eternal life and heavenly bliss; Moreover, He promises the mystical unity of the human soul with Himself, that is, the ascent of man to the infinite and absolute perfections of the Creator. Fulfillment of the Gospel commandments is entry already here on earth into the kingdom of grace, on the threshold of eternity.
The gospel is given to everyone; it is constant and unchangeable, it is firm and indestructible as the Revelation of God. But the Gospel itself indicates another path, requiring constant self-sacrifice, as if crucifixion on the Cross - this path is for the few. In contrast to the gospel commandments, it is called gospel councils. It is for those “who can contain it,” who consider God the main goal and content of their lives, who are ready to give up everything else for the sake of the One. These are three commandments: celibacy, non-covetousness, that is, limiting oneself to the most necessary, and complete obedience to the spiritual leader. Evangelical advice is provided at the discretion of each Christian, they are carried out voluntarily. No one should forcibly force a person to celibacy, poverty bordering on poverty, and complete surrender of his will into other hands. Here we will focus on the third evangelical advice - obedience, around which a whole tangle of misunderstandings, misunderstandings, abuses, and sometimes speculations has swirled.
A Christian must be obedient to God through fulfilling the commandments, obedient to the priest in regard to church life and Christian morality, but he still has free will and choice of actions based on conscience and moral sense. He has two guidelines: the outer teaching of the Gospel and the inner voice of conscience. This path is for everyone, but here a person faces difficulties and certain dangers: how to fulfill the Gospel commandments in specific circumstances, how to distinguish the voice of conscience from the secret desire of our passionate soul, since evil is often hidden under the guise of good. Here the need arises for a more experienced person to assess our spiritual state and the situation in which we find ourselves, to help us fight passions and correctly solve, at least from the moral side, the problems that arise before us. Therefore, obedience is a real necessity, but questions, confusion and errors arise in what forms obedience itself should take place.
The first, most general and, so to speak, acceptable form is for a man to talk with a priest or a person experienced in spiritual life, for example with a monk, and a woman with a nun, and asks for advice. Here he again has freedom of choice - to accept this advice or not, to implement it or reject it. Such a conversation helps him understand the current situation, find the right path, but does not bind him as an obligation. Second, a person comes to the priest for a blessing; he has already made a choice, but asks that the priest confirm this choice with his blessing, and the grace of God would assist him. Here a person already bears a certain responsibility for the blessing received and must try to fulfill it, but if any additional obstacles arise, then this fulfillment is not obligatory: respect for the blessing itself is mandatory, and sin is neglecting it.
Third, when a person leaves it to the priest to decide what to do in this case, how to show the way at the crossroads of several roads. Such a blessing obliges a person more to fulfill it. Here he must try to make every effort to fulfill it, and only if it is clearly impossible to turn to the same priest again, talk about his circumstances and ask to re-evaluate them - leave the blessing or change it. If a person willfully violates a blessing that he has voluntarily taken, then this blessing will turn into a stumbling block in his path in the future.
In our time, the opinion has arisen that it is necessary to give one’s will completely to the chosen clergyman. Obedience and surrender of will are not the same thing. They listen to teachers, listen to parents, but do not give them their will, that is, the main property of godlikeness - freedom of choice. In order to give his will, a person must want to become like his mentor, and, unfortunately, some clergy demand unconditional obedience from their parishioners and turn from mentors into little dictators in their parish. There are even such outrageous cases when a priest asks in confession: “Who is your spiritual father?” If a person says that he goes to church, but has not chosen a spiritual father, then they answer him: first choose, and then confess. If he names the name of another clergyman, then they say to him with even greater irritation: “So, go and take communion with him.” Such shepherds themselves divide the Body of Christ into parts and appropriate for themselves what belongs to God. Already the Apostle Paul denounced the unreasonable adherence of believers to their mentors, who said: “... I am Apolosov, I am Pavlov, I am Cephas...” - as a sin against the unity of the Church. Only those who believed that they belonged to Christ were right. The shepherd is not yet the owner of the flock. Even an apostle cannot accept from believers the honor that belongs to Christ. The Apostle Paul especially denounced those who called themselves Pauline: “Was Paul crucified for you,” he said. In relatively recent times, foolish admirers of the righteous John of Kronstadt formed their own community within the church, which was condemned by the Synod of the Russian Church as a sect. Saint John himself excommunicated these people from communion. But we can observe a different picture, how some spiritual mentors consciously and purposefully create reverence, an atmosphere of exaltation around themselves, trying to turn self-respect and trust into some kind of cult. Most often, he is driven by two passions: vanity and greed. Thus, other invisible dioceses appear in the diocese, and in parishes closed communities appear, as if an elite of parishioners, especially devoted to their priest. In addition to preaching to everyone, he also conducts separate conversations with them, which can be called intimate conversations. These people feel they have a special position in the church.
So, the Church is one, and the priest does not have the right to refuse confession and communion to a Christian on the grounds that he is not his spiritual child. Every Christian is included in the one Church, and in every church the one heavenly and earthly Church is spiritually represented, so that in no church a Christian should feel like a stranger. A doctor does not have the right to refuse help to a patient on the grounds that he is not assigned to his hospital. So, a person has the right to choose his spiritual father, in the sense of personal obedience to him, and the right to use only advice. There is also a form of complete obedience to the spirit-bearing elders, but for the laity in its former scope today it is extremely difficult and almost impossible. This is a sad reality, but there is no need to run away from it into illusion, otherwise disappointment and even collapse of the spirit will come. When we read the patericon, we feel the fragrance of Thebaid and the Nitrian desert. Now they are covered with sand, in the literal and figurative sense of the word. Previously, monks were eagles who soared high in the skies and with their spiritual vision could see what was happening in the abyss. They no longer exist, and they will not exist, although individual ascetics may appear as evidence that grace has not yet disappeared from the Church.
Let me give you one example from history. The Byzantine Tsar Vasily, nicknamed the Bulgarian Slayer, captured a 10,000-strong Bulgarian army. He ordered the prisoners to be divided into hundreds, their eyes to be gouged out, and one of the hundreds to have one eye. These one-eyed guides were supposed to lead the army of the blind to their homeland - to Bulgaria. And now, forgive me, but compared to the ancients, modern mentors are like one-eyed people who lead a crowd of blind people. The blind are exhausted, fall, get up with difficulty, walk again; the one-eyed people themselves go astray and return to it again. Many die from exhaustion, but one way or another, the remnants of the army still reach their homeland. A one-eyed guide is not particularly reliable, but if a blind man refuses his help, then it will be incomparably more difficult for him to walk.
Currently, the discussion about total obedience in the world has resumed, with numerous references to the holy fathers, who wrote their instructions mainly for monks. But it is necessary to take into account that monastic life is fundamentally different from worldly life, and what is necessary in a monastery may be beyond the capabilities of those living in the world, and in some cases even break them spiritually, and complete obedience will ultimately turn into rejection all obedience. A person, having strained himself from heavy weight, is no longer able to carry even a small load. Obedience is necessary in a monastery; the entire structure of the monastery is based on it, but for the monastery itself, an elder mentor who has gone through the school of obedience is needed, as a living tradition of monastic life. Let him be imperfect, spiritually weak in comparison with the ancient ascetics, but he must be of the same spirit with them, like a candle lit from a lamp.
It should be like a living thread of monastic traditions and legends that are passed on from living person to person - without this, the monastery will be like a building that does not have a solid foundation, without this monastic life will make continuous zigzags. No books, no education, no academic degree can replace a relatively small but correct spiritual monastic experience.
A person who studied with the ascetics and tries to adopt their experience to the best of his ability knows much more and deeply about monastic life than a scientist who has written extensive studies on the work of St. Gregory Palamas or St. Simeon the Theologian. In my opinion, the monastery is maintained by an elder-confessor. Optina, Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Glinskaya Pustyn, Pskov-Pechersk Lavra became the lights of Orthodoxy, first of all, because of the elders who labored there.
In the monastery, the evangelical advice about obedience becomes a vow, that is, an oath, for the monk. But complete obedience is still not blind obedience. It must be in line with gospel morality. Obvious sins, such as lying, pretense, appropriation of someone else’s, etc., cannot be justified by any obedience - this is the pathology of obedience itself. A model and example of selfless monastic obedience are the monasteries of Holy Mount Athos. This is a special blessed place, fenced off from the world, it is a fortress of monasticism and a lamp of Orthodoxy. Athos is the keeper of the spirit of ancient monasticism, but it is not possible to generalize the Athos experience and transfer its rules mechanically to other conditions, like replanting a plant, regardless of the climate and soil. The Athos experience is learned, but it is not exported to the world.
Supporters of unconditional obedience in the world, it seems to me, ignore the difference between monks and laity and, therefore, offer the same form, the same requirements for one and the other.
We must not forget about the difference between our time and those golden ages of asceticism when the patericons were created. The ancient monks already perspicaciously saw the spiritual impoverishment that would befall the Christian world. They said: “We have fulfilled the commandments. Those who will come after us will fulfill half, and those who will live in the last times will not fulfill anything, but sorrows and temptations will come to them; and those who endure them and keep the faith will be greater than us and our fathers.” Even the fathers, who lived in ancient times in an atmosphere of piety, said: “We are like people floating along the river; and in the last time people will be like those who swim against the tide.” Therefore, one cannot make the same demands on the elders and novices who lived in ancient times and on modern Christians.
The pages of the ancient patericons that we read are fragrant like the flowers of Thebaid and Nitria, but the ascetic experience of the monks of Egypt contained in them cannot currently be the rule for the relationship of the flock to the spiritual father. This experience can only remain a spiritual ideal, an object of admiration, but not copying: these are stars that we cannot reach with our hands, although we admire their beauty.
Definition of the concept
What is obedience? In the Orthodox Church, this term refers to the execution of orders of a certain kind. The very word “obedience” already means obedience and submission. In church practice, this term means certain work or duties that are assigned to a novice of a monastery or monk. He performs them to atone for some act or sin. Then prayer and obedience are imposed on the person.
For ordinary people, the meaning of this word is to form a certain position based on conviction. In other words, when answering the question “what is obedience for the average citizen?” It can be explained that this is a certain order, which consists in the subordination of a lower-ranking employee to a higher-ranking one.
However, this term still primarily relates to life in a monastery. It is not worth transferring it purely mechanically to the ordinary world.
Keeping the commandments
If you listen to a sermon about obedience, it becomes clear that the Lord does not insist on it at all. He only indicates what he expects from people, without forcing them to fulfill his laws or forcing them to do so. Obedience generally comes from spiritual union with God. That is why whenever the word “discipleship” is heard in a sermon, there is always an “if” next to it.
The Lord does not give rules. It only indicates the norms. And it is quite obvious that the one who loves Him will fulfill all the commandments unquestioningly. And only then will all God’s revelations, which cannot be known either by reflection or with the help of philosophy, be revealed to the soul of the novice.
It is no secret that every person strives for grace. And the measure of its growth directly depends on obedience to the Lord. On those who are obedient, God places a seal of peace, which is evidence of deep peace
Knowing God
It first of all becomes clear when studying the Holy Scriptures. Anyone who makes any choice or action that is contrary to this canon is disobeying the will of God.
But it is impossible to know the Holy Scriptures outside the Holy Spirit and outside the Church. An example of this is sectarianism. These apostates of the Gospel adhere to perverse interpretations of the Holy Book, moving away from God and pushing themselves towards destruction. Only the Holy Scriptures should be the source for a person that will quench his thirst every day. Only from the Gospel will we learn the will of God and be able to find answers to many of our questions.
Achieving a happy life
There is hardly a person who would not wish for health and prosperity, a successful marriage, obedient and good children, peace on our planet, peace in the heart and many other benefits. In relation to believers, we can also mention here the receipt of grace, salvation and unity with the Creator. Many strive for this, put in all their strength and effort, but never get the desired result. The Bible reveals to us the secret of failure. From its first pages to its last, one pattern can be traced. It is about receiving God's blessing through obedience to him.
The end of earthly paradise and a happy life came back in the time of Adam and Eve. These first people expressed disobedience to the Spiritual Father. With this they marked the beginning of disasters for the entire human race. And so it was until Jesus Christ redeemed people by his obedience to the Heavenly Father. By this, he made it possible for those who were subdued to His heart to regain their lost paradise, but not the earthly one, but the heavenly one.
Conditions of novitiate
It is worth keeping in mind that a person who wishes to devote his life to monastic feat must be free from any connections with the ordinary world and obligations to other people. For example, he cannot leave his elderly parents, his family, or minor children without help. He should not have debt or other civil obligations. And if there are any relations with the ordinary world, then they should be resolved even before entering the monastery.
What should a candidate for tonsure do? The novice must strictly adhere to the rules. In addition, he must participate in the Sacraments of the Church and in divine services. One of the activities of such a person is also monastic obedience.
During this period, future monks must fully follow the instructions of their spiritual mentor and the abbot himself. This is also a time when a person should especially carefully monitor his thoughts and himself. Indeed, during such a period, the foundation of his future life is created.
Monasticism is a special type of feat, a special calling. A person begins to ascend to God for various reasons, but his goal is always the same. A monk, according to the Gospel, strives for moral improvement and acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit. And he goes to this by cutting off his own will, leaving the familiar world, through intense work and prayers.
How to avoid going astray?
From ancient times to the present day, right up to the Second Coming, there have always been and are holy fathers - vessels of the Holy Spirit. They lived and live according to the will of God and can teach others to know the purpose of every Christian. For someone who has already found such an elder and obeys him in everything, we can say that he is heading towards God in the most direct way. And this road lies through a Christian monastery.
Of course, even a simple layman can know the will of God. However, this still needs to be achieved in another way. You need to become a monk and at the same time adhere to the boundaries of obedience. What are they? Such boundaries are the commandments of God. Anything that contradicts them cannot come from the Creator and, therefore, should not be fulfilled.
