On Name-Glorifying. A Talk by Bishop Job of Lutsk and Rivne, 2013.
On Name-Glorifying. A Talk by Bishop Job of Lutsk and Rivne (Ukrainian Autonomous True Orthodox Church) at a seminar on ecclesiological problems in the True Orthodox Church
Your Grace, dear Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters!
I would like to touch briefly on a question that concerns me personally and
that, I think, cannot but worry people for whom Christ is the meaning of life,
for whom He is all that is most valuable, for whom He is the most important,
for whom He is our salvation. This is the question of name-glorifying. What is
this thing called name-glorifying?
Of course, the learned men here present understand this question better
than I, and have been studying it for a long time. I will briefly relate how I
myself started to think about this question. I used to think that everything
that came before the Revolution was exemplary and correct (and then the
Bolsheviks came and ruined everything), so the ideal was to restore everything
that had been before the Revolution. If before the Revolution something was
judged to be a heresy, that means it was a heresy. And inasmuch as I heard that
some unreasonable monks on Athos – semi-literate or illiterate – said that the
Name of God is God Himself, I could of course only marvel at how clueless these
monks were. Until, thank God, I wrote to a nun about this – this is now Matushka
Kassia – and told her that this is a heresy. But she replied: this is no heresy
at all, and before you say anything, study the question yourself. I said: what,
it can be studied? She said: yes, it can: go read the primary sources. She
helped me, and then I myself began to get interested. And from that moment
(this is already about ten years ago), I began to study this question more
deeply and, reading the Holy Fathers, have tried everywhere to find an answer
to the question that interested me: what is name-glorifying?
To put it briefly, name-glorifying is the doctrine that the Name of God
(God’s Name in general or, in particular, the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or
the Name Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or Lord Jesus Christ – any Name of God) is not
just a sound, not just a bunch of letters, but is God’s power, energy, and
activity. It is grace, the glory of God, and a great gift of God.
Of the holy God-pleasers and ascetics of piety who are close to us in time,
Fr. John of Kronstadt wrote, and spoke, and lived by this especially much. But
inasmuch as before the Revolution it was not yet known that he would be
canonized among the saints, when his phrase “The Name of God is God Himself”
was emphasized by Fr. Hilarion, author of the book In the Mountains of the
Caucasus, and Fr. Anthony Bulatovich, a hieroschemamonk from the St.
Andrew’s Skete on Athos – when they began to pay serious attention to this
phrase, they were simply accused first of being illiterate, irrational, and
insane, and later of being rebels and heretics, and the whole thing ended with
the persecution and exile of several hundred monks from Athos. There were many
articles and books with various accusations published. The name-glorifiers were
accused of everything: magic, pantheism (that they worship all creation,
considering it to be God), Arianism, Eunomianism, and the like.
Unfortunately, one hundred years have passed (this year [2013] marks a
century since the sad events when the teaching of the name-glorifiers was
condemned by a Synod of the Russian Church as heretical), and since that time
this accusation has not been withdrawn. Strictly speaking, who should withdraw
it, and is it necessary to do so? It would be necessary, if one of the local
Churches, either of Russia or Constantinople, was reborn and was in some kind
of normal position. But we know that heretics are now in charge there –
ecumenists and Sergianists – and there is no point in waiting for this from
them.
But, unfortunately, here is the sad thing: there are now, alas, people even
among True Orthodox Christians, among True Orthodox jurisdictions (for me this
is the saddest thing), who are deliberately trying to make a bugaboo out of
name-glorifying and, under the guise of false zeal for the truth, are using
this supposed heresy of name-worshipping as a battering ram to crush their
competitors and seize ecclesiastical authority. Alas… There was a recent
performance by Metropolitan Agafangel, First Hierarch of ROCOR, which was in
the same spirit: name-glorifying is a heresy, completely forgetting (or trying
to get around the fact) that Fr. John of Kronstadt’s phrase “The Name of God is
God Himself” was repeated, explained, and disclosed by him many times – as if
this never happened. There was some guy named Anthony Bulatovich, some
rebellious monks, harbingers of the revolution, and nothing more…
In connection with this: what is name-glorifying, in short? When we
pronounce the Name of God, we are not simply beating the air with our tongues
and are not simply calling upon some God, Who is sitting somewhere far away
(perhaps someone imagines that He is sitting in the heavens and only hears when
He is called?)… We know (we have just chanted “Heavenly King… Who art
everywhere present and fillest all things…”) that God is everywhere, and
present everywhere. And we can know God, grow closer to God, and commune of the
Divine only thanks to His mercy, His gift. These gifts are diverse, and they
all have their place. The greatest and most important place is in the Communion
of the Holy Mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood. This is understandable. This
is the highest form possible for us now on earth for union with God – to take
God into ourselves. Although we chant in the Paschal Canon, and read after
Communion: “Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the unwaning
day of Thy Kingdom.” That is, when the Kingdom of God arrives in all its
fullness, both on earth as in heaven, when there will be the Second Coming of
Christ, we ask that we will commune even more perfectly of Christ.
One such gift, by God’s mercy, which has been revealed by God to man, is
His Name (or His Names – it does not matter, because in each of His Names are
also present the other Names).
The Name of the Son of God – Jesus – has great power and meaning, especially
in the practice of prayer and in the performance of the Mysteries. Many Holy
Fathers spoke about this, and defended it, and confessed it. You know that for
the Name of Jesus alone a multitude of martyrs accepted suffering and death,
specifically for this Name alone, for the confession of this Name. And when we
listen to the divine services, all the divine services are an invocation of the
Name. The Holy Fathers, who indeed had experience of communion with God and
were partakes of Divinity, spoke about this, about what the Name of Jesus is:
it is not simply letters, not simply sounds, but is God’s activity. And
therefore we are given the commandment that the Name of God should be
pronounced with great reverence and fear. One must not take it in vain, in jokes,
or in idle talk, because that is like playing with fire. When children play
with fire, sooner or later they are going to get into trouble. The same thing
happens if one pronounces the Name of God thoughtlessly and without the fear of
God.
I would like to give one quotation from a marvelous book that I recommend
you all read: The Watchful Mind: Teachings on the Prayer of the Heart by
a Monk of Mount Athos (his name remains unknown, but it is clear that he was a
great ascetic struggler and a man of holiness of life, who had attained the
heights of asceticism and hesychasm. This book, in a Greek manuscript of the
middle of the nineteenth century, has been preserved in a monastery on Athos;
it was recently republished and even translated into Russian and has already
gone through several editions.[1] In many places this unknown Athonite hesychast, as with all the Holy
Fathers, speaks very strongly about the meaning of the Name of Jesus Christ.
Here are his words, which personally very much surprised and pleased me,
evoking a sense of awe. Indeed, it is so:
“The name of Christ (which means ‘anointed’) is so good and precious, that
the entire world is not worthy of it. And it is so sweet and comforting to the
person who has tasted of its goodness that all the sweetness of this age cannot
compare to it. The preciousness and sweetness of the name of Christ is
understood and known only by those who have the pain of the prayer within them,
for by this work they have tasted the grace and sweetness of the name of
Christ.
“Man is composed of body and soul. The body is nourished by and grows from
the bread of the earth. The soul is nourished and strengthened by the Bread of
Life, which is Christ. That is why it says, ‘May your holy body be for me the
Bread of Life everlasting, O compassionate Lord!’
“So, the person who eats earthly bread without the pain of the prayer of
the heart and without bitter and deep sighing does not feel the goodness,
power, and energy of the name of Christ. For by eating the bread of the earth
without extreme pain, the heart becomes fattened, without feeling God. In other
words, he becomes indifferent towards the salvation of his soul. But the person
whose heart, soul, and chest ache from the force of the prayer, from sighing,
and from the invisible and visible temptations he experiences and endures out
of love for Christ, when he hears the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or when he
meditates upon it with inner pain, or when he calls upon it with living faith
and fervent reverence, such a person feels the power of the name of Christ
which activates his divine energy within him. The divine name of Christ seems
to the mind – as well as to the throat and mouth – as sweet as honey and sugar.
For this reason the Prophet David says, ‘How sweet to my taste are your
teachings, more than honey and the honeycomb in my mouth.’ The divine name
seems alive to the senses of the person. His ears are pleased and gladdened
upon hearing it. His bodily and spiritual eyes rejoice when they see it written
somewhere. The divine angels invisibly write the divine name of Christ, like
some royal name, in various places for the preservation and sustainment of the
world.
“When the person who has the divine name of Christ etched within him on
account of the force of the prayer of the heart hears it, he is filled with
such reverence that it penetrates into his soul. After this divine reverence, a
sweet joy enters his mind, for he hears the name as if it were some intimate,
beloved friend’s name. On account of this joy, tears run from his eyes. Because
of the prayer, his heart leaps within him, making merry and dancing. The soul
rejoices in the joy of its Lord. What else could all these things mean and
express except the intimacy of the soul with Christ, and that the name of
Christ works this way in the person whose heart aches from the force of the
prayer?”
This is just one saint, who speaks about the importance of the Name of
Christ. Therefore, when you compare this with what was written, profaning the
Name, in the Synodal period by so-called Synodal theologians, when they
humiliated it, effacing everything, and trying to prove that it is a simple
name, just an appellation, with nothing special about it – then remember just
how far away they already were before the Revolution from a genuine
understanding of what Orthodoxy is, of what salvation is, of Who Christ is…
They were alien to it. It’s sad, but true.
Therefore, when they condemned name-glorifying, they condemned Orthodoxy.
And now, if we want to be True Orthodox, we have no excuse (when we can read
everything, recognize everything, and study and compare everything, glory be to
God), if we do not understand that name-glorifying is a real diamond and the
heart of Orthodox doctrine and Orthodox life. And may God grant us to have this
Name always in our hearts, always to pronounce it reverently in prayer, living
by this Name, being nourished on it and saved by this Most Holy Name of our
Lord Jesus Christ and, in general, any Name of God! May it live in our hearts!
[1] It has just been published in English translation: A Monk of Mount Athos, The Watchful Mind: Teachings on the Prayer of the Heart, translated by Fr. George Dokos (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014). The passage cited by Bishop Job is on pp. 88-90 of this edition.
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