A reflection on the season of Great Lent from St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary Associate Professor of Old Testament, Michael Legaspi

Last year, in the middle of Great Lent, a women’s chorale here at the Seminary put on a concert of hymns to the Theotokos.

Among the many beautiful pieces, one stood out to me: the renowned medieval Georgian hymn “Shen Khar Venakhi,” known also as “O Vineyard Fair and New.” The words, here in translation, are simple and stunning:

O Vineyard fair and new, ever freshly blooming.

Young, comely, fragrant Stem, springing out of Eden.

May God Himself adorn you who are most honored.

For you, O brilliant Sun, ever shine with unwaning light.

As I listened to the hymn, I felt a perilous joy. I sensed briefly a truth, a reality toward which we move in our Lenten journey. The hymn evokes spring, but it does not speak merely of a season of the year. Rather, the hymn concerns “spring” as it truly is. Trees and vines do indeed blossom in the spring, and, to our delight, the sun seems to regain a brilliance dulled and shaded by winter’s gray. Yet this change of season is not the true spring.

There I was, in the midst of Lent, preoccupied with the discomforts and difficulties of the season: the challenge of longer and more frequent services, the myriad injustices of a vegan diet, prostrations on end. As I listened to this song about a vineyard, I realized, with pain, that I was not one—far from it. I am a desolate patch of hard soil, all stones and briar. Lent was, is painful to me in the way that the work of an excavator is painful to a plot of rocky ground.

But what happens when one belongs, without thought of self, to the Lord of the vineyard? Such a one, though old and full of scars, may become fair and new. Though stale and soiled by sin, this one becomes comely and fragrant. The aim of Lenten labors, I sensed suddenly, was not to complete a training program or, worse, to check off religious boxes. Instead, the aim is to return to Eden and grow there. In belonging fully to God, Mary became Eden, in which was planted the Tree of Life. She is the true spring.

Though the hymn is unimaginably tender and sweet, there is peril in it. We read in Scripture of other vineyards (Isaiah 5.1–7; Matthew 20.1–16), and we are warned against our own capacity to reject justice, live for ourselves, and run riot in the vineyard of the Lord. Lent reminds us of divine judgment. Yet there is another peril as well. It is the danger we feel when we realize that things can be otherwise: in place of sin’s familiar, well-worn paths, God calls us to true life, which is unaccountably real, strong, and, as we see in the Theotokos, beautiful.

Despite the fact that Annunciation, one of the great feasts of the Theotokos, almost always falls during Lent every year, I do not usually reflect on the example of the Mother of God during Lent, as one might during Nativity or Dormition. Yet the timing of last year’s concert caused me to see both the peril and the beauty of Great Lent and to understand, further, that the two are strangely alike. In her beauty, the Mother of God shows us how strong Love is that breaks the earth, wounds the heart, and conquers Death.

Great Lent Reading list from Dr Michael Legaspi

• Great Lent: Journey to Pascha

Alexander Schmemann

• The Song of Tears: An Essay on Repentance Based on the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete

Olivier Clément

• The Diary of a Russian Priest

Alexander Elchaninov

• PPS 19, On the Mother of God (second print)

Jacob of Serug; Mary Hansbury, trans. 

Daniel B. Hinshaw, M.D. is professor emeritus of surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School and consultant in palliative medicine at the University of Michigan Geriatrics Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He has taught palliative care at  St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York and to medical professionals and clergy in international settings including Ethiopia, Uganda, Serbia, Romania, and Lebanon. For several years he has served as a visiting professor at Transilvania University, Braşov, Romania and at the St John of Damascus Theological Institute and St George’s University Hospital of the University of Balamand in Lebanon. In addition to more than one hundred articles and chapters published in scientific journals and in volumes of collected works, he is the author of several books: Suffering and the Nature of Healing (2013), Touch and the Healing of the World (2017), Thriving in the Face of Mortality: Kenosis and the Mystery of Life (2023), an historical novel: Neither Bond nor Free (2019), and the forthcoming volume, entitled, Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga from SVS Press.

SVS Literary Works

Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga

The events of Fr Roman Braga’s life unfolded on three continents in complex and tumultuous times. In Romania, he lived through turbulent historical events, and he suffered for Christ under communist persecution. Later he continued his life and ministry in Brazil, and ended his days in the United States. He was a confessor of the faith and spiritual father of great wisdom and compassion, who shared Christ's love with all who came his way. This text presents the life of Fr Roman Braga, while also exploring the broader historical context in which he lived. Most fundamentally, it reveals the transfigured life of a man who is close to us in time, but who passed far beyond us in his spiritual life, who was not broken but rather transformed by God’s grace, even in the midst of the horrors of torture and imprisonment. He continues to shine as a beacon of God’s love, and a witness to His power to overcome even the greatest of evils.

Touch and the Healing of the World

Touch and the Healing of the World explores one of the most familiar yet profound of human experiences—touch. In a series of reflections that focus upon events in the life of Christ (beautifully portrayed in contemporary icons, in full color plates), author Dr Daniel Hinshaw contemplates the mystery of the incarnation, focusing on the meaning and importance of touch. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from icons, hymns, and the writings of the Fathers of the Church to the most recent findings of modern medicine, Dr Hinshaw invites readers to understand the fuller implications of the saving work of Christ. The Lord entered into every aspect of our life—the tender embrace of mother and child, the humility of a servant as he washed his disciples’ feet, and the horror of torture as he was scourged, beaten, and crucified—so that we might enter into his life—his transfiguration, his resurrection, and the never-ending joy of his kingdom.

Suffering and the Nature of Healing

With increased secularization, the unique perspective of traditional Christianity is largely being lost from health care. This work explores the central relationship between the Incarnation of the Word of God as Jesus Christ and the nature of healing within the understanding of traditional Christianity. This understanding and teaching regarding sin, suffering, and death can have tremendous impact on the care of the sick. This book reviews the relationship of modern health care practice to traditional Christianity and the Church’s understanding of health, disease, and healing, in order to give a better sense of how traditional Christianity can more effectively interface with secular health care. 

The first part of the book explores the human dilemma posed by suffering. The second part examines the nature of the encounter between the suffering person seeking help and the persons offering help. The third and final part addresses the possibility of healing independent of cure, even in the context of death.

List of Other Literary Works

• Thriving in the Face of Mortality: Kenosis and the Mystery of Life
• Neither Bond Nor Free

Multimedia

• Promotional Video: Suffering and the Nature of Healing
• Podcast Interview: That's So Second Millennium
• Video Interview: With a Side of Knowledge
• Video Interview: Patristic Nectar Films

For those of you that don't know my work, it's predicated on the idea of being uneducated, and therefore I am unnaturally averse to anything resembling what I call “Big Brain” literature. My own preconceived notions and bias against the more learned church fathers kept me from reading them at any length for many years more than I care to admit. Now I beg God and all the saints’ forgiveness every day for being such a fool, all the while kicking myself for not embracing such treasures earlier.

This brings us now to the present work. These seven homilies on the rich man and Lazarus serve as a springboard to much-needed words on our human struggle against passive greed and the importance of the poor. More pointedly, the great saint delves deep into the meaning and symbolism of the parable, and uses every possible moment and angle to address and impress upon the congregation (and, by proxy, the reader) the exact points of contention the teachings reveal about the people to which he speaks, as is his modus operandi. No one is safe from his flaming golden words of both reproof and love, and, as you might have guessed, not even the Royal Court is safe from his critique and pastoral admonitions.

The bottom of this brief commentary is: they don't call him the golden mouth for nothing. Don't be like me—treat yourself now, and thank God for the words of his holy servant.

• Order your copy of On Wealth and Poverty

In his own time, Evagrius, spiritual son of Macarius of Alexandria, could boast a proud lineage, being third removed from Anthony the Great. Having learned not only from Macarius but also from Saint Basil and Saint Gregory Nazianzus, by the time he fled to the desert at the age of thirty-seven he was likely well prepared for the struggles of cenobitic and anchoritic life. In seventeen short years he produced numerous works for his brothers and sisters, before proposing in the Lord on Epiphany in AD 399.

Now, having framed Evagrius in the context of age and experience, Father Gabriel breaks down in much detail, and with surgical precision, how acedia is viewed, confronted, and can be overcome, based on the desert fathers’ works. He begins by setting up the differences between monastic and worldly struggles, which are, in essence, material and mental. For the modern struggler, emphasis is put on the modern world’s disbelief in demons and Satan, going so far as to cite Baudelaire. Also of note is the modern and misguided notion that monasticism would be an escape from struggle, rather than its true purpose: to stand with Christ and face the demons and temptations head on (a lesson I myself learned the hard way in my own monastic discernment).

From here we are shown the symptoms and ills that lead to acedia and despondency; that man is missing God, and evil is, at its core, a personal power. Thanks to the depersonalization of self, this has been rooted in us, and with the loss of awareness of the personhood of God and our own being, this nameless anxiety, or “anonymous evil”, takes hold. What follows is an in-depth study of all of despondency's manifestations, its features (hard to peg as they are), and finally, its remedies.

Do you feel teased? Good. Though the book reads like a script from a lecture series (this blog could have easily been a dissertation had I spent any more time on it, and I can probably thank my reliance on easy access to talks and lectures for making actual reading difficult), its insight into the finer points of our spiritual psyche are, dare I say, near indispensable in an age where depression and the godless secular attitude is being force-fed to each of us from every angle. 

Order now.

Review by Raphael Fiedler of Orthodox Review

Part one focuses on the earliest sources, those being the New Testament, early poetry, and apocryphal literature. It’s worth noting the great extent of apocryphal sources explored, though Metropolitan Hilarion is keen to avoid gnostic sources as a point of dogmatic teaching, which is a great comfort. Special attention is paid to the Greek and Syriac traditions in which the Paschal faith is firmly set by the 2nd Century with the Paschal troparion as we know it already in regular use.

The second section draws more from the patristic tradition, and shows the natural evolution of the poetic sources, as well as the rise of Origen. To refute him, the anti-heretical work of Irenaeus and the extensive works of St Augustine, as well as “The Suffering of Christ” by Gregory Nazianzen, are also explored, as they present the descent as a redemptive fact.

The most exciting part of the book (in my humble opinion) focuses entirely on the works of Saint Ephrem the Syrian and Saint Romanos the melodist. Of great interest here is the importance of St Ephrem's ability to marry the Syriac poetic tradition to the Byzantine liturgical tradition, along with the impact his work has had on his contemporaries; most notably of which is St Romanos. So, in the life and work of St Romanos, we then are shown his amazing kontakia, and the evolution of our modern hymnography from that work. As a bonus, this section also collects a substantial amount of the latter's work, which is difficult to find in English, outside of out-of-print works and scholarly editions.

Finally, part four is almost entirely compiled of our current liturgical hymns used as an example and culmination of two thousand years of proclaiming Christ's triumph over sin and the grave, even to the harrowing of Hades.

Though the book does present the reader with some insight into our Orthodox beliefs about the title subject, its focus is plainly the poetic and liturgical expressions of those beliefs. As a lover of our Church's hymns, that suits me just fine. And, seeing as Metropolitan Hilarion is a composer, among other things, it's probably safe to assume this was intentional all along. He's my kind of nerd.

Review by Raphael Fiedler of Orthodox Review 

Saint Athanasius lived in fourth century Egypt and was the bishop of Alexandria. He was noted as the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism. “His very name was synonymous with Orthodoxy,” writes translator John Behr, who adds that the influence of On the Incarnation “on all later theology cannot be overstated.”

In a wide-ranging way, Athanasius explains the incarnation, but he does so by writing about the totality of God’s work, from creation to regeneration. He does this, he writes, so that “you may have an even greater and fuller piety towards him, for the more he is mocked by unbelievers by so much he provides a greater witness of his divinity, because what humans beings cannot understand as impossible, these he shows to be possible (cf. Matt 19.26), and what human beings mock as unseemly, these he renders fitting by his own goodness . . .”

He writes that it is necessary to speak about the creation of the universe because it was only fitting that the one who created all things would be the same one who works the salvation of man. He also explains that God granted man the gift of being created in his likeness as a rational being and relates it to the incarnation so that “you might know that our own cause was the occasion of his descent and that our own transgression evoked the Word’s love for human beings, so that the Lord both came to us and appeared among human beings.”

Furthermore, it was unworthy of the goodness of God that his work should disappear because of the sins of men and the work of demons. Repentance was not enough because it does not change “what is natural, but merely halts sin.”

For the Word, realizing that in no other way would the corruption of human beings be undone except, simply, by dying, yet being immortal and the Son of the Father the Word was not able to die, for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death, in order that it, participating in the Word who is above all, might be sufficient for death on behalf of all, and through the indwelling Word would remain incorruptible, and so corruption might henceforth cease from all by the grace of the resurrection.

On the Incarnation is rich with metaphors. God is the king who stays in a city and confers great honor to it, so Christ does so by inhabiting a human body. Christ is the landowner who, if need be, comes himself to ensure that the lands begun under him do not pass to others but to his friends. And he is the good teacher who “condescends to teach by simpler means those who are not able to benefit from more advanced things.” He writes:

For since human beings, having rejected the contemplation of God and as though sunk in an abyss with their eyes held downwards, seeking God in creation [genesis&91; and things perceptible, setting up for themselves mortal humans and demons as gods, for this reason the lover of human beings and the common Savior of all, takes to himself a body and dwells as human among humans and draws to himself the perceptible senses of all human beings, so that those who think that God is things corporeal might, from what the Lord wrought through the actions of the body, know the truth and through him might consider the Father.

This edition includes an introduction by C.S. Lewis who writes: ““When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a very simple test that I was reading a masterpiece . . . only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity.”

The purpose of the Church is not to create individuals who do something, but rather who are something. That was what author and academic Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett discovered when he studied how a bishop and his monastic spiritual children transformed a scandal-plagued town into one of the most spiritually vibrant regions in modern Greece. Beauty for Ashes, from St Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press, tells the fascinating story of Bishop Meletios of Preveza and Nikopolis and how he used the power and force of his own virtuous example, and that of his clergy and monastics, to influence the townspeople within his diocese.

The book covers the political history and religious character of the region of Nikopolis, from the time of the Apostle Paul in AD 63 to the arrival of Bishop Meletios in 1980. With great sensitivity, Lloyd-Moffett deals with the issue of sexual misconduct within the church, the restoration of the local church to spiritual health, and the renewed trust between church leaders and laity. He also offers a short biography of Meletios, the church leader who applied his ancient faith in a modern context to inspire spiritual and religious change.

Meletios had originally planned to be the abbot of a new monastery on Mount Athos with several of his spiritual children. Instead, in 1980, he is elevated to the episcopal throne Preveza and Nikopolis. From his election homily, Meletios is clear that the bishop’s role should not bring personal glory but co-suffering with Christ:

The chief mission of our Lord Jesus Christ was to offer his soul, his entire self, as ransom on behalf of the world. And in this way of “mystagogy,” the Lord taught his disciples saying, “Pay attention dear friends. Nothing separates you from me. For if I suffer, it is for the sake of the world. Therefore, if you are friends of mine, imitate me . . .” The bishop sits in the place of Christ. His throne and glory is the Cross. His joy and jubilation are persecution and reproach from the men of this world, who live far from God.

Lloyd-Moffett found that it was the power of virtue in Meletios himself, as well as his clergy and monastics, that became like a magnet for the people of Preveza. “His [Meletios’s&91; ability to be simple yet erudite, strict with himself yet compassionate with others, apolitical yet politically astute—these are rare qualities to put together in a single person,” he writes. “But as he himself notes, the specifics of any spiritual ‘personality’ are not as important as the continual struggle for virtue, self-denial, humility, and love. This struggle is what should be emulated—and it is contagious.”

The author also found that Meletios did not have a specific program for renewing his diocese. He would often say that he did not know how long he would be bishop, that he could lose his position at any moment, and that the power to change and heal comes from “an encounter with genuine holiness.” Writes Lloydd-Moffett:

Underlying all programs, Meletios is arguing, is human arrogance, the desire to play God. Good intentions are not enough if those intentions are attached to a personal agenda. The challenge is to eliminate one’s will: or rather, align one’s will with the will of God. The purpose of the Church leaders should be to act as a conduit or vessel of the divine, not a marketing arm of God. . . . Yet this hope is predicated upon an understanding of the Church as the mystical vessel of God’s grace and will. It is not an institution that we run, but a mystery in which we dwell. Only then will we be energized by the imperishable Life of Jesus Christ.

When Meletios became bishop, his diocese was accustomed to his predecessor favoring right-wing political parties. This alienated those on the left who viewed the Church scandals of Preveza as proof that the Church had no real place in modern Greece. In our own day of hyper political partisanship, it is instructive to note that Meletios was careful to never favor any particular political party, nor would he allow his clergy to stake out political positions. Said Meletios:

We avoid mingling in politics. “Politics” for every individual is a preference of certain viewpoints about the governance of the world. It gives rise to profits and passion. It stimulates antagonism and fanaticism. The cleric who is tangled up in politics ceases to have the correct communion with the opposite party. And so he does harm to the Gospel. His duty is to love. And like a father, he has to counsel all the leaders without bias. And also he has to counsel even to the leaders who have anti-ecclesiastical attitudes.

Lloydd-Moffett goes into tremendous detail to describe not only Meletios but his monastics and how they went about establishing an Orthodox monastery in the heart of a bustling market town. He also describes the “Alpha and Omega” work of developing the quality of the clergy, which was a chief priority for Meletios in his goal of renewing the Church. In the end, it is Meletios himself who stands as the main protagonist of this story, as he movingly describes himself here:

And even more, I never served my own interests above those of the Church. I boast that in this world I have nothing except my rason (monastic cloak), which is of minimal value, and a few books. My most valuable treasure is my pure conscience and my freedom. I boast that I am absolutely free from worldly attachments. My target and my aim is to be and to remain always such: absolutely free from men—absolutely and completely a servant of Christ.

I was on the edge of my seat reading the homilies on wealth, poverty, and social justice by St Basil the Great. In an age of pandemic, social unrest, and dwindling resources, Basil, who lived in the fourth century, is as relevant today as ever. And with his wit, insightful observation, original interpretation of Scripture, and—if we’re honest—a fair amount of sarcasm, I found myself eagerly anticipating what he would swing at me next.

Translator C. Paul Schroeder has done us a great service in On Social Justice by St Basil the Great, published by St Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press (part of the Popular Patristics Series). In his introduction, Schroeder says he translated these homilies out of a desire “to provide a collection of English translations in contemporary language for texts that either remained untranslated or were scattered throughout various works, some out of print and hard to obtain.”

The result is simply stunning. Basil will wake you up out of your stupor concerning how much wealth you think you need, how many possessions you should have, and what it truly means to “love thy neighbor.” Above all, he returns often to his underlying theme to simplify your life so that you have something to share with others.

He does all this with some surprising and original tools at his disposal. Basil was born into wealth and may have been from the nobility. That he understands the rich--their dress, homes, mannerisms and leisure--is obvious in the homily, To the Rich, “which contains an impressive description…of the landed aristocracy,” writes Schroeder. (Basil would give away all his inheritance to the poor shortly after he was baptized and establish the Basiliad, a community to assist the poor and sick).

The four homilies that comprise this work appear to be delivered around the time that Caesarea suffered from a severe drought followed by a famine and shortly after Basil’s ordination to the priesthood. “It was at this time that Basil truly ‘found his voice,’ writes Schroeder, “with regard to social issues, earning his reputation as one of the most powerful orators in the Christian East on matters of social justice.”

In the homily, I Will Tear Down My Barns, Basil writes insightfully of what a person thinks they need to live. “Tearing down one’s barns [taken from the Gospel parable in Luke 12.18&91; becomes a metaphor for describing an expanding baseline of need,” writes Schroeder. “Basil in effect says that if people never have anything to share, this is primarily due to the fact that whenever they find themselves in possession of a surplus, they immediately adjust their definition of need to fit the new situation.”

Basil interprets key Biblical passages, such as The Rich Young Ruler (found in Matthew 19.16–30 and in the other Synoptic Gospels), in a new way. While the passage had traditionally been interpreted as the problem of over-attachment to possessions or as a mandate for monastic renunciation of wealth, “Basil understands the spiritual malady of the rich young ruler…as a violation of the commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” In the homily, To the Rich, Basil writes:

It is thus evident that you are far from fulfilling the com-

mandment, and that you bear false witness within your own

soul that you have loved your neighbor as yourself. Look, the

Lord’s offer shows just how distant you are from true love!

For if what you say is true, that you have kept from your

youth the commandment of love and have given to everyone

the same as yourself, then how did you come by this abun-

dance of wealth? Care for the needy requires the expenditure

of wealth: when all share alike, disbursing their possessions

among themselves, they each receive a small portion for

their individual needs. Thus, those who love their neighbor

as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor;

yet surely, you seem to have great possessions! How else can

this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to

the consolation of the many? For the more you abound in

wealth, the more you lack in love.

Furthermore, Basil believes that God has provided enough resources to meet the needs of all. “These resources, however, are limited commodities, and must therefore be shared out equitably,” writes Schroeder. “In Basil’s view, a healthy economic system requires that resources remain in constant circulation, rather than being stored up or accumulated in large amounts for the benefit of a few individuals. “ In the homily, I Will Tear Down My Barns, he writes:

When riches are closed up like this so that they become

stagnant, what do they do for you? . . . Wells become more

productive if they are drained completely, while they silt up

if they are left idle. Thus wealth left standing is of no use to

anyone, but put to use and exchanged it becomes fruitful and

beneficial for the public.

What makes these homilies, and this translation, of Basil so effective is that while other patristic texts may be about highly theoretical ideas that need extensive instructions, Basil’s teachings on social justice are easily understood and applicable by the modern reader.

Other works by St Basil the Great from SVS Press:

• On Christian Ethics
• On Christian Doctrine and Practice
• On Fasting and Feasts
• On the Holy Spirit
• On the Human Condition

Depression has been called the malady of the modern age. And yet there is no shortage of psychotherapies, medicines, and self-help gurus promising relief. Letters to Saint Olympia by St John Chrysostom, from St Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press, allows us to receive instruction from a renowned Church father on how to deal with this most painful of struggles.

John Chrysostom was a priest-monk from Antioch who became the Archbishop of Constantinople. Known as “the golden-mouthed,” he was a powerful orator and is considered one of the greatest Church fathers. Olympia was an abbess and a deaconess who had been widowed young. Endowed with enormous wealth from her parents, she used her wealth to build the churches of Asia Minor and to assist the poor. Both Olympia and Chrysostom were persecuted from inside the Church. Chrysostom was forced into exile, and it was apparently this that caused Olympia’s profound and unrelenting despair.

The seventeen letters from John Chrysostom (twelve appear here in English for the first time) to his spiritual daughter, Olympia, at the end of his life, are by turns touching, profound, insightful, and deeply personal. Throughout, Chrysostom, one of the most gifted writers of Christian antiquity, demonstrates his deep knowledge of the nature of despondency and the great torment that it causes in both body and soul. He writes in Letter 10:

For despondency [athymia&91; is for souls a grievous torture chamber, unspeakably painful, more fierce and bitter than every ferocity and torment. It imitates the poisonous worm that attacks not only the body but also the soul, and not only the bones but also the mind. It is a continual executioner that not only tears in pieces one’s torso but also mutilates the strength of one’s soul.

The main thesis of his letters is that despondency is brought on by incorrect thinking, which can be overcome by a person exerting their will to correct the thoughts. God must be beseeched for help again and again, and, above all, the sufferer must patiently, and with gratitude, endure every hardship. “Bearing suffering nobly, without complaining, is probably the most common theme in his entire corpus,” writes translator David C. Ford in his introduction.

Often in the letters, Chrysostom uses the example of his own suffering to help Olympia to see that God uses it to train us for endurance and that the reward for such endurance is joy in this life and in the afterlife. The greater the suffering, the greater the reward. He writes in Letter 14:

Whatever is like a spider’s web, or shadow, or smoke, or anything else even more paltry—this is what the fierce torments coming upon you are like in comparison with the prizes that will be given to you in the coming age. For what is it to be driven out from one’s city, to be transferred from place to place, to be harassed everywhere, to have one’s goods confiscated, to be dragged before the tribunal, to be savagely mistreated by soldiers, to endure the opposition of those who have received from you a myriad of benefactions, to be abusively treated by both servants and free men, when the prize for all these things is heaven, along with those pure, good things which are impossible to describe and which have no bounds, and the enjoyment of which will be eternal for those who have procured them?

The letters are remarkable for Chrysostom’s lengthy and involved exegesis of key Biblical figures including Moses, Joseph, Elijah, Paul, and, his favorite Old Testament example of triumph over suffering, Job. He writes in Letter 10:

In order that you may learn, from another angle, what the gain of suffering is, even if one does not suffer for God—and no one would consider this to be an exaggeration—if one suffers and bears it nobly, and with meekness glorifies God for everything, he will be rewarded. Even Job did not know that he suffered those things for God—and indeed, this is why he was crowned, because he endured them nobly, not knowing the reason for his sufferings.

The letters are also extraordinary for the window they offer us on the intrigues and troubles of the Church in Chrysostom’s day. He entrusts to Olympia’s care several matters including ensuring the wellbeing of bishops whom he consecrated. Above all, he wants Olympia to bear up under the grief of these troubles. He writes in Letter eight:

When you hear that among the churches one has sunk, another is shaken, another is beaten by fearsome waves, another has suffered irreparable damage, one has received a wolf instead of a shepherd, and another a pirate instead of a pilot, and another an executioner instead of a doctor, then grieve (for it is not possible to bear such things without being pained)—yes, grieve, but set a limit to your grief.

It has been said that the best kind of writing is when the writer has been able to duplicate their speaking voice into words. It makes you feel like the person is speaking to you personally. And that is the case with this extraordinary set of letters that have, by some miracle, survived to us today.

Anther book from SVS Press that deals with the subject of depression and how to treat it from the perspective of the Orthodox Church is Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Acedia by Gabriel Bunge.

Having come up with a provocative and compelling title, Peter Bouteneff more than delivers on its promise in How to Be a Sinner from St Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press.

Bouteneff, a professor of systematic theology at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and editor of SVS Press’s Foundations Series, shows, in a systematic way, how to develop a healthy, healing way of identifying yourself as a sinner without the neurosis or poor self-image that can lead to detrimental habits. “True contemplation, that is, of other people, of the created world, and of God—of everything—is contingent upon our awareness of sin in ourselves,” writes Bouteneff. “We cannot see things as they are if we don’t see ourselves as we are.”

He writes that this “true perception of reality” will help motivate positive change and correction of your life through love and make you realize your total dependence on God.

Bouteneff takes great pains to examine the nature of the self and to explain that it is not split in half with one half delighting in doing good while the other half delights in sin. He writes:

Now, all of this still might sound as if we suffer from multiple personality disorder. Do we have two selves, an inner to love and an outer to hate? No—what we have is one innermost self that is broken by sin. That sin, these foibles and passions, are not a second self; they are the dirt on the mirror. The Orthodox funeral service reminds us of our real identity when we sing, “I am the image of your ineffable glory, though I bear the brands of transgressions.”

Bouteneff breaks down his ideas carefully, exploring the sinner identity and its “gifts,” and examining in depth the concepts of self-esteem, self-denial, and self-love. He also examines compunction, mercy, forgiveness, and divine judgement. He includes a very helpful “theological appendix” where he sets out the Biblical basis for the definition of a human being and of sin.

But his concepts are not only biblical, they are firmly located throughout the Orthodox tradition. The Church’s prayer tradition, he writes, “perpetually balances giving God glory and thanks, begging God’s protection and help, and confessing ourselves as sinners needing God’s mercy.” He discusses the “bright sadness” of the season of Lent and why the deeply penitential Canon of St Andrew remains one of the most popularly attended services.

In building his thesis, Bouteneff quotes modern day elders as well as the fathers of the Church. He uses their words to show that the individual must balance a healthy awareness of the “nobility and dignity” of their own soul with humility before God. He quotes Macarius of Egypt: “The one who has learned to know the dignity of his own soul is in a position to know the power and the mysteries of the Godhead, and thereby to be the more humbled.”

We call ourselves “sinners” in much of our church life. Bouteneff shows that the sinner identity—when done right—brings peace of mind, a clear conscience, and love for others.

Other books by Peter Bouteneff from SVS Press:

• Arvo Part: Out of Silence
• Sweeter than Honey: Orthodox Thinking on Dogma and Truth