In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost.
We are keeping today the feast of all the Saints of
Russia, a country whose history was remarkably short, barely a thousand
years, and which has been filled, from the beginning to the end, by
tragedy, by bloodshed and by martyrdom. The number of the Saints whom we
knew are many, but innumerable are those whose names are known only to
God, who rest in His heart - men, women, children who have lived
according to His Gospel and of whom many have died, following Him, as
the Scripture say, whithersoever He went. And in the last seventy years
how many unknown martyrs have been the resplendence and the glory of
Russia! How many have lived, faithful to the Gospel to the point of
laying down their lives for their neighbour! How many of them have died
for their neighbours - or because of them! And how many indeed are now
interceding for their martyred country, and also for those who were the
instruments of their martyrdom and of their death.
Many years ago now has died in Russia Bishop Luka of
Simferopol and of Crimea. Before the Revolution he had been one of the
best known surgeons of Russia whose name was known even abroad, whose
books could be found in the libraries of the medical schools of all of
Europe. When the Revolution came, he decided to become a priest and on
being asked, why, he said that he had thought that he could best serve
mankind, his neighbour, each one of them, by being a surgeon when times
were peaceful but now something else was needed: a testimony and a
readiness to live and to die... And he came, after his ordination, to
give his lectures at the University in his priestly clothes; he was
arrested, deported to Tashkent, and patriarch Tikhon made him Bishop of
the city. And the respect he was surrounded by was such that he did not
die a martyr, but he was accepted, and he was a witness throughout sixty
years, or seventy years of his life.
I want to read to you now a part of a sermon which he
preached on occasion of Good Friday many, many years ago. "The death of
Christ, - he said, - is a tearing apart of an immortal body from an
immortal soul, of the body that could not die from a soul that remained
alive, alive forever. This makes the death of Christ a tragedy beyond
our imagining, far beyond any suffering which we can humanely picture or
experience. Christ's death is an act of supreme love. He was true when
He said, No one takes My life from Me - I give it freely Myself... No
one could kill Him, the Immortal; no one could quench this Light which
is the shining of the splendour of God - He gave His life, He accepted
the impossible death to share with us all the tragedy of our human
condition. The Lord Himself has thus taken upon His shoulders the first
cross, the heaviest, the most appalling one; but after Him, thousands
and thousands of men, of women, of children have taken upon themselves
their own crosses; lesser crosses perhaps, but how often these crosses
which are lesser than Christ's, remain as frightening for us...
Innumerable crowds of people have lovingly, obediently walked in the
footsteps of Christ, treading the long way which is shown by Our Lord; a
way tragic, but which leads from this earth on the very Throne of God,
into the Kingdom of God. They walk carrying their crosses, they walk now
for two thousand years those who believe in Christ; they walk on,
following Him, crowd after crowd. And on the way we see crosses,
innumerable crosses on which are crucified the disciples of Christ -
crosses, one cross after the other; and however far we look, it is
crosses and crosses again... We see the bodies of the martyrs, we see
the heroes of the spirit, we see monks and nuns, we see priests and
pastors; but many, many more people do we see, ordinary, simple, humble
people of God, who have willingly taken upon themselves the Cross of
Christ. There is no end to this procession; they walk throughout the
centuries, knowing that Christ has foretold us that they will have
sorrow on this earth, but that the Kingdom of God is theirs... They
walk, with the heavy cross, rejected, hated because of truth, because of
the name of Christ! They walk, they walk, those pure victims of God, the
old and the young, children and adults…
But where are we? Are we going to stand and look, to
see this long procession, this throng of people with shining eyes, with
hope unquenched, with unfaltering love, with incredible joy in their
hearts pass us by? Shall we not join them, this eternally moving crowd
that is marked as a crowd of victims, but also as little children of the
Kingdom? Are we not going to take up our cross and follow Christ? Christ
has commanded us to follow Him, He has invited us to the banquet of His
Kingdom, and He is at the head of this procession - nay, He is together
with each of those who walk! Is this a nightmare? How can blood and
flesh endure this tragedy, the sight of all these martyrs, new and old?
Because Christ is risen! Because we do not see in the Lord Who walks
ahead of us a defeated Prophet of Galilee, as He was seen by His
tormentors, His persecutors; we know Him now in the glory of the
Resurrection; we know that every word of His is true! We know that the
Kingdom of God is ours if we simply follow Him!”
These are the words of one who had a right to
speak these words because he lived not only in the twilight of history,
but at the core of its tragedy, at the core of its horror. But he
knew that the Cross that had once been the object of horror and the
sign of defeat had become, through the death and resurrection of Christ,
victory, and this victory indeed was won by all these man, these
children, these women, unknown to the world, known to God alone. And it
is their blood that has been the renewal of Russia, it is their prayers
that uphold now the martyred country, and open up new ways, new
possibilities.
And shall we not follow them? We are not called to
that martyrdom, we are only called, each in our place, to be faithful to
our calling to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we not, in the
peace in which we live, be as faithful as they were in the tragedy, in
the darkness, in the terror that was theirs?
Amen.
