Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk Hosts Nativity Conference
On Nov. 15-16, the oldest Orthodox monastery in America held a conference for the start of the Nativity Fast, in which Archimandrite Sergius gave a presentation to the faithful.
WAYMART, PA — Orthodox Christians, catechumens, and inquirers came from all across the east coast of the United States, and especially the Northeast, in order to attend a conference at the oldest Orthodox monastery in America.
Founded back in 1905, the Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk was started by St. Tikhon of Moscow and had four other canonized saints (St. Raphael of Brooklyn, St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre, St. Nikolai of Zicha, and St. Alexander Hotovitsky) who lived, walked, and prayed at the monastery.
The Nativity Conference was a special event for St. Tikhon’s Monastery, as usually the head of the monastery, Archimandrite Sergius, travels abroad to give his talks. However, this time it was done at his monastery. He gave an excellent talk that focused on the importance of prayer first, and in particular the prayer of the heart manifesting itself in a real tangible way which brings forth the unity of the spiritual and the material.
The faithful were blessed to be in the presence of the Miracle Working Icon of St Anna, and this furthered Fr. Sergius’ point of how we must understand that Orthodoxy is not purely spiritual, but that the material can indeed be sanctified and have grace.
The conference was broken up into two sessions, starting with Fr. Sergius giving a talk for the first session which was accompanied by a Q&A, followed by lunch, after which the second session and Q&A took place. When both sessions were completed, a tour of their museum, new iconography studio, and monastery grounds were given, as well as opening to the public the exact room that St. Nikolai of Zicha reposed in which is located within the St Tikhon’s Seminary.
During the first session of the talk, Fr. Sergius spoke about heaven and hell, and how through Christ we were given a concrete understanding of paradise through the Resurrection. He mentioned how the Church is where God’s real restoration of creation (the material world) gets transfigured through Christ, and how prior to the incarnation a concept of heaven as paradise was not as concretely outlined.
“Paradise is not a place, it's a person. It's the person of God, it’s the person of Jesus Christ.
That is paradise. If I have Christ, I have paradise — whether I'm in this world or the next. Paradise actually begins in this world because if it doesn't start here, then the Fathers say we're not sure if it's going to start there. If you want to go to heaven, it's here. It starts today and it starts with us uniting ourselves to Him who is paradise, who is heaven, who is life. Because eternal life is the same thing as paradise, as heaven. It's communion with God. That communion with God is the basis of what we would call being saved in the Orthodox Church.”
Fr. Sergius then went on to discuss how our salvation ultimately starts with prayer, and that is how we can achieve communion with God by laying the foundation of heaven here. The prayers that are encountered during Liturgy should not be something that we only do on Sundays, but rather we must internalize this form of prayer and apply it into our daily life, into what he called “the altar of our hearts." Putting away our worries and trusting in God’s will, that He is working out the salvation for all men, was an essential point to this first session.
He spoke of how St. Sophrony describes the color blue within the sky and how that is the color of uncreated light, as it is both imminent and transcendent, simultaneously so close yet very far. We cause obstructions to this uncreated light by our own “clouds” which were identified as things like “complaining, the moaning, the ingratitude, the unpleasantness, the negativity towards our neighbor.” This is just one of many examples Fr. Sergius brought up in which the Fathers personify and symbolize grace, and how through prayer, loving your neighbor, and especially loving your enemies will help us acquire said grace.
“But the task for us is to acquire this grace, and grace is in the Church. That's what the Church is. It's grace like this icon… Fr. D'Anassio used to say, he said, this icon's alive, and I believe it. Because it has grace. It's the grace of God, which is God himself, which is the person of God, and it's the saints that are with him in that grace, that abide in that light, that abide in that grace, that are present in the Church, and that we actually, like a glove and a hand, were made for.”
Miraculous icon of St. Anna. Photo: St. Tikhon's Monastery
Continuing the subject of prayer, immense attention was given to the Holy Scriptures, and the need to read the Gospel in a prayerful manner to continue to develop ourselves spiritually in order to obtain and maintain grace. Fr. Sergius advised that even simply praying the Jesus Prayer for 10 minutes every day, and also reading at least one page of the Gospels every day, will indeed change our lives. The centrality of the Gospel in the Church was clearly demonstrated by the fact that it belongs in the altar, which is the very center of the Church, and rests within the center of the altar table. The continued theme of the unity of the spiritual and the material was emphasized in this regard by Fr. Sergius.
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it's the center part. And the priest even brings it out every Sunday night, or Saturday night, and we sing, "having beheld the Resurrection of Christ," he's holding up the Gospel. As if that was somehow this mysterious presence of the resurrected Christ, the Gospel. Here it is. It's this tangible, solid, material, concrete thing, having beheld the resurrection of Christ. This is somehow Christ present with us, in this mysterious way, through His grace.”
The first session was concluded with special care being given to the fact that we must let God fight for us, instead of trying to fight our neighbor, fight our sin, or fight ourselves. Fr. Sergius explained how prayer is us coming into communion with God. However, this process requires us to first reconcile with ourselves, and according to St. John of Damascus, in order to have communion with God, we must first have communion with ourselves. The definition of real prayer was quoted from St. John Climacus, who said the purpose is to confine the incorporeal mind with the corporeal heart. Bringing forth that which is in the mind, purifying it into a spiritual nature, and uniting it with the material heart is how we can start to reach the Kingdom of God, and even receive grace.
Following the first session Q&A and lunch, the second session of the conference commenced, starting with a deeper breakdown of the heart and its relation to the Kingdom of God. Fr. Sergius quoted St Macarius the Great as he talked about the heart as a great treasury of mystery. He described the heart as this incomprehensible well of righteousness and wickedness of heaven and of hell. Our heart has the ability to become either purified and full of grace, or to become impure and full of wickedness.
“And the heart is the place that has the capacity or the potential to embrace God, to embrace infinity, to receive the fullness of divine life. That's what the heart was created for, to know God and through this knowledge to commune with God and to become eternal ourselves… Knowledge in the biblical sense means communion. So that knowledge of God is communion with God, that communion is salvation, and that salvation not only makes us eternal but incorruptible, as well.”
On the incorruptibility of God’s grace, the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God was used to exemplify Fr. Sergius’ point. He spoke of when the icon was being brought from Latvia to the United States by Fr. Sergei Garclubs and Bishop John of Chicago during WWII. As they were leaving, bombs were dropping everywhere, yet nowhere near the icon. When they got on the boat as they were fleeing, bombs would be falling directly above them but curving over and not landing near them due to the miraculous and grace filled icon. This is yet another demonstration of matter becoming sanctified with grace, and Fr. Sergius addressed the “two pillars of Orthodoxy that are not negotiable” which are the Divinity and ever Eternality of Christ as the Word of God, and that the Word was made matter. This is how Fr. Sergius described the Orthodox sacramental view of how we receive the grace of God.
“It's through the matter of this world that God meets us today, whether it's in the icon, whether it's in the Eucharist, whether it's in the oil of chrismation, whether it's in the prayer of our own heart. St. John of Damascus, he says, we only can reach the spiritual through the material, because we're created twofold, both spiritual and material. We only reach the spiritual through the material. And that's a good reminder for all of us, that it's the prayer of the heart, through the material aspect of our own bodies, that we find the Kingdom of God and the true spiritual life.”
He continued to discuss the prayer of the heart and how all of these examples of matter becoming holy should be an example to us that we too, can become holy. This can be achieved by simply going into Church more deeply and opening ourselves to receive the grace of God. The difficulty is not the process of receiving grace, but rather “to clear out anything that keeps me from it or that's blocking that. Bad thoughts, bad living, bad whatever, wrong thinking…” Being grounded in the fact that we can do nothing without God, and maintaining this humility will help us to achieve inner peace.
Fr. Sergius then finished the second session by proclaiming the necessity of dialogue with God and not monologue with yourself. This is how we can achieve purification with God, is to take a step outside of our own minds and to truly give ourselves up to God.
As the conference was wrapped up, and the aforementioned tour of the monastery grounds was concluded, the faithful had the opportunity to participate in a Vigil service at the monastery. The Orthodox faithful were able to receive the Sacrament of Confession, and the next morning, the pilgrims attended the Divine Liturgy where Holy Communion was given to Orthodox Christians. After the Liturgy, Archimandrite Sergius was very appreciative of all who came out to attend the conference and the Divine services and encouraged everyone that they are always welcome.
Previously, UOJ reported that Holy Trinity Monastery has appealed for funding as a major restoration project has faced setbacks.
