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English writings, 1915–1921
St Nikolai Velimirović
The Spiritual Rebirth of Europe (1920), 2. II. The Principle of the Eastern Orthodox…
A Sermon preached in
ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL
by
BISHOP NICHOLAI
at a
SERVICE ARRANGED BY THE ANGLICAN AND
EASTERN ASSOCIATION ON DEC. 16, 1919
TOGETHER WITH THE WELCOME
Delivered by Dr. HERBERT BURY, Lord
Bishop of Northern and Central
Europe, on behalf of the
Bishop of London
After the Bishops had been received with the customary Eastern salutation, BISHOP BURY entered the pulpit and said:
“I think I shall do better here in the pulpit than at the chancel gates to speak a few words of welcome to Bishop Nicholai on behalf of the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to add a few words of my own. His Lordship has been received by His Majesty the King this week, and this large congregation in his Metropolitical Cathedral has also given him greeting. I do not think that any Bishop of our own Communion—not to speak of the other Orthodox Dignitaries who have been welcomed from time to time—have ever had the same reception here in London, and there is good reason why this should be so. Bishop Nicholai, as well as having endeared himself to us for his own sake, has been vividly representative to us all through the war, as he is still, of the Spirit of Serbia. The Governor-General of Brussels frankly told Cardinal Mercier that he was the incarnation of the Spirit of Belgium, and that is what we have all felt of Bishop Nicholai as he has gone in and out amongst us—and specially when our enemies were saying that Serbia was utterly dead—for we all knew that Serbia’s spirit was not merely just living in him, but was an undying and flaming fire. I only hope Serbia knows what she owes to him—at no distant date I hope to find out for myself, and if necessary to tell both people and Church what they owe—but we know what Serbia owes to Bishop Nicholai, and not only Serbia but the whole Eastern Church, including Russia, in whose future I still proclaim myself a firm believer. We too know here, in our own Anglican Church, what we owe to the Bishop, for while he is, in a sense, like one of our own clergy in his service to us, he has done what none of our own clergy could have done in the same way, helped us to look outside our own boundaries, wide as they are, into the fuller life of the whole Catholic Church of Christ.
“Feeling all this” (turning to the Bishop), “I affectionately bid you welcome, my brother, and ask you to come into this Cathedral pulpit and speak to us all in our Lord’s name.”
BISHOP NICHOLAI then entered the pulpit and preached as follows: In the beginning was the Word. Not letters, but Word. Not separate voices, but harmony. Not separate knowledges, but one wisdom. If separate voices are heard, music is lost; and if separate knowledges are taught, wisdom is lost. Separate voices lack the sweetness of harmony. Separate knowledges lack the light of wisdom. Harmony swallows up all voices. Wisdom swallows up all knowledges. When you look at St. Paul’s Cathedral, you mark the wonderful harmonious building as a whole; but you do not mark the thousands of stones out of which this building is made. And when you hear a wise man talking, you feel light and sweetness, but you cannot say: at this moment he is talking biology, at that, mathematics, and at that again, physics. For a harmonious building swallows up all the stones in it, as wisdom swallows up all sciences. One stone might only suggest a building, as one science might suggest wisdom. But it is only a pale suggestion, and we might disagree about suggestions. So a voice might suggest harmony, but it is not real harmony. On the other hand, a voice might suggest a meaning, but we might disagree about the meaning of a single voice. It is quite different with a word. A word means at the same time harmony and sense, i.e. it is music and it is wisdom.
Therefore it is said in the deepest and most mystical Gospel of all gospels in the Bible and in the world:
“In the beginning was the word.”
Not letters, but word. Not separate voices,
but one harmony. Not separate knowledges,
but one wisdom.
The most wonderful churches built to the glory of Christ in Western Christendom is the Church of St. Peter at Rome and of St. Paul in London. The most wonderful church built to the glory of Christ in Eastern Christendom is the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. St. Sophia means God’s wisdom, or God’s word. This dedication of the chief churches East and West is obviously symbolical and meaningful. The Eastern hemisphere of Christendom, which never changed and never yielded to the spirit of the time, but kept unaltered the Christian doctrine and worship, as is received from the Apostles and fathers of the church, dedicated its greatest sanctuary to the Word of God, not to the letters but to the word. Symbolically, this dedication expresses the very deepest principle of the Eastern Orthodox Church. That is to say, the inclusiveness of the Eastern Church. What does this principle of inclusiveness mean? It means that the Eastern Church, Catholic and Apostolic, includes all the separate principles upon which other Christian units are built up.
Take for instance the principle of infallibility, upon which the Roman Church is based. This principle is not denied by but included from the very beginning in the Eastern Church belief, with the difference that not one human person is infallible but the Œcumenic Council representing all Christian churches guided by the Holy Spirit. This belief of infallibility we have had all through the whole of Christian history. St. Peter had his opinion on Circumcision, and St. Paul had his opinion on Circumcision, but neither St. Peter’s nor St. Paul’s opinion was infallible, but the decision on this question of the Council of the Apostles was infallible.
Or take the long lasting question of whether salvation comes through faith only, as Luther and Jansenites thought, or through works only, as the followers of St. Peter thought—a question which troubled Western Christianity throughout centuries. The Eastern Church, most guided by the Gospel of St. John, which, as she thinks, includes both St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Gospels, was never touched by this troublesome question. She taught from the beginning love as the highest expression of the Christian religion. For love, like an articulate word, includes both faith and works as its letters. Whoever follows one alone of these letters never gets to the understanding of the word, i.e. of the meaning, of harmony and wisdom.
Or take the principle of healing through prayer, the principle upon which the Christian Science community recently rose and is founded. This healing by prayer has been a belief of the Eastern Church always, is now and ever shall be, not only in theory, but in practice. Practically all the sick people in Russia, Greece, Serbia, Armenia, Syria, etc., who profess the Christian religion, ask the Church to pray for them. They ask for prayer in their sickness because they believe in the healing power of prayer. From my own experience I know that in my diocese the most engaging occupation of the clergy is the prayer asked for the sick. So it is, and yet we believe that the healing by prayer is only a letter and not the whole word. It is a particle of religion, but not the whole religion.
Or take the principle of fasting, solitude and self-concentration. All these principles, long repudiated by European science, have, bit by bit, conquered a good deal of ground in the science of our days. All these principles scientific people abhorred as asceticism and monasticism. But, lo! vegetarianism is getting more and more ground just among the most cultured people. Tolstoi and Edward Carpenter are by no means, now-a-days, isolated instances. Vegetarian restaurants are growing in number. Anti-alcoholism is dominating not mere individuals but nations and countries. Meatless days are being justified not merely by war necessity but also by the recommendation of doctors. The Eastern Church orders about 192 meatless days out of 365 a year.
And solitude? Is it a melancolic, absurd idea of the Eastern monks only? By no means. Emerson, the most brilliant of the American writers, was the strongest preacher of solitude. And what means the growing practice of retreat among clergy and laity in Great Britain, if not the justification of solitude, preached always by the Eastern Church as a wholesome means of purification, deepening and strengthening of one’s self?
And self-concentration? This principle of religion was generally known even before Christ. Hindu religion and Buddhism are wholly founded upon it. But it has been long, long ridiculed by leaders of science and Western civilization. And now—what a change! The chief philosopher of the Continent, Bergson, has written a book, “Introduction to Metaphysics,” in which he points out that only through intuition, the hard exercise of intuition, can we get to grasp the truth of things and of life. Of course it is only through self-concentration that we can develop our intuitive power. The sacred principle of self-concentration has been given a journalistic and business form in our days in the so-called Pelmanism. The whole theosophy of the West is based upon it. The Eastern Orthodox monks have kept the exercise of self-concentration for eighteen hundred years. The “Lives of the Saints,” a part of which has been published by S.P.C.K., are an overwhelming proof of this wholesome theory and practice in the Eastern Church, long, long before Bergson and an army of those who will rise more and more to prove it scientifically and metaphysically.
And yet, neither fasting, nor solitude, nor self-concentration are the Word, but only the letters of the Word.
The same is the case with worship. Some Christian bodies have done away with worship altogether, avoiding all the symbols and signs, and candles and incense, and symbolical vestments and processions. It was at a time when the extreme Protestants abhorred all these things as idolatry. But even these whisper to-day of the extreme bareness of their worship, and of their longing for something more than merely the use of the human tongue—everlasting preaching, and preaching. The Eastern Church has always had an ample worship. Christ never protested against worship, but on the contrary He Himself visited the Temple and prayed in it in the established manner. What He protested against was the wrong, or cold and indifferent spirit in worship. And yet worship is not everything. It is only something. It is not the Word, but one letter of the Word. The Eastern Church includes an ample worship, but it is not exhausted by worship. For it is not worship alone that gave inspiration and strength to the Syrians and Armenians to endure a tyranny lasting over a thousand years.
Now what is the practical consequence of this orthodox principle of inclusiveness? The practical consequence of it is the yearning and the praying of the Christian East for the Unity of Christendom. It would probably be not quite clear why the Eastern Church is yearning for this unity of all Christian bodies since she possesses inclusively in herself, all their particular and particularly-emphasized principles? Why does she yearn for unity since she represents a microcosm of all the Christian varieties in unity?
I shall tell you quite frankly.
First of all we want you to be one with us because we need you all. We love you because we need you. This need is not material but spiritual, not temporary, but for all time. I will use here an old-fashioned simile to express my thought more clearly. A lover loves his beloved not for any material or physical reason. He loves her because he needs her. This need or want of the beloved means for the lover a fuller life, a more real life. It is the same with us. Out of sheer inexpressible love we want you. We expect to have a fuller life when united with you. We are like dry bones without you. With all of you we shall feel more perfect, more alive. Every aspect of our Church has been specially and separately tried in the experience of different units of Christendom. It is as though the members of a human body were separately exercised and developed each one to a magnificent strength: separately the feet, separately the hands, and the breast, and the neck, and the head. Each member has become gigantically strong, and yet the Body, Christ’s Church, as a whole, feels weak and wanting. She feels in our time, more than ever, the want of uniting all her gigantically developed members into a gigantic organism. All sounds must become a sweet harmony. All letters—the Divine Word.
That would be the first reason.
And the second concerns more the actual situation of the world. The political and economical situation in the world is not yet settled. At the Peace Conference merely secular methods have been used: scientific knowledge and worldly cleverness. There was no sign of reliance on the higher powers, no prayers were used, no consultation of the Christian Church, nothing but scientific knowledge and worldly cleverness. The statesmen there disposed of nations and countries as if they were themselves creators of nations and of the Earth. It is not their fault, I am sure. It is the fault of the Church being many instead of being one. Talking with several delegates at the Conference I got the impression from them, that their store of worldly wisdom is insufficient and already used up. In their bewilderment they are asking for succour of some unknown and unused power. And some of them are beginning to talk of the Church. The Church’s inspiration, the Church’s all-uniting power is not yet being called to play its inevitable part in the settlement of Peace. But where is the Church to be consulted, to be used for inspiration, to be called to succour? Gigantic in her separated members the Christian Church is yet not a giant as a whole. But if the Church were united, the white race would obtain a profound reservoir of illuminating inspiration and power, through which it would easily solve the seemingly insoluble problems of boundaries, of League of Nations, of Labour and the rest.
And the third and final reason of our yearning for Christian unity comes from our vision of the white race and Christendom being in very great danger from the overwhelming non-Christian world. If our logical powers have not been so much developed as yours in the West, our intuitive power or our power of vision has been increased by long and terrible suffering. Well, we see that Russia, the strongest link between Europe and Asia, is broken. Russia, a whole white and Christian Continent, is fallen into powerlessness. And this means, if it means anything, a very great danger for the white race and its religion. When the Christian Balkans, far less important than Russia, fell under the Islamic yoke centuries ago, Europe lived for centuries in fear from the Islamic Turk. Are we then realizing the far greater danger to which our race and religion is being exposed owing to the powerful Russia being in misery? Russia saved—the white race and Christendom are saved. Russia lost—the white race and Christendom are judged. This is the vision of the Christian nations of the East. And this is the reason why our peoples, now set free, do not really think that their freedom is secured as long as the Russian nation and the Russian Church are plunged into the deepest pit of suffering. The peoples of Syria, Armenia, Palestine, and unredeemed Greece, for centuries, protected and helped by free and powerful Russia, are now living in the greatest anxieties. Islam is rising up, and more than Islam. Therefore they are looking to Great Britain as the champion of Christendom at the present moment. You are helping them generously; you are stretching your hands to them; you are praying for them. Your help is indeed strongly felt and highly appreciated. Speaking for Serbia and all her Yugo-Slav brothers, I believe that she is being set free thanks not only to your material and military help, but also to your steady prayers for her in this place and in hundreds of other sanctuaries of yours during the last four years.
But one thing is most needed to meet not only the present anxieties of Christendom—what is more important, also, to meet all the anxieties to come. This one thing is the reunion of the churches. Not only rapprochement but real unity. A rapprochement has been reached between the Anglican communion and the Orthodox East. To-night’s prayerful gathering is one manifestation of this rapprochement. Many other manifestations and practical suggestions have taken place, especially during the last few years, which express the burning desire for unity on both sides, East and West. Yet we need more than a mere rapprochement. We are yearning for the real unity of Christendom, by which unity all of us will gain and nobody lose; the unity on which depends the salvation of the white race as a whole and of Christ’s cause in this world.
Speaking from this sacred place, from which the shining stars of your church, like Dr. Liddon, Dean Church, and Dr. Robertson used to speak, I am trying to speak, though not so eloquently as they did, at least in the spirit in which they spoke, and in which they would speak were they now amongst us. It is also in the spirit of the present chapter of St. Paul’s Cathedral, some members of which I am glad to call my personal friends.
Take my voice as the appealing voice of the Christian East for the unity of the Church.
It is the greatest problem for the white race. And it is worth while living to solve this problem, which is burdening the conscience of all Christendom for a thousand years, and which is weakening the progress of evangelization inside and outside of Europe and America. The doctrinal obstacles have yielded their place to spiritual and practical arguments and they are removed to the second rank of obstacles. With keenest interest we are following the work of the World Conference on Faith and Order and of the Church Alliance, and with great satisfaction we see on the programme of the Lambeth Conference for next summer the question of the reunion of Christendom put as the first item. And what could I say of to-night’s service, at which the hearts of the East and West are united in the same prayerful effort to conquer the Kingdom of Heaven? It is as thrilling a spectacle as was ever seen under the lofty dome of the church. A great step has been made successfully. And a great step is that the one Church makes intercessions for the other Church, and that a Church makes a visit to her sister Churches and that we of different Churches are inspired by good will and by good faith towards each other. Whoever has eyes to see can see how the Right Spirit is stirring and moving the Churches all over the world towards unity, i.e. towards power and life. Whoever thinks he is a faithful member of his own Church and does not care for The Church which was and which shall be, he is not a faithful member of his own Church either.
The angels of the Churches are sounding the trumpets summoning to unity. Lost will be, in this world and in the world to come, whoever does not hear the sounding trumpet of the angel of his Church.
My appeal to you is this: Listen to what the angel of your Church is speaking to you, and if you listen you will know what to do. And the angels of the Churches are tired of the human disputes about the letters. They are ready to help us to compose the word, to restore the harmony, to reintegrate the Divine Wisdom incarnate.
The Churches are letters. The Church is the Word. It is not a true Christian who always reads, In the beginning was the Word. The true Christian, the enlightened one, the saved one, is he who can open his spiritual eyes and see written with blazing lightning on the clouds of the future: at the end shall be the Word. Not letters but the Word. Not separate knowledges but one wisdom, not churches but the Church.
May God, the All-merciful, with all His shining angels, saints and martyrs of the East and of the West, open our eyes that we all may read the beginning and the ending page of the Holy Wisdom, i.e.
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD,
AND
AT THE END SHALL BE THE WORD.
AMEN.