Incommunion

The great sin is fear of the other

a conversation with Metropolitan John

by Jim Forest

Metropolitan John heads the diocese of Korça) in Albania. He has translated a number of books into Albanian including On the Holy Spirit by St. Basil, The Orthodox Faith, and a collection of writings by and about St. Silouan of the Holy Mountain. He was born in 1956, and studied for several years at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School in the United States.

"We have a great deal to do here in Korça). There are now 200 churches in this diocese “ a heavy administrative load. On the other hand, there were 400 churches in the diocese before 1967. Being a bishop is not easy. You have to many decisions, you need a lot of prayer. Thank God there are some stupid, or perhaps crazy, people willing to be bishops. Bishops today must no longer live like princes. We are no longer living in the Byzantine Empire. We must be close to the people. An episkopos must be someone who guides, not a ruler.

"But what can we offer to the world as Orthodox Christians? Not money, but the spirit of sacrifice. We must teach the people the responsibility that comes with freedom “ the Albanian word is liria. Such an important word!

"Instead of a culture of freedom, we are in a culture of addictions. We find many people more and more addicted. Everything becomes uniform. Here in Albania it used to be done by force while in the west it was done voluntarily. Now we follow the western style. We think we achieve freedom by money."

He went on to speak about obstacles to the spiritual life.

"The great sin is fear of the other. In a state of fear, everyone seems to be a threat. There are many symptoms of fear among Christians. The real meaning of the English word 'gospel' is good news, but one can find those who are more attracted to the Bad News Gospel. You can find religious circles more interested in the anti-Christ than in Christ, more interested in the number 666 than the Holy Trinity. This is a fear-driven, bad news orientation. Where such a mentality thrives, the Christian contribution to society is meager. Where faith, hope and love flourish, transformation occurs. Faith changes life. If life doesn't change, clearly there is no faith. St. John Chrysostom, preaching to perhaps 400 people in Antioch, told them, 'If all of you were Christians, there would be no more pagans in the world.' If you want to understand how Christianity spread so rapidly in the early centuries, it was because Christians were Christian.

"Sadly, in our time, we have lost the idea of the holy. Pagans at least understood the holy. They had a sense of the sacred. We have lost this capacity. This is our tragedy because more than ever the world needs the light of Christ, the genuine light."

I noticed collections of stories of the Desert Fathers on his bookshelf.

"For me these men and women of the desert have been a constant source of inspiration. For example there is the story of an elder and his young disciple going to Alexandria to preach. They shopped. They walked about. Finally the elder said to the younger monk, 'Let's return to our cells.' The disciple said, 'But weren't we going to preach?' And the elder said, 'But we preached all day long “ how we walked, how we spoke, how we ate. What more could we say?'

"Then there is the story of the theologian who went to St. Anthony the Great. He asked about the meaning of a certain text. Anthony said, 'What is your opinion?' The theologian gave a very detailed answer. Then Anthony asked another monk, 'Abba Joseph, what is your opinion?' He responded, 'I don't know.' To this Anthony replied, 'Blessed are you, Abba Joseph, you have understood because you said I don't know.'

"The words 'I don't know' are wonderful! This is why in the Orthodox Church we refer to any sacrament with the Greek word mysterion “ mystery. We do this because there is the danger of putting boundaries to God. It is the academic danger: to pretend “ to imagine “ that you know. In reality the more you know, the more you don't know.

"It is not through scientific investigation that you know another person. It is only through love. Only love can discover something unique. If you don't love, you cannot discover the person. Love is a state of being. Love is a sacrament of being. The moment you feel a need to explain, love is gone.

"A problem we face is the cult of individualism. The Church doesn't exist to make individuals but persons. An individual is someone in a state of separation, someone out of communion. A person is unique but at the same time exists in relationship with others. You cannot divide him from the whole. A person is a being who can never be repeated yet whose being includes others “ without the other, the person does not exist. Without communion there is no being."

I wondered if monastic life had been a hard choice for him.

"I became a monk because no other life seemed to fit me, but I never encourage young people to embrace a celibate life. You do this only if you find that you have no other choice. But a celibate vocation is only possible if you live an ascetic life. This is why we have no TV here. Even if you're strong, it's best not to put yourself in the path of temptation. When an ascetic discipline is missing, there is the problem of extreme loneliness suffered by many celibates. If you are full of the love of the Holy Spirit, you do not need other kinds of love."

He told me a story of a community of exceptionally holy monks who, unfortunately, were also terrible singers.

"They sounded like a chorus of crows. But a gifted singer happened to visit. The monks were so impressed by his fine voice that they wouldn't let him leave. He would sing the services so that heaven would no longer have to suffer from their awful singing. Days and days passed. Each service was beautifully sung by the professional singer. But one night an angel appeared in a dream to one of the monks and asked why they no longer heard the monks' prayers. What had happened? The monk said the angel was a mistaken “ 'There is now a wonderful singer offering the prayers so much better than we can!' 'All the same,' said the angel, 'we hear nothing in heaven.' The monk told the brothers his dream. Afterward the monks resumed their singing.

"I am like one of these monks with an awful voice, but it is the only voice I have and I must use it as best I can."

He commented that one of the problems for priests in the modern world is a tendency to be embarrassed by the priestly vocation.

"We have to take care that in our desire to be close to people we try to become so like them that they hardly see us. The priest has to be visible, though taking care not to obstruct Christ's presence."

I asked about people and events that had shaped his life.

"This can be divided in two periods, first when religion was forbidden, and then when the church regained its freedom. In the first period, one of the most important persons for me was a man named Petro Zhei. I met him through providence. He was a translator but, more than that, he was a genius, an erudite man with a deep experience in the spiritual life. I was about 18 years old when a friend introduced us. He was 25 years older than I was. Despite the difference in age and experience, we had many deep conversations. The exchanges with him opened so many doors within me.

"In school I went through a very deep spiritual crisis. It brought on a kind of depression, the feeling I was losing my childhood. I was reading books about psychology and philosophy that were really killing childhood. What finally saved my childhood was the Gospel. Reading it, I felt again a childlike happiness. I rediscovered something. Thank you, Gospel, for saving my childhood. Thank you for giving me back real joy. You can become an expert but it is of no value if you lose the joy. The Gospel so moved me whenever I read it. Even the memory of it moved me. As a child I had always loved adventure books “ the Gospel was the fulfillment of this love. This was the ultimate adventure book. Perhaps someday I can find time to write about the theology of adventure stories and fairy tales."

Our conversation shifted toward Church response to the poor, the homeless and the sick.

"There is no Christian community where there is no service of love. If we fail to respond to those who suffer, we turn our back on Christ. I will not be congratulated by God for writing a fine book about theology. I will be asked: 'What about that poor old woman you ignored?'

"This is why we opened the 'Service of Love' free restaurant just across the street, to give one example. You can see it out the window. This was opened two times a week in 1995, through the initiative of the Archbishop. We have expanded it now to five meals a week. Normally we have forty to eighty people for lunch. All this is done by volunteers, a mixture of young and old, four or five in each group. Next we want to start a home for the elderly “ people who are often completely alone. We are already helping old people in their homes or apartments, for example an old woman who had surgery and had no one to care for her. But they give us more than we give them. At the same time, we cannot romanticize the service of love. Often people with needs are somewhat mentally disturbed. They may curse you, curse the Church, even threaten you.

"There is the spiritual danger of seeing people as if they were carvings “ it is a break in communion. The closer you get to another person, the more you understand this could be you. Everything can become a sacrament, the mystery of God's presence.

"We look for many ways to help. A week ago Sunday the Gospel of the Last Judgement was read during the liturgy “ 'What you did to the least person, you did to me.' In my sermon I asked for volunteers to help us expand our Service of Love program “ after the liturgy there were 28 volunteers, many of them young people. This means we can do more.

"You will not be saved by doctrine if you don't practice it. If you believe in the power of medicine but only keep it in bottles, it will not save you. Saint Gregory the Theologian said that the knowledge of God starts with obeying the commandments; if you begin the journey you will experience the mysteries “ the sacraments. Like Moses, we are granted an oblique view of God. This is a quest that surpasses every fairy tale, every legend.

"One of the things we learn in any project of service is that we cannot do it alone. Christ said he will be present whenever there are at least two or three gathered in his name “ one is not enough.

"From such work we also learn gratitude. This is essential. The deep meaning of the word Eucharist is thanksgiving. Complaining is the disease of our time. Our sin is not being grateful. I visited recently an 83-year-old woman who had been blind since she was three. I have never met anyone as grateful as she is, someone so thankful. Whenever you met the Cico sisters, you would notice that each time they mentioned Christ, their faces were illuminated. Such gratitude! They have lived in the other world “ they have enjoyed it and we experience their joy. This kept them alive. But in our present world if you don't complain you are regarded as an idiot."

I was reminded of the words a French Catholic poet, Leon Bloy, who said that joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.

"Yes! One Christmas I went to a cave in the mountains near here, a place people were afraid to go to because of superstitions about ghosts. I built a small a fire and prayed. In that cave I was so full of joy! People who have not had such an experience cannot imagine. Joy? Joy in a cold cave in the middle of winter? They will think you are crazy. But I felt a great joy, and within me overflowed a deep prayer. This joy overwhelmed me for days “ I could hardly work."

This is a much shortened version of a chapter in Jim Forest's book, The Resurrection of the Church in Albania, published by the World Council of Churches. Several chapters from the book are web posted at this site. An essay by Metropolitan John, "Ethnic Conflicts and the Orthodox Church," was published in the last issue of In Communion.

Published in the Spring 2004 issue of In Communion, the yearly journal of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. Copyright by the author.