Publication of Nikodemus No. 2, article on Blessed Feofil, examplars of Holy Foolery
Please forgive the delay in sending these comments of Nikodemos #2—but I guess you understand! Fr. Herman also insisted that I read the life of Blessed Feofil first—which I hadn’t read all the way through before.
We read the articles carefully, and both of us thought exactly the same thing: the first article good, the letters [to the editor] lively and interesting, the other articles weaker. The weakness, I think, comes down mainly to one thing: lack of concrete images or examples to catch the attention or make the point. In the absence of these, the danger is that the article becomes somewhat abstract and leaves the reader a little up in the air and without a definite point having been put across to him, or maybe with the point put across so indefinitely that it doesn’t stick.
Your article, “The Holiness of St. Nectarios,” is quite good; the “concreteness” comes from reading the life of St. Nectarios itself. Nonetheless, a concrete example or two would strengthen it. For example, at the end you say that St. Nectarios radiance “continues to illuminate twentieth-century Orthodox Christians.” Have you got any proof of that? Yes—the many hundreds of miracles (he’s the Greek equivalent of St. John of Kronstadt), and the fact that so many very lively missionary movements have taken him as their patron; Fr. Neketas in Seattle; the Swiss Orthodox Mission in Geneva (Fr. Basile Sakkos); the Greek parish in Toronto started by a young priest (Fr. Peter Carras) who left the Greek Archdiocese two years ago—it has grown spectacularly and has over a thousand families in it; the French Orthodox mission in Paris; the Greek Old Calendarist parish in Montreal.
The letters [to the editor] of course will probably be one of the most interesting parts of Nikodemos, especially when they start getting around to some basic questions that trouble our converts.
Susan, what you say in your review of the life of Blessed Feofil is doubtless what many readers of Nikodemos will feel on reading it, but you’ve got to push them beyond their American experience into a more universal Orthodox experience. The quote with which you begin is excellent, but you must follow it through. Blessed Feofil was not someone merely with unusual habits or of a different culture; what distinguishes him is not that he impressed people or stood out from the crowd or had an abnormal “life-style” (is that phrase “life-style” necessary? it has become so fashionable in academic circles!) —rather, all this is a result of the fact that he truly “had God for his father” and lived fully the life of grace in the Holy Spirit, and thus human logic simply can’t understand him. In his dealings with people he paid no attention to the normal politenesses of society—because he was acting as God directed him for the benefit and salvation of those people. In most cases, the benefit to people from his unusual actions is clear. And this is a universal Orthodox, not just a local, cultural, characteristic. The reason we haven’t seen it in America yet is because this is one of the highest examples of Orthodox life, and America—which is hardly beginning to know Orthodoxy, with monasticism in its infancy and many basic texts of Orthodox life untranslated—just isn’t ripe for it yet. Even so, our Vladika John had some of these characteristics, so the American land hasn’t been entirely without “holy foolishness.” (Sometime I’ll tell you of some of his “strangenesses” that I witnessed, and which fairly exasperated his priests—but even though I didn’t understand them, I glimpsed something deeper in them, and they taught me not to be satisfied just with fulfilling the external parts of services, etc.) Actually, to understand Feofil, he could even be compared with the Prophet Moses—someone quite “foolish” in appearance (he couldn’t even talk clearly), whose whole life is based on the fact that he was a God-seer and God spoke to him, and in defiance of all human logic he led the Israelites on a journey that to human logic made no sense at all, and was attended by numerous astounding miracles. In both cases, Divine “logic” prevails.
You make an interesting point, though: today to fast, keep the calendar, etc.—in other words, just to be an Orthodox Christian in the full sense—makes us already somewhat “foolish” in the eyes of the world, because the world has “progressed” so far in its own wisdom that Orthodox Christianity doesn’t enter the picture. But still, Feofil’s foolishness is of a different dimension; we’re foolish because we try to follow God’s standard, but he [was foolish] because he did follow it, and not only externally but internally. Pray to Blessed Feofil for guidance.
I’d better stop or I’ll never get this off. Alexey, please note that Fr. Neketas (in Seattle) “endorsed” Nikodemos [in his parish bulletin], and many people are closely looking at it. And so already you have great responsibility in witnessing, in the place where you are, to Holy Orthodoxy and actually helping to raise the fragile shoots of American Orthodoxy. May God be your constant help! Ask Blessed Feofil’s help. He helps us all the time—three prostrations!
Pray for us. May you pass through the Great Lent profitably—and may we all be deemed worthy to behold the bright Resurrection of Christ!