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Christ is in our midst, my dear readers!
Today [September 22] we celebrate the commemoration of the Synaxis of the Glinsk Elders, who were living icons of the Law of Christ. For several centuries, they were true teachers of monasticism. By their very lives, these elders demonstrated how to put into practice the words of the Apostle Paul, which we heard today in church: Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). They bore each other’s burdens with sincere love, because they knew that the Church is not a club of like-minded individuals, nor simply a gathering of those with shared interests. It is a battlefield, where there are the wounded, the fallen, and those still fighting. Here, the strong must help the weak, and the faint-hearted find support in the courageous.
The strength of the Church has always been in unity—which is why she is called ekklesia, a word that means “gathering” or “assembly.”
Love is not merely sympathy or compassion—it is carrying another’s cross.
The world seeks to divide the unity of humanity into an atomized, egoistic multitude, where each person is for himself and by himself. That makes it easier to control people and easier to manipulate them. We are witnessing the fruits of this ideology of hedonistic individualism: Families are falling apart, people live in virtual social networks without interacting face to face, and everyone thinks only about themselves and their own advantage.
That is just what devil wants us to become. More and more often we hear voices claiming that salvation is a private matter, and in it, everyone is on their own.
But had the Glinsk elders lived that way, they would all have perished immediately after their monastery was closed in 1961. And yet, they not only survived, but under constant surveillance, persecution, and oppression, they managed to create a hidden system of Orthodox sketes in the Caucasus Mountains, shielded from the outside world. These places became havens of refuge and arks of salvation for many ascetics, including those from other monasteries. To this day, no one knows the exact number of God-loving souls who saved themselves there and attained the heights of holiness. And all this became possible only through mutual cooperation, support, and help that believers—simple parishioners and monastics alike—gave to one another.
It is because of this unity that the Church has survived even the most difficult periods of her history.
And we, too, are entering such a time—a time when unity among ourselves becomes a necessary form of survival.
We are all one family, and among the clergy there must be no such thing as “someone else’s parishioner,” just as for the laity there must be no such thing as “someone else’s priest.”
The path of “each man for himself” or “by myself” is the road to destruction.
It is much easier the roaring lion, who walks about seeking whom he may devour, to destroy us one by one than to confront a united flock.
Only by bearing one another’s burdens can we become like Christ, who bore the burdens of the whole world—and thereby enter into that joy which God has prepared for those who love Him.
