The Shepherd, November 2007
WE ARE NOW constantly told that we live in a multi-cultural society. This repetition seems in many respects a form of deliberate and politically motivated social engineering. But the Church has always been a multi-cultural society, because She embraces peoples of all races and cultures. For centuries Orthodox Christians understood this but, each living in their own lands and among their own peoples, probably did not see any great evidence of the fact. Now, in the West, with the Iron Curtain destroyed and large tracts of Eastern Europe members states of the European Union, we find our own small parishes are often multi-cultural. That at Brookwood began with a group of converts to Orthodoxy, but now our Sunday congregtion is perhaps 70-80% Eastern European in extraction. Their path to Orthodoxy is often markedly different from our own (each one of us in any case has made greater or less progress along his or her path). In the Divine Liturgy we begin the Creed with the exhortation, “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess.” We cannot be true believers without loving one another. Part of our loving one another is to understand their problems, their weaknesses, their strengths, their preconceptions and their “take” on Orthodoxy. Through doing this we also enrich our own understanding. The two articles that follow which have been contributed by two different parishioners, in some part as a response to Elena Holden’s letter in our last issue, and they deal with different aspects of the experience of many of those who have come to this country in the years since the Soviet Empire fell. The first speaks of the inner desolation many Soviet educated peoples experience, but also most beautifully of the healing power of grace, and most instructively of the time and patience required (“It took another 20 years…”). It does not arrogantly offer solutions or answers, but simply through one life’s experience, it can help those of us who are Western converts to understand another perspective, and perhaps give hope to those people from formerly Orthodox cultures who have come to the West to understand the predicament they are in. The second article is much more prosaic; it addresses the ignorance of many “cradle” Orthodox who, through no fault of their own but only of the horrible systems in which they grew up, are ignorant of some of the fundamental teachings of the Church, and it tries to show them in simple terms their way through the Liturgy itself, the service they are most likely to attend.
A LETTER FROM A PARISHIONER
WHO CAME TO BRITAIN FROM RUSSIA
AFTER the letter about naughty children I could not stop thinking about the position of their parents. On one hand they bring their children to the church, on the other they seem to have very little respect for what is going on there. I cannot help but to draw a parallel with my own long way of return to the Church.
Eastern Europeans, and we have more and more of them coming in, must be going through the same steps of filling the gaps in their spiritual life as I have. This is a very different path to the one converts are usually taking. It is somewhat back to front.
One is initiated to Orthodox Faith early in life, too early to remember, and then forced to ignore it during formative years by the atheistic teachings of the state, political manipulations, peer pressure and corruptive images of modern life.
The soul within however, is starving for the spiritual and is creating a sense of discontent. The individual, more often then not, misinterprets this longing and strives to fill the gap with intellectual achievements, emotional contentment, marriage, children, creating material wealth. Things of the world cannot make up for spiritual depletion and depression sets in. To relieve it one might turn to drugs, alcohol, other forms of self destruction and ruin the apparently successful life.
I had been taken to be baptised by my paternal grandmother when my father was still in exile from Central Russia and could not have been present. My mother, herself baptised as a baby in 1926 and having never been to the church as far as she could remember, went along with granny’s wishes.
I remember one visit to the church as a little girl and receiving Holy Communion without any explanation. I also remember being taught to cross myself and say a short prayer before going to sleep. This would have been performed secretly from everybody, under the blanket or not at all, if I was not alone. Very often I was taught not to tell to anyone outside the family about “granny’s” icons and celebrations of Great Feasts. For years I was certain that such family gatherings were done to pay respects to my grandparents. The communist state allowed the “old fashioned” elderly to “indulge in their superstitions,” and it was for just that reason few churches remained open.
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