We Must Obey God, Rather Than Men
The Second Covid Epistle
“Brother Christians! Raise your voices in defense of the Church’s Apostolic Faith, the holy things of the Church, the Church’s heritage.”
+New-Hieromartyr Hermogenes of Tobolsk
The current spiritual attacks on the Truth of Christ and His Church in these troubled times are not new or novel. The main goal of the enemy of our salvation is to destroy Truth and to sow unbelief and despair in people’s hearts. His top targets are Orthodox Christians. How well are we standing firm against him?
To assist us in this battle, we have excellent examples from a host of Saints of our times on how to respond to the assaults of the militant secularism that faces us today. The army of New-Martyrs and Confessors, who fought the good fight under various Soviet-Communist Countries, offer us a clear and true Orthodox response to the godlessness of our times.
On such example is found in the New-Hieromartyr Hermogenes of Tobolsk. We have as a testimony his bold confession of faith during the time of the Bolshevik take over in Russia. He clearly shows that the “privatization” of “religion,” which amounts to a subjectivizing of religious claims, is an important step in marginalizing the Church’s claim to possess the Truth. The truth of Orthodox Christianity is then seemingly reduced to – “that is your private opinion.” Further, when faith becomes a mere “private matter”, the necessity of corporate worship is greatly diminished. From this point, it is easier to justify steps to limit and then prevent corporate gatherings of believers, which, after all, are not “essential.” Yet for the Orthodox Christian, corporate worship is absolutely essential. St. Hermogenes clearly tells us that the goal of such steps is to kill faith in the hearts of believers and make them atheists! The demonic powers understand that the only thing that is able to withstand their assault is steadfast Orthodox Faith.
What follows are the saint’s own words. Their relevance to our times is more than evident.
“The antichristian decree declares that ‘religion is a private matter’ – the personal matter of each separate person, but not of society or the State. In these words is contained the greatest untruth and the greatest harm for every religion in general, and especially for the universal religion of Christianity
and for the Universal Church of Christ. In actual fact, the Christian faith is a public, conciliar, universal faith. “The Christian cannot be saved on his own, in separation from others.
‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name,’ said Christ, ‘there am I in the midst of them.’ The Christian is saved in the Church - in the society of believers: it is to this society of the Church that the grace of the Holy Spirit is given, which acts and is bestowed upon believing people only in the Church, for the sake of the common Church faith and love, for the sake of the common good.
“The society of the Church is like the body of a man: in the body all the members are linked together, they live and act together. If the link between the separate members is broken, the body is destroyed and perishes. A man perishes in exactly the same way if he departs from the society of the Church,
if he does not want to be saved together with the others, if he wishes to be an autonomous person, not subject to the spirit and rules of the lawful Church union of all the believers.
“Christians cannot be saved without common prayer, without the carrying out of public services, without the participation of the whole people in the sacraments, without doing good works with the participation of all: pan-ecclesiastical charity, education, and care for each other, etc.
“The decree declares religion to be a private matter, because its composers do not want to recognize the Orthodox Church as a Divine institution; they are striving to disunite and disperse the Christians; they even want to place all of them under suspicion and subject them to house arrest, forbidding them to go to the churches for common Church prayers; they want to kill faith in their hearts and make them atheists!
“Brother Christians! Raise your voices in defense of the Church’s Apostolic Faith, the holy things of the Church, the Church’s heritage. Defend your right to believe and confess your faith as you learned it in days of old, as you were taught it by the holy apostles, the holy martyrs, the God-wise fathers of the Church, the Christian ascetics. Take care of the holiness of your souls, the freedom of your consciences. Say loudly that you have been accustomed to pray and save yourselves in the churches, that the holy things of the Church are dearer to you than life itself, that without them salvation is impossible. No power can demand from you that which is against your faith, your religious conscience: ‘We must obey God rather than men’, said the holy apostles. That is what we, too, must say. The apostles joyfully suffered for the faith. Be you also ready for sacrifice, for podvig, and remember that physical arms are powerless against those who arm themselves with powerful faith in Christ. Faith moves mountains, ‘the faith of the Christians has conquered the pagan boldness’. May your faith be bold and courageous! Christ destroyed hades. He will also destroy the snares of the enemies of our Church. Believe - and the enemy will flee from before your face. Stand in defense of your faith and with firm hope say: ‘Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!’”
Your Servants,
THE BURNING BUSH BROTHERHOOD
August 25th + The Year Of Our Lord 2021