On
September 16, 2009, I saw a documentary on television presenting the
life of one of the indigenous tribes living in the Amazon region. In
Greece we know very little about these tribes: only that they are
ancient, that their ancestors were wise and brave warriors, with
well-organized nations and noteworthy civilizations, and that from the
15th century onwards, various white warlords led armor-clad warriors who
came from the sea and who slaughtered the people of these tribes,
ransacked their treasures, destroyed their cities and villages, and
seized their land. It is on this land which was seized from the Indians
that we now find all the countries that are on the continent known as
“America”: North, Central, and South.
We
Greeks have gone through more or less the same. We too had wise and
brave warriors, with well-organized states and important civilizations,
and from the 13th century onwards, various white warlords led
armor-clad warriors who came from both land and sea and slaughtered our
people, ransacked our treasures, destroyed our cities and villages and
seized our land. These warlords had exactly the same flags as those who
destroyed the lives of our brothers, the natives of America.
From
the 15th century onwards, what was left of our land was seized by other
barbarian warriors who came from the East, whose like our native
American brothers had not confronted. These had likewise seized our
land, even though we constantly revolted against them, until 1830, when a
large portion of it was liberated, little by little. However, we were
still weak and torn by civil wars among our own warlords (brave, but not
wise ones; fortunately there were some wise ones), and so, instead of
becoming truly free and strong, we fell into the hands of our previous
overlords, who placed us under their authority - not with weapons this
time, but with cunning known as politics and diplomacy.
Even in our day, we are still struggling to free ourselves and to regain the wisdom and bravery of our ancestors.
So, my
Indian brothers, I think I can understand your tribulations, enough to
address a few words to you. In a manner of sorts, I am, so to speak,
“one of you”.
In the
documentary that I mentioned previously, I saw something that deeply
wounded my heart: some Indians were standing on the ocean shore, at the
place where the white invaders had disembarked from the sea and had
planted a giant Cross there, just before beginning their “labour” of
exterminating the Indians. The modern-day Indians told the filmmakers
who were preparing the documentary: “This is the spot where the white
men began to seize our land. The Cross is the spirit of destruction, the
spirit of extermination. That’s what we have learnt.”
Given
that I too have placed a Crucifix on my bosom as a “protective amulet”,
and my temples are full of Crucifixes (which are far more ancient than
the white men who exterminated the Indians as well as my people), I
would like to clarify to my Indian brothers two things: 1) what the
Crucifix truly symbolizes and 2) exactly who
those white men were, who had planted the Cross on the seashore and had
incited the Indians to hate it. I beg you to please listen to me.
I know
that nowadays, most Indians have a university degree and it is not
necessary for me to speak in simple words, the way I would need to speak
to people who live in the middle of the jungle. However, I will try to
speak plainly, so that my words can be comprehended by both those with a
university degree and by those who live in the wilderness. I beg my
Indian brothers who live in the cities and have access to modern
technology to convey the spirit of my words to their brothers (and my
brothers) who live in the wilderness and still preserve the ancient
wisdom and way of life of their ancestors unadulterated.
Α. The Crucifix and us
Long
before the Earth, the mountains, the rivers, the sea, the trees, the
animals, the birds, man, there were the spirits. Spirits are both good
and bad, luminous and dark; there are spirits that love people, and
others that hate them and try to harm them. Many of these evil spirits
sometimes appear as benevolent ones and they perform some good in order
to fool people, but eventually cause them even more harm and make them
their slaves forever.
But,
even before these spirits, there exists another Spirit, Who created
everything. This Great Spirit is the One Who created the Earth and all
that exists on it: the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the animals,
the birds, and mankind. However, it is this same Great Spirit Who had
also created all the other spirits - all the spirits, the good ones and
the (eventually) evil ones.
The
Great Spirit is benevolent and luminous, and had made all of Creation
out of an infinite love. And everything that the Great Spirit had
created was created with goodness. (Even the evil spirits, when they
were originally created, were benevolent.) Similarly, the first humans
who were created were benevolent, just as every person who is born is
good. But, given that people have been created with a free will, they
are able to choose to remain good or become evil. This applies to the
spirits also, who can choose to be good or evil. Thus, before mankind
was even created, certain spirits had chosen to become evil. But the
Great Spirit, being full of love, did not destroy them, but instead
allowed them to live, even though they had stopped loving Him.
However,
these evil spirits had tricked the first humans, and convinced them to
stop loving the Great Spirit. From then on, people distanced themselves
from the Great Spirit; they refused His protection, and even forgot that
He exists. They only vaguely recalled His existence, in fairy tales and
the songs of their people, but nothing clearer about Him. And so, they
became wicked, they began to fight amongst themselves and began to
worship wicked spirits. But the Great Spirit had never forsaken them,
nor did he hate them; He always waited for the right moment to help
them.
Now
this Great Spirit is not alone. He has a company of two other Great
Spirits, equally Great, benevolent, and almighty. These Three Great
Spirits are related to each other: the one Great Spirit made the other
two come into existence – NOT by “creating Them” externally, but by
“bringing Them out of Himself” (to use a human term, which does not
befit spirits as well as it does humans). He did this out of His
infinite love, and thus the other two Great Spirits also love the First
Great Spirit (Who brought them forth into existence) so much, that we do
not regard them as three separate Great Spirits (even
though they are three), but as One, which is comprised of the company of
all Three. There are no earthly creations that are united with such a
love, so we are not able to fully understand how the Three Great Spirits
can be so united, that they can simultaneously be Three and One, but we
can understand to a small degree what this means, if we think on how
powerfully love unites people who feel it.
Thus united (as the Three Great Spirits have eternally
been), the Three of them, as One, created the Earth and all that exists
on it: the mountains, the rivers, the sea, the trees, the animals, the
birds, man and the spirits and whatever else they wished to create. They
created them, as we said, out of Their infinite love, in order to share
this love with other beings; and not only this love, but also Their
benevolent energies, which enable Their creations (when they so desire)
to embark on an actual association with the Great Spirit, Who is
simultaneously a company of Three Great Spirits.
The
Greeks call this Great Spirit “Theos” and “Agia Triada” and those who
speak English call Him “God” and “Holy Trinity”, while all peoples give
Him a name in their own language, at times with a lesser knowledge about
Him and at times with a greater knowledge.
Anyway,
many centuries had gone by, while the benevolent and wise Great Spirit
continued to wait for the appropriate time to help mankind escape from
the wicked spirits and return (if they so desired) to the relationship
that they had with the Great Spirit originally. For this purpose, He did
something incredible - something that only someone with tremendously
great love would ever do: One of the Three Great Spirits was incarnated
into a man. He assumed a human body and soul; He became an infant by
residing in the womb of a pure young girl, the purest ever to have been
born on earth. He was born to this young girl, breastfed like any
infant, grew up, and, when He reached adulthood, began to speak of the
Great Spirit Who had brought Him into existence from the very beginning,
and Whom he referred to as “His Father”. And, having shown us just how
much He loved us also and how He identified Himself with us, He
referred to the Great Spirit as “The Father of us all”.
He
spoke to the people about truth, justice, and love, and asked them to
forgive their enemies and to be humble. He asked them to love all people
- good and wicked (because no one is perfectly good, to have the right
to despise the wicked); to not be interested in wealth and glory, but to
purify their heart of hate and selfishness, and to follow Him. He also
healed the sick, the blind and the paralyzed, and He cast out evil
spirits with His great power, which he eventually imparted to His
disciples, so that they would also be able - by saying His name - to
perform such marvelous good deeds. But the wicked people who ruled that
land arrested that kind Teacher (without of course believing that He was
the Great Spirit who had become a man); they tortured Him, and killed
Him, by crucifying Him with nails through His hands and feet, to a
wooden cross! When He died, His disciples took His body and buried it
inside a cave, then hid themselves, sad and frightened.
Three
days later, however, the good Teacher rose from the dead and appeared
to His disciples. He explained to them again who He actually was and
what He had come to Earth for, and He instructed them to travel to the
ends of the Earth and to speak of Him to all the peoples of the world,
because all people are children of the Great Spirit, who created all
things. Then, after he had accompanied them for forty days, He left,
ascending into the heavens.
Ten
days later, the Third Great Spirit came down, taking on the form of a
flame. It entered the disciples of the great Teacher and gave them
wisdom, so that they could understand what the Three Great Spirits (who
are One God) really are, and gave them courage, so that they might speak
of Them to people, without fearing the violence that the evil spirits
would send against them.
Beginning
then, the disciples themselves became teachers and spoke of all this to
as many people as they could until some wicked people, under the power
of evil spirits, caught them and killed them one by one in different
places of the earth. Whoever showed trust in their words (which were the
words of the great Teacher) became their disciples and learned how to
be united with the Great Spirit through humility and love. There were
thousands of people like this among many peoples, white, black, and
brown. There are thousands of people like this today as well.
So the
cross, on which the body of the great Teacher was nailed, became sacred
and acquired the power to expel evil spirits. This is why the disciples
of the Teacher and their disciples, until today (in other words,
ourselves), use the cross as a symbol of the love that we must have for
others (in other words, we must offer them love and every possible
assistance and pray for them to the Great Spirit) and as a charm: we use
t as a weapon against evil spirits. Hundreds of instances have been
recorded where people protected themselves or healed others from the
influence of evil spirits by using small models of the cross on which
the great Teacher was crucified.
This
Great Spirit, which became man and taught love and was crucified and
resurrected, had a human name, as well: He was called “Jesus”, which, in
the language of the people to whom he was born, means “God saves”. And,
since (even though he was a real man) He had inside of Him all the
power of the Great Spirit, we call Him “Christ” (anointed with holy oil,
like the kings are anointed). He is Jesus Christ, and the people who
accepted His teachings and those of His disciples are called
“Christians”.
Whatever
you think of Christ, whatever you have been told or believed because of
the suffering and the tragedies of your people, in reality Jesus Christ
was He who taught love and was crucified and resurrected, in order to
once again unite people with the Great Spirit, our Creator.
For us
who follow the teachings of the great Teacher sincerely (or rather try
to follow them, because very few actually try as hard, so that they
might actually love like He taught), the Cross is a very beloved object.
It is a symbol of love and a weapon against the evil spirits, not a
symbol of death and destruction.
Β. People who followed Christ’s teaching to the end
Jesus
Christ, the Great Teacher, the Great Spirit that became a man 2000 years
ago in order to lead us closer to God, taught people that they will
approach God and be united with Him when they love everyone, even their
enemies. He did this, by forgiving His disciple who betrayed Him to his
enemies, but also by forgiving His enemies themselves, when He was
nailed to the Cross (although they probably did not acknowledge this
forgiveness – with the exception of the centurion Longinus, who later
became a Christian and died for Christ’s sake). But since it is
impossible for a person, on his own spiritual powers, to reach the point
of loving his enemies, the Teacher left us instructions to ask Him for
help (He always listens to us) in order to acquire such strength. We
call our communication with Him “prayer”. He also asked that we always
remain united with Him (with the Great Spirit, in other words), and gave
us ways to begin this union. We take on His good energy, being baptized
in water in the name of the Three Great Spirits, which constitute One,
Supreme, Great Spirit. By using the names that Christ taught us, we
address the Spirit that gave existence to the other ones “Father”, the
one that became man we call “Son” (this is Christ), and the one that
came down to the disciples in the form of a flame we call the “Holy
Spirit”. We are baptized, then, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit”, and we thus become Christians.
The
night before He was crucified, Christ took bread and wine, conferred
upon them His benevolent Energy (we call it “Grace”, in other words
“Gift”), and distributed them to His disciples. He said to them: “This
bread is My Body, and this wine is My Blood. Eat and drink these, to
commemorate me.” Ever since then, Christians repeat the same action. A
priest, who has received the Grace of Christ through a special ceremony,
repeats Christ’s action with the bread and the wine and we Christians
eat a small amount of it, as did His disciples that night. Since the
bread and wine take on the Grace of God, they are invisibly transformed
into the Body and Blood of Jesus. Thus we are united with Him and we
take on (those who wish to, since there are weak and wicked people) the
power to love all people.
In this
ritual no one sees or tastes flesh or blood, only bread and wine. We
eat bread and wine. But we know that these two are invisibly transformed
into the Body and Blood of Jesus, because some Christians who arrived
at perfect union with God (we call them “saints” and they are the
teachers of every generation) saw this transformation with their
spiritual eyes.
For the
first three hundred years after Christ, the great empire that ruled our
world at the time (the Roman Empire) tried to exterminate the
Christians, forcing them to worship various spirits, which were
worshipped by the ancient peoples but which were not the Great Spirit.
They resorted to every kind of torture to force them. The Christians did
not raise weapons against their enemies, not because they were not
brave, but because they knew that, if they did what their Teacher told
them (to not confront violence with violence), their souls would go to
live with the Great Spirit, bathed in His light and receiving His love.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians, men, women, and children, were
tortured to death and gave their lives smiling. And three centuries
after Christ, without spilling blood, the Christians won: the rulers of
the Roman Empire became Christians themselves.
Of
course, the problems did not stop (evil spirits always want to take
people far away from God, either through violence or through trickery),
but it is not now necessary for me to continue telling this story. The
more educated of my Indian brothers can find books from which they can
learn details, if they wish.
From
generation to generation there have been thousands of people who have
been perfectly united with Christ and acquired the great love that He
spoke of. Many of them distributed all of their property to the poor and
kept only the clothes that they wore. Some even gave their clothes and
lived naked in a deserted place, praying to God. They all helped their
fellow people in whatever way they could, since their love for Christ
made them follow His example. Those who were most united with God
acquired the gift of performing miracles (to heal the sick, to expel
evil spirits, etc), not by using magic, but simply by uttering Christ’s
name. We respect and honor all of these people, we speak with them (they
can hear us even after they die and go to the place of the souls), and
we call them “saints”, in other words, those who are united with God.
Let us mention just a few of them:
Saint
Makarios of Egypt was so kind-hearted that, when a young woman who was
pregnant from a secret lover accused him of being the father, he
accepted her accusation, suffered all kinds of insults from the local
populace, and began working twice as much in order to support the woman
and her child. Later, when the truth was discovered, he left secretly
and never sought to be vindicated.
In the
fifth century AD, Saint Paulinus, after spending all his wealth buying
and freeing slaves from barbarian invaders (the Vandals), gave himself
up as a slave in order to free the only son of a widow.
In
1015, when the Russian saints, princes Boris and Gleb, realized that
their wicked brother Sviatopolkos had invited them to his palace with
the intent to murder them, they went anyway. They preferred to die
rather than force their soldiers to fight for their sake.
Saint
Moses the Hungarian was a slave who preferred to be tortured for many
years and eventually die rather than become his owner’s lover.
The
seven year old saint Ivan Chi Chung, after being tortured in Peking,
China, in the summer of 1900, full of spiritual power from the Grace of
God, said that it is not harsh to suffer for Christ and simply asked to
be buried near the church where he was baptized.
Saint
Nicholas of Pskof, a “fool for Christ” (he pretended to be crazy so that
people would not realize he was a saint), stopped the murderous king
Ivan the Terrible in the middle of the street and offered him raw meat
to eat, in order to show him that the way he was ruling Russia was like
eating people!
Saint
Andrew, another “fool for Christ”, on the night that God informed him
would be his last, went to the street in Constantinople where all the
brothels were located and died there after praying all night for all the
sinful people of the world to seek God’s Light.
Saint
Mary Skobtsova, who helped many people escape from the Nazis during
World War II, was executed in the Nazi concentration camp of Ravensburg.
It was reported that she changed places with another woman who was
condemned to death, and allowed herself to be killed in order to save
the other woman.
C. The false “Christians” who killed the Indians
At the
beginning of the eighth century AD, a group of warriors in Western
Europe, along with their king, who was known as Charlemagne, created
another type of Christianity, changing many of the things that
Christians had believed and taught until then. They thus created a
different “version” of Christianity, which they wanted to use to conquer
Europe. This different version was essentially a warlike religion,
which was lacking in love and the compassion of true Christianity.
Two
centuries later, the descendants of these warriors, who had become
numerous and powerful, led their army and conquered the most important
Christian city of Europe - Rome. They evicted the spiritual leader of
the Roman Christians from his position and replaced him with one of
their own. From then on, they imposed their own form of Christianity on
all the peoples of Western Europe. They called this form of Christianity
the “Catholic Church”, which was how all Christians referred to the one
Church until then. They are also called “Roman Catholics”. We, however,
who belong to the ancient tradition of authentic Christianity, call
this version of Christianity “papism”, from the leader of the roman
Christians, the Pope. The departure of Rome (and all of the West) from
the original body of Christianity is called “The Great Schism”. Only
ancient Christianity is properly called the “Catholic Church”, but since
the time of the Great Schism our ancestors have begun to call our
original Christianity with the title of “Orthodoxy”.
The
papist kings immediately began to attack the neighbouring peoples near
them and after two centuries, they also conquered Constantinople, the
capitol of the Christians of Eastern Europe (who are our ancestors, and
who preserved the ancient form of Christianity that we share with them),
destroyed our churches, raped our women, ransacked our treasures, stole
our land and kept many pieces of it as their own, for four whole
centuries, until they were taken away from them by barbarian warriors
who came from the depths of the East and knew almost nothing of Christ.
In the
pursuant centuries, the people of Western Europe lived in violence,
poverty, and fear. And yet the worst part about this was that those who
oppressed and terrorized them took solemn oaths that they were
“Christians” and they even used the Cross as their symbol! Good people
were deeply saddened, and many lost their lives (they were killed)
trying to defend justice and truth. Thus many people in Western Europe
came to believe that the Cross was a symbol of death and evil (the way
that our Indian brothers think), instead of a symbol of love and
goodness.
In the
fifteenth century, those who could do so took boats and left Europe,
because they could no longer tolerate the situation. These were the
boats of the white men who landed on the shores of America. But
unfortunately the people who traveled in them did not remember Christ’s
teachings about love and justice and thought that only gold has value in
life. Thus, when they saw the rich cities of the native people, their
minds were clouded and the desire to ransack them entered their hearts.
Thus the evil began. Unfortunately, my brothers, you know the rest.
In the
sixteenth century some people in Western Europe created another version
of Christianity, in order to escape from papism. I think that this was a
mistake. They should have returned to the ancient, authentic version of
Christianity, Orthodoxy, which the peoples in Eastern Europe – despite
all their suffering – never lost. This new version of Christianity was
named “Protestantism” (denoting their protest against Papism). During
the next centuries many white Protestants came chiefly to North America
and fought with the Indians who lived there. Unfortunately these white
men also behaved barbarously: they exterminated the tribes and stole
their land. Thus, once again Christianity overall was unjustly accused.
Since
many Indians are wise, I am sure that they will understand what I am
about to say. In all nations (among us and among the Indians) there are
good people and bad people. The white men, who originated in Western
Europe and whose children and grandchildren now live in America and who
are called Americans, are not evil. But the conditions that have
prevailed in Western Europe since the Great Schism had prevented them
from distinguishing good from evil. What the Indians suffered at their
hands resembles what we suffered, even though we are Christians, just as
our enemies supposedly are.
Until
the twentieth century, people from Western Europe, who used the cross as
a symbol of violence and death, tortured and killed our people and
other peoples of the East, who guarded Orthodoxy as a precious treasure,
and until today there are many people who follow Christ’s teachings to
the utmost and become saints. In the second world war, roughly 1,500,000
people were killed in the country now known as Serbia because they
refused to abandon authentic Christianity and adopt papism.
D. Why I wrote this letter
I wrote
this letter in Greek and showed it first to my brothers (in other
words, to my dear friends) who are Orthodox Christians and who love all
people. Some of them translated it into other languages. My heart’s
desire is for it to be translated not only into the languages that are
spoken by the white men of America, but chiefly into the languages of
the Indians. Thus it will be able to reach even those Indians who don’t
speak the languages of the white men, like those who live on
reservations, in the American desert, and in villages in the jungle.
I wrote
it for two reasons. First, because I felt great sorrow when I heard
some Indians (with whom we have so much in common) say on television
that they consider the cross (the symbol of love) to be a symbol of
death and destruction. This, which is an excusable but terrible mistake,
excludes them from knowing Him who was once nailed to a Cross in order
to save people from evil spirits – the Great Spirit who became a man,
Jesus Christ. And (I speak the truth) our Indian brothers will never
find the completion of their own civilization and religion if they do
not come to know Jesus Christ, who (along with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, the “nuclear” Great Spirit) is the Creator of all things, even
the spirits that they worship.
I do
not want to steal that which they have, nor make them adopt the white
men’s way of life. Indeed, at least half of this way of life is bad. I
want them to remain Indians, wise and brave, to preserve their
historical memory and their civilization, but also to learn about
Orthodoxy, so that they can be not only wise and brave, but also holy –
so that they can themselves, with their own Indian Orthodox priests,
call upon the Grace of God to enter in them and their children and dwell
there forever.
I am
not a teacher, only a simple and humble student; a student, though, of
the holy teachers of Orthodoxy of all generations. I do not at all have
the wisdom or the right to advise my brothers what they should do. I ask
them only to learn about Orthodoxy, and nothing more. I believe that
the knowledge of Christ’s teaching, as it is preserved in the ancient
and authentic Orthodox Christian tradition, is by itself enough to make
them trust and love it.
Chief
Seattle’s response to President Franklin Pierce in 1854, that he could
not sell his people’s land because it does not belong to them but rather
the people belong to it, has become a memorable piece of American
history. In exactly the same time period, a Greek saint went from
village to village and spoke of the same things to my people, the
Greeks, who had just acquired their “own” state, but were being ruled by
the powerful countries of Western Europe, who had dazzled them with
their wealth and culture. This saint was called Christoforos Papoulakos
(which means “good old man”). The people in power captured him and he
died in prison, but his words influenced our future.
In 1977
the “Message of the Iroquois Confederation of the Six Nations to the
Western World” was presented at the International Conference of Indian
Nations in Geneva, under the auspices of the Non Governmental
Organizations of the UN. In this message, the ancient wisdom of the
Indians was compared against the utilitarian and invasive culture of the
white men, the culture that now essentially rules the whole world and
which in reality is only the culture of the Western white men, not ours.
Similarly, the reproaches against Christianity included in this
message, that “Rome is the real place that it is modeled after”. that it
“de-spiritualized the world”, and that it “came to prominence with
weapons”, refer to the false versions of Christianity that were created
in the West, not to ancient Christianity or to Orthodoxy. A few years
earlier, during the second world war, an Orthodox saint, imprisoned at
the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, the bishop Nikolaos Velimirovich,
sent a moving message to all the people of Europe, wherein he too
compared the ancient wisdom of the Orthodox Christians with the culture
of the West, the same culture critiqued by our Iroquois brothers as well
as every wise and thinking Indian.
E. Among religions, Orthodoxy
Perhaps
there are many people, of different religions, large and small, simple
and strange, who are trying to convince the Indians to follow them. I am
not suggesting a new religion to the Indians, but rather the oldest
one, the one that comes straight from the creation of the world, from
the Great Spirit that waited thousands of years for the time to come to
reveal it to people.
And,
since we discovered it, many centuries have again passed until the time
arrived for Orthodoxy to arrive at the land of the Indian peoples, the
land of America. And unfortunately it arrived after Papism and
Protestantism; in other words, the truth arrived after its false
permutations; love arrived after violence and fire.
In the
nineteenth century, thousands of Native Americans from various northern
tribes (such as the Aleuts) were baptized in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit and became Orthodox Christians. Some of them
became saints, who are now honored by us, the white Orthodox people,
such as Saint Peter the Aleut, who heroically endured torture to the
death in California in 1815 at the hands of Spanish Jesuits, who tried
to force him to deny Orthodoxy and become “Catholic”. Also, Saint Jacob
Netsetov (1802-1865), a just and wise Aleut priest, who traveled great
distances over the frozen American north country, speaking of Christ and
giving Holy Communion, the repetition of the last supper of Christ with
His disciples (this is the supreme religious ritual of Orthodox
Christians, and occurs every week). He also translated some Orthodox
Christian books into the language of his people. In 1979 Saint Olga of
Alaska reposed in the Lord; she was a member of the Yupik tribe – a
midwife who offered a great deal to the people of the local community
and herself became sanctified through her love towards people and God.
You can read more about her, here:
http://oholy.net/stolga/olga_index.html.
Furthermore,
since that time, several true and wise teachers of Orthodox faith and
love have lived on American soil, spending many years with the tribes of
the American north; they loved them and were loved in return, and they
frequently defended the natives against all types of white colonizers.
Among them was Saint Herman of Alaska (1836), who settled on Spruce
Island and lived a simple and poor life there (full of miracles and
communication with the Great Triune God and the good spirits, His
angels), helping the Aleuts as much as he was able. Also, Saint Innocent
Veniaminof (1797-1879), Saint John Maximovitch the Wonder-Worker
(1896-1966), who with his prayers stopped the typhoons on the island of
Tubabao in the Philippines for 27 months, Saint Nicholas Velimirovich
(1880-1956), and others.
The
difference between Orthodoxy and other religions is this: many religions
all over the Earth worship spirits, and many also recognize the
existence of the Great Spirit and pray to Him, as each one understands
Him. But the ancient, authentic Christianity, Orthodoxy, suggests not
only a teaching about the Great Spirit or a prayer to Him, but also the
union of the person with the Great Spirit (which is a company of Three
Great Spirits), a union which the saints achieve through the Great
Spirit who became a man and who always has communication with people –
Jesus Christ.
This is
why many people from other religions or from other versions of
Christianity, when they learn of Orthodoxy, after careful research,
leave the religions that they previously followed and become Orthodox.
But, as one of the most worthy of them, the holy monk Seraphim Rose
(1931-1982), said, “When you become Orthodox, you don’t lose any of the
real truth that you learned before.”
In
1891, the priest Alexis Toth and along with him 3,614 Catholics from
Minneapolis, Minnesota, left Catholicism and became Orthodox together.
On
January 22, 1984, in Mexico City, the Orthodox bishop Paul de Ballester
(who had become Orthodox in 1953, when he realized that papism, to which
he had belonged until then, was misled) was murdered as he left the
church, in which he had celebrated the great holy liturgy of the
Orthodox.
On May
18, 1985, in the city of Santa Cruz, the Orthodox priest Ioannis was
murdered inside the church by people who clearly worshipped evil
spirits. After his death, God revealed through various miracles that he
was a saint.
In 1987
a group of 2000 Protestants, along with their pastors, left
Protestantism and became Orthodox, and over the next years they were
joined by many more.
In 1996
the young Russian soldier Evgenios Rodionov was beheaded after
imprisonment and torture lasting 100 days, because he refused to deny
Orthodoxy and follow another religion. After his death, miracles have
shown that he is also a new saint.
The
blood of these saints, like the blood of Saints Ioannis and Evgenios,
is added to the blood of countless other Orthodox who gave their lives
in the twentieth century. We already spoke of the 1,500,000 holy martyrs
of Serbia. I will mention only one more instance: in 1919 at the
monastery of Oranki in Russia, 11,000 Orthodox priests were murdered
because they refused to abandon their faith.
I will
be frank. We Orthodox Christians recognize and honor the good spirits
that were created by the Great Spirit, we build churches in their honor
and pray to them. We call them “angels” (messengers). But we do not
think that the spirits worshipped by our Indian brothers are good. We
know that the good spirits recognize and worship the Holy Trinity, and
recognize and worship the Great Spirit that became man, Jesus Christ. We
have countless examples where the good spirits, the angels, recognize
Jesus Christ as the Great God and offer him worship. They do this
continuously in their own world, where they live. Thus, every spirit who
does not recognize and worship the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ cannot
be a good spirit, even if it seems to be.
The
“spirit of the world”, which our Indian brothers recognize and respect
(some of them call it “Manitu”, a name that has become known to white
men), seems to be the Grace of the Holy Spirit, of the “core” Great
Spirit, that created the world, preserves it, and protects it.
The
Orthodox saints live with love for all beings of the world; many of them
live in the forests with the wild creatures, are their friends, and
communicate with them. However, they do not worship “animal spirits”,
but rather the Great Spirit that created all the other spirits. With
their prayers and their sacred ceremonies they bring the Grace of the
Great Spirit to the mountains, the forests, the rivers, the cities and
all the world.
It is
not important to us, if someone acquires “special powers” with the help
of spirits. The saints heal the sick and predict the future with the
Grace of the Father, the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit, in other
words of the Great Spirit Himself, and not with the help of other
spirits. Of course, they honor the good spirits of the angels and the
souls of the saints; they often speak with them, and are very careful to
distinguish the communication of the good spirits from the traps of the
evil ones (in general we honor all the deceased brethren and
continuously pray to the Great Spirit that they will all eventually end
up in His Light).
Thus, I
urge and beseech our Indian brothers to learn about Orthodoxy, not only
reading books and articles on the internet, but also visiting holy
places in America, like Orthodox churches and monasteries all over the
American continents. Some such places, among many others, are
St Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona and the
St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood in
Platina, California, while it would certainly be useful to contact Fr.
Peter Gilquist and his colleagues from the Evangelical Orthodox Mission
of the Archdiocese of Antioch in the USA – those who came to Orthodoxy
from Protestantism in 1987 after organized and rigorous research.
We
Orthodox Christians are like all people, full of weaknesses and faults.
Not all of us are good. But even today there are many who apply Christ’s
teachings to the fullest extent and arrive at a union with Him. There
are even obscure, poor people in neighborhoods of cities and villages
who have reached a great saintliness.
My
homeland, Greece, is today very poor and controlled by the large
multinational companies, like the rest of the world. Many of us have
almost forgotten our tradition and have adapted to the culture of the
Western nations, which has taken over the whole world – a culture that
has been resisted by the Indians. Fortunately there are still many of my
people who also resist, as well as some regions that guard the precious
treasure, the culture, wisdom, and holiness of Orthodoxy. Such a place
is the “Holy Mountain”, Mount Athos (a unique example in the world),
with is located in Greece. There, many people from many nations of the
world have come to know Orthodoxy and have understood how important it
is for them and for all humanity.
At this
link, you can see the story of an Indian chief who lived and died as an
Orthodox Christian, at the same time defending his tribe’s tradition.
He even began translating the words of the most holy ceremony of
Orthodoxy into his own people’s language:
http://www.oodegr.com/english/empeiries/indianos1.htm.
At
this link, you can see the story of an African American who discovered
Orthodoxy and became an Orthodox priest, thus finding true freedom and
the way to fight for it for the good of his people, our black brothers:
http://www.mosestheblack.org/.
At this
link, you can see the story of a white American Buddhist priest, who
Christ Himself called to Orthodoxy, something that he never imagined
possible:
You
haven’t learned anything important about Orthodoxy through this letter
of mine. It was only a humble invitation, full of love, for to you to
learn even more.
I
wish you peace and the Grace of the holy and Great Spirit, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to your hearts. May every just desire of
your people, and of every persecuted people, be fulfilled.
With true respect for your history and culture,
From faraway Greece,
Theodoros Riginiotis.
