Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol and his spiritual atheism

Wikipedia has articles about other people named Afanasy.

Biography

He was a priest in Pereslavl-Zalessky, since 1549 the archpriest of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, confessor of Ivan the Terrible. Participated in the Kazan campaign. He performed a prayer service at the foundation stone of the Annunciation Cathedral in Kazan. He took monastic vows in 1562 at the Chudov Monastery with the name Afanasy.

On February 24, 1564 he was elected to Moscow metropolitan, and on March 5 he was appointed. He left the metropolis “due to great weakness” in May 1566, but some Russian historians believe that his refusal to see the see was connected with the oprichnina. Athanasius returned to the Chudov Monastery (May 16, 1566) and lived there until his death[1]. He died before 1575 and was buried in the Chudov Monastery.

Correspondence with Ivan the Terrible is known. Compiled “The Life of Daniel of Pereyaslavl” (spiritual father of Athanasius), author of the “Word on the Transfer of the Relics of Nicholas the Wonderworker”; according to one of the assumptions, he is the author of the “Book of Degrees”.

He was engaged in icon painting, according to the Litsevoy Chronicle, he updated the icon of Nikolai Velikoretsky together with Metropolitan Macarius, and wrote copies from it. In 1567, at the Chudov Monastery, he restored the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God:

That same summer (1567

), July, by order of the Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Rus', the image of the Most Pure Vlalimirsky Lukin’s letter to the Evangelist was quickly renewed, decorated with gold and stone much that stands in the Most Pure Cathedral in the God-saved city of Moscow, and the former Metropolitan Athosaeus renewed...

Blessed is the army of the Heavenly King.
Athanasius is also supposedly the author of the icon “Blessed is the army of the Heavenly King” (Church Militant).

Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol and his spiritual atheism

Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol and his spiritual atheism

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

Archpriest Vladimir Pereslegin
Met. Afanasy Limassolsky.

A conversation with a “spiritual” atheist, who does not believe in the objective existence of God and Heaven, who does not believe in the Commandments of God and the Dogmas of the Church, and who believes only in the existential earthly mystical “experience,” was published by the website “Pravoslavie.ru”.

“Church” gnosis must take the place of Faith - here is a brief summary of the material (Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol. The greatest experience that a person can gain. Translated by Deacon Georgy Maximov).

What if there is no Heaven? Isn't a person naive who believes in something he cannot touch? God is a non-existent Being, says the Metropolitan from Cyprus. The unbelief of Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol is an icon of the consumer “faith” of the mass man. The bleak picture of the new “spiritual concept” looks something like this. There are no more atheists. “Living experience” expelled Faith and made the classical ideology of atheism irrelevant. Everyone believes. But not into God, but into one’s own experience of the supernatural, accepted as the fabric of life.

Only experience can become a solid foundation. Nothing else.

The Church, the pillar and affirmation of the Truth, is called upon to rely not on its Foundation and Head - God, but on its own experience, understood not in the spirit of faith - as the Revelation of God in Scripture and Tradition, but in the spirit of gnosis - as the own fabric of church life immanent to the Church itself. . Direct, without conscious faith in the Redemption and Eternal Life beyond the grave, “touching the Church” “converts” people... Miracles, according to the Metropolitan, testify that the Church is not a teaching.

But miracles are what express the life-giving action of the Church and testify that the Church is not a teaching.

While it was miracles that confirmed and confirm the truth of the teachings of the Lord and His Church. Without accepting the doctrine, in the spirit of which only true veneration of relics and icons is possible, and true, not judgmental or condemnation, reception of the Sacraments, it is impossible to participate in the grace-filled life of the Church for the salvation of the soul and Eternal Life. The Metropolitan claims that salvation occurs “on its own,” as soon as a person “connects” to this “spiritual power plant.”

Most of you know that God's law textbooks contain evidence for the existence of God. These are five or six propositions, the purpose of which is to rationally prove that God exists. This was a mistake, because the thesis leads to an antithesis: someone else will come and also prove to you with rational arguments that God does not exist. And he will have much more sound arguments than yours, because you are trying to logically prove that God exists, and He does not exist.

The Holy Fathers say that God does not exist. Why? The Monk Simeon the New Theologian said that God is a non-existent Being. God does not exist because He does not exist at all in the same way that other beings exist. You cannot say that God exists , just as you cannot say that He does not exist, because He exists. He is a non-existent Being, because His existence cannot be accurately comprehended and described (emphasized here and below by me - Archpriest V.P.)

To refute this false teaching, it is enough to say that His existence is taken on faith and is comprehended and understood by faith. He who comes to God must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

God does not exist, but

Everyone must understand: what we are looking for in the Church and what it can give us is a personal relationship with Christ. It is very important to know that when entering the Church, we are called to establish a connection not with the teachings of the Church, but with a specific Person, so that we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a living Person who exists and with whom a person can and should have a relationship of love. You need to love this Personality.

A sane person will ask: who is this specific Person who needs to be loved if God does not exist. The Orthodox Church confesses Jesus Christ from all eternity to be the Existing God, the Beginningless Word of God. However, it is precisely the teaching of the Church that, according to the Metropolitan, “those who enter the Church” are called upon to reject, making direct human experience, free from any subordination to Her doctrine, the basis of their “Church” life.

Will they love our Lord, the Jehovah God, who suffered for men?

No, but someone else.

The Church does not say things that it cannot prove; it proves, but not from reason, but from experience.

No. The Church doesn't prove anything at all. The Church says things that are taken on faith, known by faith. The Church is not going to prove them either by reason or by experience, since these things surpass any mind and any experience. But they are accepted and understood by one faith, which is confidence in the invisible, as if in the visible, in what is desired and expected, as if in the present (Long Christian Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, Preliminary Concepts).

No earthly experience can reveal to a person the objects of faith. Through experience you can only learn about your weakness and come to terms with it. That “experience of faith” that the Holy Fathers speak about (for example, St. Righteous John of Kronstadt in his diary “My Life in Christ”) is not the experience of grace-filled experiences, but the experience of one’s own determination and self-sacrifice for the sake of Christ, the experience of “casting sorrow on the Lord his". Saints write about this experience. The saints know that this surrender of oneself before the Lord is followed by consolation from the Lord, but this is not dependence and not a “law of nature”; the Lord is free not to give to those who ask Him. Therefore, the gift of God’s grace is not at all an object of human “experience”, but an object of His sole mercy. It is not described by any of our experience, and has no dependence on us. For Metropolitan Athanasius, the “experience of the Church” is precisely the experience of experiencing supersensible things and objects with the sensory receptors of fallen man, the feeling of grace by an individual “charismometer” - and building on this Gnostic experience, as the basis, of a spiritual system of views, assessments and motivations.

This magical “experience”, independent of faith and preceding it, is supposedly the main condition for a person’s acceptance of Christ’s Truth and his subsequent churching.

But that's not true.

The miracles with which God turned the saints to Himself did not have the character of a “new experience,” but, shocking, they gave way to conscious and sighted faith based on the exact - dogmatically exact! - knowledge of who is in front of them.

So, Saul, on the road to Damascus, after the light from heaven shone upon him, fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me? He said: Who are you, Lord? The Lord said: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It's hard for you to go against the grain. He said in awe and horror: Lord! What will you have me do? (Acts 9:3-6).

We are offered the following “scheme” for converting modern people to the Church: let them come and eat - without knowing anything about Christ and not believing in Him as Lord. They will feel His goodness and will be drawn to Him. But the difference is that Saul “felt” this consciously, with reason and understanding, while Metropolitan Athanasius speaks of an unconscious and wordless feeling of “joy” - without the participation of reason, that is, without faith.

Yes, the Orthodox Church is rich in spiritual experience. Is his treasury.

However, the “experience” of supersensible states stored by it, which the Saints speak and write about, cannot “prove” anything, since it is itself taken on faith. Believers believe the Apostle Paul that he was caught up into Paradise and heard words that man cannot speak (2 Cor. 12:4). It is impossible to retell and convey by earthly means, but believers believe. Because faith itself is a gift of God. Therefore, for those who do not believe that God objectively exists, the Church is not a treasury. Metropolitan Athanasius presents the matter in such a way that for non-believers, the Church is a treasury of “spiritual benefits”, once the non-believer begins to receive them, he is organically grafted into the Church. That is, these benefits “themselves,” without a person’s conscious acceptance of a creed, “work for the result.” This is Gnosticism.

Why do we believe? Because the Lord called us by the Holy Spirit, putting into our souls love for Him, Crucified for us on the Cross. know love in this, that He laid down His life for us (1 John 3:16). How did you know? By faith. For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8). The gift of faith in Christ is the incomprehensible mercy of God, which He bestows by His Holy Spirit on those whom He Himself foreknew, He Himself predestined, and He Himself called (Rom. 8:29-30), and not to those who allegedly themselves “foreknew” and “ foretaste" of God through the experience of life. You did not choose Me, but I chose you (John 15:16). Why did the thief confess the God hidden in Him, saying: remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom and hearing in response: today you will be with Me in Paradise? Because by faith, by the gift of God, I saw in the Crucified One the King of Glory.

“What if there is no Heaven?” asks the Metropolitan.

Isn't a person naive who believes in something he cannot touch? I don't know about you, but I would never follow this lifestyle and wait until I die to see if I lived 80 years correctly or not.

In essence, this is the faith of another, left-wing thief: “if you are the Christ, save yourself and us!” He was, like Metropolitan Athanasius, a Gnostic - a man who relied not on faith, but on earthly knowledge. Belief in Paradise and salvation in the next World is not relevant and not convincing for him. This cannot be “touched” with earthly senses.

What is relevant for both of them is not the objects of Faith, but the empirical sensations of comfort, security, joy, elation, freedom and good mental well-being in this world. These experiences and sensations are presented by them as the “taste” of Eternity. Only by “tasting” in such a material-consumer way can one believe in Christ and become a child of the Orthodox Church, the Metropolitan preaches. Come down from the Cross and we will believe in You, said the Jews. And this is the same “faith” - irreligious faith in earthly things.

So you visit a doctor who constantly prescribes you medications, you take these medications, but your health does not improve, and at some point you stop going to this doctor, and you also tell him that you have been visiting him for two years, taking medications, but , unfortunately, you don't feel better. You need to change either the doctor or the medications. No one would be so naive as to go to a doctor who says, “You are really sick, I will give you medicine, but you will only feel better when you die!” After death, your condition will improve!”

The church is like a doctor when you come to it and they tell you that you must keep the commandments of God, do everything that the priest tells you, and when you die, you will find yourself in heaven. Thank you! A person cannot accept such stupidity. There are no such fools as to fulfill all these instructions throughout their lives in the hope of going to heaven after death. What if there is no heaven? What shall we do then? What shall we do then? Isn't a person naive who believes in something he cannot touch? I don't know about you, but I would never follow this lifestyle and wait until I die to see if I lived 80 years correctly or not.

So what is the Church? The Church is an experiential life, an experience of eternal life that begins in this life and passes into the eternal Kingdom of God. When we serve the holy liturgy, we say: “Receive the Body of Christ, taste the immortal Source.” Now, now we taste the immortal life of Christ, and not after death.

But we, unlike the Gnostics, taste Christ not with earthly feelings, but by faith, and we see that the Lord is good, and we taste the source of immortality - by faith that “this is Your Most Pure Body and this very is Your honorable Blood!

I believe , O Lord, and confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who came into the world to save sinners, we say before partaking.

The call of the Church: Receive the Body of Christ, taste the immortal Source, we hear only after Her call, approach faith

According to the Metropolitan, it turns out that even an unbeliever, having received communion, will taste “that the Lord is good”! And this is the “experience” from which his life in the Church will begin.

Experienced Life!

Eternal life that does not begin with faith in the Commandments. The Lord says: If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17).

Thank you! Man cannot accept such stupidity,” answers Christ the one who believes not in His Word, but in the primacy of his own experience.

This is an atheistic challenge to God, who said: If you love Me, keep My Commandments (John 14:15), the Metropolitan, who called Christ’s call to keep His commandments, voiced by Christ’s shepherd, is stupidity that a person cannot accept, and those who believe in this Word of Christ - fools like no other - he ends this scandalous blasphemy with the no less scandalous “definition of the Church.”

So what is the Church? The Church is an experiential life, an experience of eternal life that begins in this life and passes into the eternal Kingdom of God.

No. The Church is an established society of people from God, united by the Orthodox faith, the law of God, the Hierarchy and the Sacraments (Catechism, part one, on Faith). We do not, and cannot have, “the experience of eternal life,” since the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not entered into what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). We have only the experience of earthly life, leavened by faith. Experience of suffering, persecution, tears, illnesses, raised by faith in the Promised One. The gracious consolations and strengthening of Christians along this path are only a shadow of future blessings. And in no case is it the basis of our life in Christ.

Whatever blessings we are granted today, we enjoy them by faith. And after death - if we are worthy - we will eat differently, with knowledge. (Rom. 8:24-25) The abolition of faith as a feat of the soul and its replacement, which has the invisible and incomprehensible as its subject and is based on trust in the testimony of truth - knowledge based on experience, or research of the subject and having the visible and comprehensible as its subject - is apostasy and shipwreck for a Christian.

We are offered faith in the visible, tangible and sensed “now and here” - instead of faith in the invisible presence of God in the Holy Mysteries, instead of faith in reward and reward not now and not here, instead of the faith that the Church teaches its children, calling for hope eternal blessings and life of the future Age. Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh (Luke 6:21), says the Lord. And according to this “faith,” blessed are those who laugh now.

We are not imams of the city that is here, but of the city to come (Heb. 13:14). Faith is not the experience of life in the Church, faith is not the experience of experiences, impressions, feelings, and is not even the “experience” of grace-filled insights, that is, the memory of them. All this is not faith. Faith is confidence in the invisible, and only on it is the Church established. On this stone - on the Apostolic faith that the visible and tangible Son of Man is the Son of the Living God - faith that was not revealed to Peter by flesh and blood, but by the Heavenly Father - the Lord created His Church and promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matthew 16: 17-18).

Yes, the Lord did not leave His Church an orphan, but after His Ascension He sent it from the Father the Spirit of the Holy Comforter. Precisely so that Christians can withstand the test of separation from the Lord and hatred from a world that hates Christ, and achieve, strengthened by the grace of the Spirit, through life by faith , the fulfillment of their hope promised by the Lord: again I will come and take you to Myself, so that where I and you you will (John 14:3).

But of all people, only the Mother of God has already been honored with the fulfillment of this promise, resurrected by Her Divine Son immediately after Her Dormition. We, sinners, remain in faith in this promise, despite the provocative remarks of M. Athanasius: what if there is no Heaven?

Believers, according to him, must leave their first love, Christ the Giver of Life, who ascended to Heaven and is coming from Heaven - for the sake of living “by sensations”, trusting not in the Word of God and His Revelation, but in their fallen feelings, to live not in the Future, but in this-worldly, here and today. Instead of faith in the One who will come with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end (the seventh member of the Creed), we are offered faith in the immortality that has already come on earth. But this is a substitution of the subject of the Orthodox Faith.

Both the Spirit and the bride (Church) say: come! And let him who hears say come!

He who testifies to this says: Hey, I am coming quickly! Amen.

Hey, come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:17-20).

And Metropolitan Athanasius says: We cannot say to others: “You will receive it after death,” because this is somewhat Islamic: “Do as it is written in the Koran, and then, when you get to heaven, you will be able to enjoy food and drink.” But can’t I now enjoy food and drink, and when I die, then we’ll see what happens there?

Instead of calling people to believe in the supersensible, the Metropolitan calls us to start from the sensual and imaginary “paradise” of Muslims to justify an irreligious and sensual consumer “spirituality.”

So a person who is familiar only with religious ideology will tell you: “Are you a fool? Life is in front of you: live, do what you want! Priests and monks are fooling you! And when you grow old to 80 years and can no longer do anything else, then go to church. There’s something wrong with you, you need to go to a psychiatrist,” etc. Such a person cannot understand why young people lead a spiritual life...

Indeed, it is impossible to understand this without faith in God.

According to the Gnostic teachings of the Metropolitan, it is quite easy and possible to understand this - without any feat of faith. The recipe for spiritual life is simple: only by tasting grace directly through “life”: somatically or mentally feeling a surge of strength, joy, strength, etc., does a person become able to be faithful to the Lord. Without this “bioenergy”, abundantly received in sensory experience by “believers”, church life, that is, life by faith in Christ as God, is both insane and, in principle, impossible, for this “experience” is its condition.

Such “fidelity”, “based on experience,” is cheap. After all, any experience can be revised, since it belongs to us. Faith does not belong to us, it can be lost, deprived, but it cannot be revised, since it is not ours, but God’s.

When a person looks at the Church as an ideology, he cannot understand that the life of believers is based on experience. This is crazy to him. For him, the Church is madness. And the saints for him are madmen because they did absurd things. Here, for example, is Saint Neophyte the Recluse. When he was 24 years old, he locked himself in a cave and lived in it for 60 years. Isn't this crazy? How can you logically explain what he did? How can you logically explain what was done by martyrs, ascetics, hermits, hermits? No way.

I will give you an example from the life of St. George. He suffered exceptionally much torment. He was a young man. Warrior. He was forced to renounce Christ. He didn't recant. He was tortured. They put on red-hot iron sandals with nails inside. The sandals were red with blood. He was tied to a horse, so he would have to run after it. But the life says that he ran so fast that he even overtook the horse. And at the same time he said: “Run, George, so that you may receive your reward from the Lord.” He was filled with such fiery love in his heart that he did not feel his legs burning.

The mistake lies in the fact that the grace-filled gifts of supernatural miracles are given by God to strengthen faith in the invisible and coming Kingdom of the Glory of Christ. To strengthen oneself in one’s “madness.” And believers have always perceived them this way: logically, that is, rationally. And for Metropolitan Athanasius, all these miracles are supposedly the “reason for the spiritual life” of the Saints. Thus, the feat of the Holy Great Martyr George, who complacently endured fierce physical torment and fled in red-hot iron boots, became “understandable” to Metropolitan Athanasius, but how! Not by the strength of the Martyr’s faith in God, who, according to His Word, does not allow the faithful to be tempted beyond their strength, but by similarity with an example from life, in the person of the monk from the Iveron monastery, who wore his feet down to the bone and did not complain. It was this “experience” of life, and not at all faith in God, that reconciled M. Athanasius with the supernatural nature of the miracles of the Great Martyr George. That is: he saw something similar in the earthly fabric of life. And I believed that this could happen.

A believer believes not for this reason, but because he has the feat of confidence in the invisible and intangible.

We see in this case, instead of the Christian faith in Heaven and in the One Coming from Heaven, we see faith in an earthly paradise. Instead of faith in what the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9) - faith in what the eye has seen, the ear has heard, and has not entered into the heart of man. But such faith for Orthodoxy is not faith. The Apostle calls us to be wise on high and not below, to seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God, and to trust in our appearing in His glory with Him when He appears in His glory (Col. 3:1-4). But faith in experience, faith in the “here” immanent to our existence is a paradoxical faith in the visible. Aggressive rejection of our hope in the Second Coming and God's Judgment with an aggressive insistence on the value of this life with its “experience”, sacralization of specifically earthly aspects of life: art, politics, everyday life, sports. The preaching of earthly faith is accompanied by discrimination and total rejection of religious faith in the Heavenly God, and abuse of the very words “religion”, “dogma”, “creed”.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, the Word of God teaches us (Hebrews 11:6). But the “new spirituality” does not at all set as its goal to please Him. The phrases “life pleasing to God” and “pleasing God” have practically disappeared from the modern church lexicon. And this is no coincidence. It is truly impossible to please God - without the feat of faith in Him, the Invisible and Coming One, to judge the living and the dead with glory, His kingdom will have no end.

But to consume His Church here and now, while ignoring Her Holy dogmatic teaching, tasting the gifts of grace and thus receiving rich “experience”, is quite possible. Such people probably think that the afterlife bliss (if it exists!) is guaranteed to them in any case - as a kind of “bonus”, as a natural continuation of the present bliss. This directly correlates with the mood of the evil winegrowers who ate from the fruits of the vineyard, intending to own the vineyard and eat from it forever. The fruits produced by that vineyard were very good, and those who ate them, it must be assumed, sincerely admired them. However, all this did not save their souls from rebelling against the Master (Matthew 21:33-42).

But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? - asks the Lord (Luke 18:8).

What faith? Belief in existential “experience” or in the fact that miracles have become someone’s “experience”, assimilated into the fabric of visible life? No, faith in the Invisible King of Glory, Who is coming to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Dogmas given by Him by His Holy Spirit about His Redemption, Ascension into Heaven, His Second Coming and the life of the future Age.

Looking at the modern direction of spiritual life, there is no doubt that “faith in experience”, faith in “Orthodox psychiatry”, “Orthodox life”, and other similar varieties of faith in the earthly and this-worldly as sacred will be preserved and strengthened. Faith in the invisible and otherworldly, reviled and scolded everywhere as “the faith of fools,” will be greatly diminished, however, it will be preserved and will endure.

Fear not, little flock! For it has been your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32). - says the Lord.

The Orthodox Church teaches us that Christ has a Kingdom of nature - the world, a Kingdom of grace - the Church, and a Kingdom of Glory - all the blessed in Heaven.

Which of these refers to the saying of the Creed that the Kingdom of Christ will have no end? - asks the Catechism (About the Seventh Member). And he answers: to the Kingdom of Glory.

Faith in precisely this Kingdom of Glory, promised by the Lord to the small flock of believers in Him as their King and God, is the reason for that true fearlessness before the world to which the Lord has called us.

Faith in the world and the experience of our impressions and experiences immanent in the world, unreasonably identified by us as the manifestation of His Glory in us, makes us dependent on the elements of the world and disarms us before it.

Metropolitan Athanasius was born on February 8, 1959 in Limassol (Cyprus). In 1976, after graduating from school, he was ordained as a deacon and entered the theological faculty of the University of Thessaloniki. After graduating from university, he settled on Mount Athos, where he became a monk. In 1982, he was tonsured into the great schema and ordained to the rank of priest. Ten years later, Archbishop Chrysostomos I of Cyprus called on him to return to Cyprus. Upon his return in 1993, Father Afanasy was elected abbot of the Mahera monastery. In 1999, he was elected to the Limassol See and consecrated to the episcopate. Currently one of the most authoritative bishops of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy. Ru, September 2010

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Literature

additional literature

• Dictionary of Russian icon painters of the XI-XVII centuries / Ed.-comp. I. A. Kochetkov. M.: Indrik, 2003. 816 with ISBN 5-85759-213-5
• Khoroshkevich A.L.
  Metropolitan Athanasius and Tsar Ivan the Terrible // In memoriam: Sat. in memory of Ya. S. Lurie. St. Petersburg, 1997. pp. 282-291.
• Archim.
  Macarius (Veretennikov). Afanasy // Orthodox Encyclopedia. - M.: Tserkovno-nauchny, 2001. - T. III: “Anthimiy - Athanasius.” - P. 708. - 752 p. — 40,000 copies. — ISBN 5-89572-008-0.
• Archim. Macarius (Veretennikov). All-Russian Metropolitan Afanasy (1564-1566) // Macarius (Veretennikov). From the history of the Russian hierarchy of the 16th century. M., 2006. pp. 104-125.
• Samoilova T. E.
  Metropolitan Afanasy as one of the authors of the program for painting the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin // History and culture of the Rostov land. 1996. Rostov, 1997. pp. 45-48.
• Sirenov A.V.
  Metropolitan Athanasius and the problem of authorship of the Degree Book // Domestic archives. 2007. No. 4. P. 47-53.
• Usachev A.S.
  Personality of the compiler of the Degree Book // Ancient Russia. Questions of medieval studies. 2009. No. 2 (36). pp. 34-47.
• Usachev A. S.
  On the historical authenticity of miracles (based on the material of the Miracle of the glow near Kazan 1552) // Ancient Russia. Questions of medieval studies. 2010. No. 1 (39). pp. 112-116.
• Usachev A.S.
  Annunciation Archpriest Andrei and the Chronicler of the Beginning of the Kingdom // Ancient Russia. Questions of medieval studies. 2011. No. 3 (45). pp. 115-116.
• Usachev A.S.
  Metropolitan Athanasius and monuments of Russian chronicles from the mid-third quarter of the 16th century. // Chronicles and chronicles. New research. 2011-2012. M.; St. Petersburg, 2012. pp. 253-274.
• Usachev A. S.
  The beginning of the rise of Andrei-Athanasius and the church-political situation in Russia in the first half of the 16th century. // Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. 2012. No. 4. P. 20-31.

• Macarius (Veretennikov), abbot.
  All-Russian Metropolitan Athanasius (1564-1566) // Theological works: Sat. 25. - M.: Publication of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1984. - P. 247-257.

Prayers

Troparion, tone 8

With the wisdom of your teachings/ you have enlightened the reigning city,/ you have dispersed the darkness of heretical ignorance, most blessed:/ you have brought your blessing to the Russian land,/ our holy father tel Athanasius,/ where you ended your course,/ you flew on the wings of purity to the Kingdom of Heaven.// Pray to Christ God continually for our souls.

Kontakion, tone 8

O all-holy shepherd and teacher of the universe,/ our most blessed father to Saint Athanasius,/ falling to the race of your relics, we fervently pray to you:/ accept from our poor souls any love I offer you prayers / and, as I have boldness at the Throne, Master, / ask with your prayers those who honor you / with the Angels and all the saints / / constantly sing to the Most Holy Trinity: hallelujah.

Father Afanasy was chosen by the Holy Synod for the post of Metropolitan of Limassol

The next important event in the life of Andrei Nikolaou occurred in 1999. A new metropolitan was elected in the Limassol Metropolitanate.

The Holy Synod was convened, at which several worthy candidates were considered. Based on the voting results, Athanasius is appointed as the new Metropolitan of Limassol.

The official enthronement took place on February 14, 1999.

Photo of Bishop Athanasius’s hometown - Limassol, where he later became metropolitan

Metropolitan Athanasius took over the metropolitanate not at the best time for it. The flock was constantly decreasing, the amount of money donated to the church was falling. In addition, the Limassol Metropolitanate has accumulated a huge amount of debt.

By 1999, several ancient monasteries had already closed, and a whole number of monasteries were on the verge. Afanasy came up with an elegant way to deal with the financial problems of his estate.

He hired several professional economists who cleared out the entire accounting department of the metropolis.

The first results came almost immediately. Optimizing cash flows immediately reduced debt bondage and made it possible to freely distribute the budget. And a few years later, most of the debt was repaid, and funds were found for the restoration and repair of religious institutions.

Another interesting innovation of Athanasius was the annual press conference, at which the entire annual accounting of the metropolis was openly exhibited. This allowed parishioners to see where the money was going and had a beneficial effect on trust in the church.

Hieromonk Afanasy becomes proto-epistate

As in all higher educational institutions, for successful completion of studies, it was necessary to defend a diploma. Afanasy did this successfully and completed his studies in 1980. After which, without thinking twice, he went straight to the Holy Mountain and joined the monks who lived in New Skete.

At that moment, the confessor of the brotherhood of monks was Elder Joseph of Vatopedi. This respected monk himself was born in Cyprus, but due to a combination of circumstances he was forced to leave it.

Enthusiasm and pious intentions allowed Athanasius to quickly rise among the other monks. He quickly won the worldwide love and respect of his brothers.

In 1982, Brother Athanasius accepted the great schema, and a little later, but in the same year, Metropolitan Nicodemus of Ieris elevated him to the rank of presbyter.

Presbyter

this is the churchwarden and priest, the head of the monks

Afanasy's church career developed rapidly and in 1983 he was elevated to the dignity of confessor. He was personally ordained by Metropolitan Pavel of Veria. All this time the holy father was in the brotherhood of Elder Joseph of Vatopedi in New Skete.

And with him he went to revive the abandoned monastery of Vatopedi. The brother monks had to work hard, and Athanasius also made every effort. This did not go unnoticed and he was elected assistant abbot of the monastery.

In addition, he became the representative of the Vatopedi monastery in the Holy Kinot of Holy Mount Athos.

Vatopedi Monastery of Mount Athos, young Athanasius from New Skete went here and it was he who later became the assistant abbot of this monastery

Afanasy continued to work diligently and everyone around him noticed his zeal. The result was an unprecedented event. One day, Hieromonach Athanasius was appointed proto-epistate of Mount Athos.

In short, he became the governor of the entire Holy Mountain. Moreover, the youngest in the entire ten-century history of this holy place. The priest spent 1991-1992 in this position.