Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh: aphorisms. Anthony of Surozh: Biography of Metropolitan Bloom
On the centenary of the birth of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, the magazine "Foma" offers readers a selection of the words of the bishop. As is known, Metropolitan Anthony almost always spoke without notes, and his sermons and conversations retain traces of oral speech. The accuracy of expressing thoughts, the ability to speak about the most important thing for a person, is a distinctive feature of the conversations of Metropolitan Anthony, who was born on June 6 (19), 1914.
God and man. Christ and Salvation:
We do not find the Savior and do not discover the Gospel if it is not proclaimed, not preached, if the news about it does not reach us. But proclaiming as such is not enough; it is not enough for us to hear a word in which there is more meaning and wisdom than in our former unbelief or ignorance. The word came to us when it penetrated our secret places, when it became the light for our mind, when the heart caught fire with this word, and we were inspired to live according to this word, heard from someone.
… our faith in Christ, in the Gospel is not a worldview; it is a life that opens before us, it is a new intensity, a new depth of life. And if this is not so, then we are not disciples, we are only hearers; because to be a disciple means to hear the message, accept it, and live according to that message...
…the first trait we find in faith: the ability to trust God…
Fellowship with the tree of life is communion with God.
... there is no such thing - except for rotten words and bad deeds - in which all God's love could not be embodied.
God is at the heart of history, God is with everyone who suffers...
... Christ came to save the lost. He came to save the sinners, not the righteous. He came to bring peace to the people who were at enmity with God.
… an encounter with Christ, or, if you prefer, with God in Christ; this is the meeting that we see constantly, it runs like a red thread through the entire Gospel.
[Freedom] This is a relationship of mutual love, when God does not “intrude” into our lives, when He does not “tempt” us with promises, when He does not enslave us with orders, but tells us: This is the way eternal life; I am the path. If you follow this path, you will reach the fullness of your being, and then you will become yourself in the full sense of the word, a God-man, you will partake of the Divine nature, as the Apostle Peter says about this (2 Pet. 1, 4).
…Christ the Savior is not only God who became a man, He is a Man in the fullest, only sense. Only insofar as a person partakes of God, he is fully human.
As a man, He entered into human labor; as God, He completed it on this eighth day, when everything is new, when eternity really begins now.
The divine scale of man lies in the fact that every man is called to become a partaker of the Divine nature, as the apostle Peter says.
The gospel is the only thing that affirmed the absolute significance, the absolute value of the individual. Ancient world didn't know this.
... one of the most inspiring moments of the Gospel: we are shown not only the love of God - we are shown the greatness of man, it is shown that a person can grow in the measure of Divinity and through this become capable of everything created by God, to lead to the fullness to which it is called.
... man is not called to be just one of the animal creatures, even the most wonderful; man is called to outgrow his creatureliness through communion with God…
We have something to say about a person, we have something to say that can inspire another, not destroy; it is not a question of giving an unbeliever a picture of a person that would destroy his picture; the point is to tell him something more about a person than what he thinks, to show him that a person is infinitely greater in size, depth than what an unbeliever thinks about him, that he himself is much more significant than what he is about. imagines himself.
... we must learn to grow up to the extent of our Christian humanity - which we have not achieved; we are below our own level, despite the colossal gifts we receive.
... we must believe in man with the same faith that we believe in God, the same absolute, resolute, passionate, and we must learn to see in man the image of God, the shrine, which we are called to bring back to life and glory, just like the restorer called to return to glory the damaged, trampled, shot-through icon that is given to him. It starts with ourselves, but it must also be addressed to others; and to other Christians, whom we so easily judge, and to our closest, dear ones. And to dissenters.
…man is the only… meeting point of the complete atheist and the conscientious believer.
... the human will, like a pendulum, oscillates between the will of God, which calls upon it, and the will of the demon, which seduces it.
… not a single word is said about people being judged on the basis of what their theological beliefs were; the only question is: were you a man or less than a man? If you were a man, the divine path is open to you; if you weren't even human, then don't claim the heavenly.
…were you human or not? If not, then how can you expect that your inhumanity ... can be infused with the Divine? How can you outgrow your creatureliness in communion with the Divine nature? How can you partake of God if you are not even a man?.. The question is not raised whether you believe, and what you believe; the most basic question, how would that soil, that foundation on which to build: are you a man or not?
Good and evil:
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Photo: Electronic Library "Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh"One can know goodness and grow beyond one's measure, but one cannot know evil and not be destroyed...
… only from the inside of communion with God can one understand what is good and what is evil. Adam made a mistake: he decided to find out in a created way what is good and what is evil. He decided, outside of God, to plunge into the material world and see: is it possible to live in it or not? ..
... it is absolutely clear from the Bible that it [sin] is committed at the moment when a person decides to independently know everything created, all creatureliness, everything that exists, not from within God, Who knows everything to the very depths, but by searching his own mind and experience. At this moment, a person, as it were, turns his back to God in order to turn his face to the world around him. As one Protestant pastor in France before the war said, the man who has turned his back on God and has his back to Him has no God; and the only source of life is God; such a person can only die. This is where sin is, and the consequence of sin, not as a punishment, but as an inevitable consequence: one cannot tear oneself away from Life and remain alive.
Sin and Repentance:
... The Savior asks: Do you want to be healed?.. It would seem that this question is not only unexpected, but simply incomprehensible: who does not want to be healed? But the word healing does not simply mean bodily recovery; to be healed means to be, as it were, newly created, to become whole again, without flaw, in complete harmony between God and oneself, harmony between conscience, inner truth - and life. And the Savior Christ poses these two questions one way or another to everyone. Each of us is ready to answer: Yes! I want wholeness! - but is it? Do we want the wholeness of our whole nature and the mind healed of all obscuration, and the heart cleansed of all impurity, and the will directed only towards harmony with the will of God, and the flesh free from all impure desires - do we want this? Do we want to be healed in such a way that there is nothing left in us that would not be God's, and that would not be worthy of our human greatness and honor, dignity?
If it were so, we would have to be, as it were, in the likeness of Christ with all our life and our inner aspiration, and with all our actions and words.
Relationships of people. Love. Marriage:
... we must realize ... how important and precious all our human relationships are, how they can play a decisive role in the absolute events of our life. How should we perceive and carefully, and thoughtfully, and holistically all the relationships that we have; because each relationship defines a situation that can blossom into a miracle—the miracle of meeting God.
... one of the most tragic things in the world is when two people or two groups of people cannot meet, not only do not have a common language, but do not even have a point of contact, when they, like two parallel lines, each go in their own direction, like two opposite infinities.
…it is not easy to learn to listen with the intent to hear, it is very difficult to learn to look with the intent to see.
I am very struck by the word meeting ... - this is a jubilant joy, because everyone sees himself in the other and at the same time is aware of this duality ... this is the unity of the two.
To love means to cease to see in oneself the center and purpose of existence.
Love manifests itself in this: in a person we suddenly see something that no one has seen; a person who passed unnoticed, abandoned, discarded, a stranger, a person who was simply in the mass of humanity, is suddenly noticed by us, becomes significant, the only one, and in this sense acquires final significance.
Not because the Church, the individual person is so perceived, honored, because there is this purity and virtue, but because the person who is loved becomes what he may never have been. He gets the quality of eternity.
Physical intercourse between a man and a woman is not sinful; lust is sinful, insensible greed is sinful. Ideally, marriage or mutual intercourse that leads to it begins when a person loves another, loves with his heart so much that they become one in spirit, one in soul; and it is quite natural that this love embraces the whole person, including his body. It is simply marvelous to think that our corporeality also participates in the mystery of love – not possession, not lust, precisely that love that makes two people one…
The Kingdom of God has already come when the two ceased to be two and became one...
Both the Old and the New Testament say that in marriage two people become one flesh, that is, one living being, one person in two persons; and of course, there can be no sin in essence...
... it is not a sin in marriage, not in the union of two sins, but precisely in the fact that in such cases there is no union, in the fact that when there is no love that makes two one, one being, then it is just the communion of two separate, excluding each other individuals who do not fully recognize each other. This is sin, this is adultery, this is uncleanness.
... freedom ... is: a state when two people love each other so much, treat each other with such deepest respect that they do not want to shred each other, change each other, they are mutually in a contemplative position ...
Freedom and slavery. Discipline and obedience:
Freedom is not that a person can do whatever he pleases, but that he, in the truest sense of the word, be himself ...
…to be born with the rights of a free person does not mean at all to be free or remain free. If you were born with the rights of a free man, but became a slave to your passions in any form, then you can no longer talk about freedom ...
... freedom ... is inseparably linked with discipline: in order to remain free, having been born free, one must learn to control oneself, to be a master of oneself.
... two concepts are immediately associated with the concept of freedom: the ability to control oneself, and the schooling that leads to this, which in essence is obedience.
… obedience is basically about learning to… listen to what the other is saying. And its goal is precisely to outgrow yourself thanks to the fact that you listen to the wisdom or experience of another person.
… when I speak about obedience, I am not talking about slavishly fulfilling certain rules of life, but about listening. The word "obedience" comes from the word "listen".
…obedience and freedom are inextricably linked; one is a condition of the other, like a school. But the ultimate goal of such obedience, which begins with listening, listening to the thoughts, feelings, experience of another person, is to teach us such a detachment from our preconceived thoughts or feelings that control us, so that we can then listen to the will of God.
Justice:
... justice begins where we say that this person exists completely outside of me, that he has the right to exist completely outside and even against me, he has the right to be himself ...
Church:
… The Church is a meeting place - a meeting between God and man.
... I was struck by the exact and very astonishing consonance between simplicity, integrity, transparency, freedom of the Gospel and Orthodoxy.
… the renewal of the Church begins with each of us; transformations, when they relate to the forms of prayer, when they relate to external structures, this is not yet a return to the origins, to the original source. There is one source of light from which springs the water of eternal life: the Gospel itself, which is a revelation to each of us and to all of us of what Man and human relations are.
As for the Moscow Patriarchate, we were then a very small group of people who made this decision on a very simple basis: as long as the Church does not profess heresy, they are not separated from it; such an ecclesiastical approach. Another approach: The Church, which is in a tragic situation, should not be abandoned by its children. It was not just a different or irrelevant approach. Of course, we couldn't do anything for the Russian Church: there were about fifty of us in Western Europe, we didn't matter at all. But we felt: by this we testify that the Russian Church is the Church - holy, ours, Christ's - and that was enough ...
People went to the Patriarchal Church not because they had certain social or political convictions; they went because she is the Russian Church, she has not betrayed Christ in any way, and we want to stand next to her or be in her. We had the feeling that she was holding us and carrying us in her arms (and there is still this feeling) ...
I believe that those who in the 1920s and 1930s departed from the Patriarchal Church in this order betrayed both ecclesiastical and human truth.
Truth Controversy:
Truth I defined as reality.
In disputes and political disagreements, it is so easy to believe that I am on the side of God, and whoever disagrees with me is on the other side.
Russia:
Each country chooses some expression by which it characterizes itself; but this expression does not necessarily describe what it really is, but what is its ideal and aspiration. So, France called itself La France tre s-chre tienne, the Germans insisted on Deutsche Treue, German loyalty; Russia spoke constantly about Holy Rus'. But to what extent she was holy and to what extent - in the struggle, whether she was completely striving for this - and did not fulfill her conscious calling, we can simply see from Russian history: both holiness and horror are extremely concentrated there. One of the short, clear, vivid pictures of what happened is Leskov’s story called “Chertogon”, where we see a person who is both a believer and a pious person, who really finds “hell knows what”, not in abusive, but in direct sense. And then he goes berserk and, having gone berserk, suddenly returns to God - and goes back to the former. In general, this is very characteristic of Russian history, and all the time it constantly runs like a red thread.
Fulfillment of commandments. Spiritual life.:
... it's not about being righteous before God through the fulfillment of the commandments, but about finding one's own path behind the commandment ...
... all spiritual life is concentrated not in man, but in God, it has its source in Him, is determined by Him, directed towards Him.
The word feat is associated with the idea of movement. An ascetic is one who does not remain inert, who is constantly in a creative state of movement.
Biography of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh (in the world Andrei Borisovich Bloom) was born on June 19 (June 6, O.S.) 1914 in Lausanne (Switzerland), in the family of a Russian diplomat of Scottish origin. On the maternal side, he was the nephew of the composer Alexander Scriabin.
He spent his childhood in Persia, where his father was a consul.
After the revolution, the family emigrated and, after several years of wandering around Europe, settled in Paris in 1923.
The future metropolitan came to faith at the age of 14, thanks to the reading of the Gospel.
At the same time, Andrei Bloom became an active member of the RSHD and a parishioner of the Three Hierarchs Compound in Paris, where in 1931 he was ordained a surplice to serve in the church.
After leaving school, he entered the Sorbonne and graduated from the biological and medical faculties there (1938).
He served at the front as an army surgeon in 1939-1940, then worked as a doctor in Paris, where during the occupation he participated in the French resistance movement and was a doctor in the anti-fascist underground.
On April 17, 1943, the rector of the Metochion and his confessor, Archimandrite Athanasius (Nechaev), was tonsured into a mantle with the name Anthony in honor of Saint Anthony Kiev-Pechersk.
He worked as a doctor until his ordination to the hierodeacon, performed on October 27, 1948 by Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov). On November 14, 1948, he was ordained a hieromonk and sent to Great Britain as the spiritual leader of the Anglo-Orthodox Commonwealth of Saint Albania and St. Sergius (1948-1950).
On September 1, 1950, Hieromonk Anthony was appointed rector of the Patriarchal Church of St. Philip the Apostle and St. Sergius in London.
On January 7, 1954, he was elevated to the rank of hegumen, and on May 9, 1956, to the rank of archimandrite. In December of the same year, he was appointed rector of the Patriarchal Church (later the Cathedral) of the Assumption Mother of God and All Saints in London. He remained in this position until his death.
On November 30, 1957, he was consecrated Bishop of Sergievsky, Vicar of the Western European Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate, based in London.
In 1962 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop with the task of caring for the Russians. Orthodox parishes in Great Britain and Ireland at the head of the Sourozh diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church established on October 10, 1962 in Great Britain.
On December 3, 1965, he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan and appointed Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe.
At the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in June 1990, he was tentatively nominated as an additional candidate for Patriarchal Throne. But his candidacy was rejected by Metropolitan Filaret (Denisenko), who presided over the first day of the Council, due to the fact that the proposed candidate did not have Soviet citizenship (which was a requirement of the Charter for a candidate for Patriarch). He was the chairman of the counting commission at the Council that elected Metropolitan Alexy (Ridiger) of Leningrad.
In Great Britain, through the efforts of Metropolitan Anthony, on the basis of a single small Russian parish in London, an entire diocese was formed, where lectures were given, annual parish meetings, general diocesan congresses and meetings of the clergy were held. Metropolitan Anthony actively participated in church and public life and enjoyed fame in different countries.
Metropolitan Anthony died on August 4, 2003 in London. The funeral service was held on August 13 in London cathedral Dormition Holy Mother of God and All Saints. It was performed by Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeev) of Minsk and Slutsk, co-served by other bishops and clergy of Surozh and other Russian dioceses Orthodox Church in Europe and Russia, as well as representatives of the Greek and Serbian clergy. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery next to his mother and grandmother.
Date of Birth: June 19, 1914 A country: England Biography:Andrey Borisovich Bloom was born on June 19 (6), 1914 in Lausanne in the family of an employee of the Russian diplomatic service. Ancestors on the father's side are immigrants from Scotland who settled in Russia in the time of Peter the Great; on the mother's side, he was related to the composer A.N. Scriabin.
Early childhood was spent in Persia, where the father of the family was a consul. After the revolution in Russia, the Bloom family ended up in exile and, after several years of wandering around Europe, settled in France in 1923. The boy grew up outside the Church, but one day, as a teenager, he heard a conversation about Christianity by a prominent theologian. This meeting determined the whole subsequent life of the future lord.
After high school, he graduated from the biological and medical faculties of the Sorbonne.
In 1931 he was ordained a surplice to serve in the Church of the Three Hierarchs Compound, at that time the only church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Paris.
September 10, 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly took monastic vows; On April 16, 1943, he was tonsured a monk with the name Anthony in honor of St. Anthony of the Kiev Caves. The tonsure was performed by the rector of the Three Hierarchs Metochion, the confessor of the one being tonsured, Archimandrite Athanasius (Nechaev).
During the German occupation, he served as a doctor in the anti-fascist underground. After the end of the war, he continued his medical practice until 1948.
On October 27, 1948, Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov), then Exarch of the Moscow Patriarch, was ordained a hierodeacon; mch. Albania and etc. Sergius.
From September 1, 1950 - rector of the churches of St. app. Philip and Rev. Sergius in London; church of st. app. Philip, granted to the parish by the Anglican Church, over time was replaced by a church in honor of the Assumption of the Mother of God and All Saints, the rector of which Father Anthony became on December 16, 1956.
In January 1953 he was elevated to the rank of abbot, by Easter 1956 - to the rank of archimandrite.
On November 30, 1957, he was consecrated Bishop of Sergievsky, Vicar of the Exarch of the Patriarch of Moscow in Western Europe. The consecration was performed in the London Cathedral by the Exarch of the Patriarch of Moscow in Western Europe, Archbishop Nikolay (Eremin) of Klish and Bishop of Apamea Jacob, Vicar of the Exarch Ecumenical Patriarch in Western Europe.
In October 1962, he was appointed to the newly formed British Isles within the framework of the Western European Exarchate, with the elevation to the rank of archbishop.
Since January 1963, after the retirement of Metropolitan Nikolai (Eremin), he was appointed Acting Exarch of the Patriarch of Moscow in Western Europe.
In May 1963 he was awarded the right to wear a cross on his klobuk.
On January 27, 1966, he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan and approved as Exarch in Western Europe. He carried this ministry until the spring of 1974, when his petition for release from the administrative duties of the Exarch was granted in order to more fully devote himself to the dispensation diocesan life and pastoral care of a growing flock.
During the years of Vladyka Anthony's ministry in Great Britain, the only parish that united a small group of emigrants from Russia turned into a multinational diocese, canonically organized, with its own charter and various activities.
In Russia, the word of the lord sounded for many decades thanks to the religious broadcasts of the Russian BBC service; his visits to Russia became a significant event, tape recordings and samizdat collections of his sermons dispersed throughout the country. Metropolitan Anthony's first books on prayer and spiritual life were published in English in the 1960s. and have been translated into many languages of the world; one of them ("Prayer and Life") managed to be published in 1968.
He was an honorary doctor of theology from the University of Aberdeen (1973), the faculties of Cambridge (1996), and also (1983, for a set of scientific and theological preaching works). On September 24, 1999, she awarded Metropolitan Anthony the degree of Doctor of Theology honoris causa.
Participant in theological discussions between delegations of the Orthodox Churches and representatives of the Anglican Church (1958), member of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church at the celebrations of the millennium of Orthodox monasticism on Mount Athos (1963), member of the commission of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on Christian unity, member of the Central Committee (1968-75) and the Christian Medical Commission of the WCC; member of the Assemblies of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi (1961) and Uppsala (1968), member of the Local Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church (1971, 1988, 1990).
At the beginning of 2003, he underwent a surgical operation, after which, on February 1, 2003, he filed a request for retirement for health reasons. On July 30, by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was released from the administration of the Sourozh diocese and retired.
He died on August 4, 2003 in London in a hospice. The funeral service took place on August 13 at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and All Saints. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery in London.
Here youth passed, marked by the ordeals of emigre life and a deeply conscious aspiration to live for Russia. The boy grew up outside the Church, but one day as a teenager he heard a conversation about Christianity by a prominent theologian [Fr. Sergius Bulgakov], who, however, did not know how to talk with the boys, who valued courage and military order above all else. Here is how Vladyka himself recalls this experience:
He spoke about Christ, about the Gospel, about Christianity /.../, bringing to our consciousness all the sweet things that can be found in the Gospel, from which we would have shied away, and I shied away: meekness, humility, quietness - all slavish qualities, in whom we are reproached from Nietzsche onwards. He got me into such a state that I decided /…/ to go home, find out if we have the Gospel somewhere at home, check it out and put an end to it; it didn't even occur to me that I wouldn't be done with it, because it was quite obvious that he knew his stuff. /…/ Mom turned out to have the gospel, I locked myself in my corner, found that there were four gospels, and if so, then one of them, of course, must be shorter than the others. And since I did not expect anything good from any of the four, I decided to read the shortest. And then I got caught; I have found many times since then how cunning God is when He lays down His nets to catch fish; because if I read another gospel, I would have difficulties; behind every gospel there is some kind of cultural base. Mark wrote precisely for such young savages as I - for the Roman youth. I did not know this - but God knew, and Mark knew, perhaps, when he wrote shorter than others. And so I sat down to read; and then you, perhaps, take my word for it, because you can’t prove it. / ... / I sat, read, and between the beginning of the first and the beginning of the third chapter of the Gospel of Mark, which I read slowly, because the language was unusual, I suddenly felt that on the other side of the table, here, stands Christ. And this feeling was so overwhelming that I had to stop, stop reading and look. I looked for a long time; saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. But even when I looked straight ahead at that place where there was no one, I had a vivid consciousness that Christ was undoubtedly standing there. I remember that I leaned back and thought: if the living Christ is standing here, then this is the risen Christ; This means that I know for certain personally, within the limits of my personal, own experience, that Christ is risen and, therefore, everything that is said about Him is true.
This meeting determined the whole subsequent life, not its external events, but the content:
After high school, he graduated from the biological and medical faculties of the Sorbonne. In the year he was consecrated to the surplice to serve in the church of the Three Hierarchs Compound, then the only church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Paris, and from these early years invariably kept canonical fidelity Russian Patriarchal Church. On September 10, before leaving for the front, the surgeon of the French army secretly took monastic vows; in a mantle with the name Anthony (in honor of St. Anthony of the Kiev Caves) was tonsured on April 16, under Lazarus Saturday; the tonsure was performed by the rector of the Metochion and the spiritual father of the tonsured, Archimandrite Athanasius (Nechaev).
During the German occupation - a doctor in the anti-fascist underground.
After the war, he continued medical practice until a year when Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov), then Exarch of the Moscow Patriarch, called him to the priesthood, ordained him a hierodeacon on October 27, and a hieromonk on November 14) and sent him to pastoral service in England, the spiritual director of the Orthodox-Anglican Commonwealth Martyr Albania and St. Sergius, in connection with which Hieromonk Anthony moved to London.
During the years of Vladyka Anthony's ministry in Great Britain, the only parish that united a small group of emigrants from Russia turned into a multinational diocese, canonically organized, with its own charter and diverse activities. The parishes of the diocese and its individual members bear witness responsibly Orthodox faith rooted in the Gospel and in patristic tradition. The diocese is constantly growing, which is especially remarkable against the background of the crisis of faith that has gripped the Western world, and the fact that all Christian denominations in the West are losing their members and decreasing in number.
Here is the testimony (1981) of Dr. Robert Rancy, Archbishop of Canterbury:
“The people of our country - Christians, skeptics and unbelievers - are in a huge spiritual debt to Metropolitan Anthony. /…he/ talks about Christian faith with a directness that inspires the believer and calls the seeker /…/ He works tirelessly for the sake of greater mutual understanding between Christians of East and West and opens to the readers of England the legacy of Orthodox mystics, especially the mystics of Holy Rus'. Metropolitan Anthony is a Christian leader who has earned respect far beyond the borders of his community.” It is no coincidence, therefore, that he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Aberdeen with the wording "for the preaching of the word of God and the renewal of spiritual life in the country."
Metropolitan Anthony is widely known not only in Great Britain, but throughout the world as a pastor-preacher; he is constantly invited to speak to a wide variety of audiences (including radio and television audiences) preaching the gospel, the Orthodox gospel of the living spiritual experience of the Church.
The peculiarity of Vladyka's work is that he does not write anything: his word is born as an oral appeal to the listener - not to a faceless crowd, but to every person who needs a living word about the Living God. Therefore, everything published is printed from tape recordings and preserves the sound of this living word.
The first books about prayer, about spiritual life were published in English back in the 1960s and translated into many languages of the world; one of them (“Prayer and Life”) was published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy in Za last years Vladyka's works are widely published in Russia both in separate books and on the pages of periodicals, both ecclesiastical and secular.
In addition to the already mentioned award from the University of Aberdeen (g.), Metropolitan Anthony is an honorary doctor of theology from the faculties of Cambridge (), as well as the Moscow Theological Academy (- for the totality of scientific and theological preaching works). On September 24, the Kiev Theological Academy awarded Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh the degree of Doctor of Theology honoris causa.
Metropolitan Anthony is a participant in theological discussions between delegations of the Orthodox Churches and representatives of the Anglican Church (), a member of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church at the celebrations of the millennium of Orthodox monasticism on Mount Athos (), a member of the Commission of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on Christian unity, a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (1968-1975) and the Christian Medical Commission of the WCC; member of the Assemblies of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi () and Uppsala (), member of the Local Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church, and years.
Video
The teaching of Mr. Anthony on repentance and confession, August 1995
Awards
Church:
- wearing a cross on a hood (May 1963).
- Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. equal to ap. book. Vladimir 1st degree (1961 and 1989); Rev. Sergius 1st (1997) and 2nd degree (1979); blgv. Prince Daniel of Moscow 1st degree (1994); St. Innocent of Moscow 2nd degree (1999).
- Order of the Constantinople Orthodox Church of St. app. Andrew (1963).
Secular:
- Bronze medal of the Society for the Encouragement of Good (1945, France).
Non-Orthodox:
- Church of England award Lambeth Cross (1975).
- Browning award ("for spreading the Christian gospel", USA, 1974).
Compositions
- Faith. Kyiv: Prologue, 2004. 271 p.
- Watch how you listen ... / Comp. E. Maidanovich. M.: Alfa i Omega, 2004. 544 p.
- Shepherding. Minsk: Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate, 2005. 460 p.
- The Word of God. Kyiv: Prologue, 2005. 340 p.
- About confession. Moscow: House of Hope; New furs, 2007. 272 p. (in foreign languages):
- About contemplation and achievement (French).
- "Contacts", 28/1949, 49-67.
- Stigmata (French).
- "Herald of the Exarchate" 1963, 44, 192-202.
- Prayer and Life (in English). London, 1966. 125 p.
- For a book review, see JMP. 1967, no. 3, p. 75-76.
- The true price of a person (English).
- Sobornost, ser. 5, no. 6, (London, 1967, 383-393).
- Problems of the Orthodox Diaspora (French).
- "Contacts", 1968, 62-63.
- Prayer (French)
- "Herald of the Exarchate", 65, 1969, 16-24.
- Children of God and Their Freedom in the Church (English).
- "Ecumenical Dialogues". 21/1970, p. 417-424.
- Who is God? What is God? (Report delivered November 11, 1969 to the Orthodox Brotherhood in Paris) (French).
- "Contacts", 1970, 70, 95-118.
- Personal memories of Patriarch Alexy (French).
- "Herald of the Exarchate", 1970, 69, 89-92.
- Parable about prodigal son(French).
- "Bulletin of the Exarchate", 1970, 69.
- God and Man (English). London, 1971, 125 p.
- Meditation on the topic. Spiritual Journey (English). London, 1971.
- Path to Meditation (in German). Bergen/Enkheim, 1972, 92 p.
- School of Prayer (French). Paris, 1972, 156 p.
- Bozhiyata Mike (Bulgarian language. Mother of God).
- "Spiritual culture". 1973.
- Spiritual Journey (French). Paris, 1974. 176 p.
- Shepherd, death. (French). 26, 1974, 40-45.
- Word at the prayer service at the opening of the meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Central Committee in Berlin, August, 1974 (French).
- "Herald of the Exarchate", 1974, 85/88, 14-17.
- Word for Easter in 1974 in London (French).
- "Herald of the Exarchate", 1974, 85/88, 9-12.
- Like a living, risen from the dead (French)
- "Contacts", 89/1975, 67-99.
- Against Christ. Stops (German). Freiburg/Bremen, 1975. 142 p.
- Living prayer (German). Freiburg/Bremen, 1976, 144 p.
- On the Question of God (French)
- "Herald of the Exarchate", 1976, 93-96.
- The Suffering and Death of Children (English).
- "Eastern Church Review". 1976, 8, 107-112.
Literature
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- - "-, 1969, No. 4, p. 6.
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- - "-, 1973, No. 8, p. 16.
- - "-, 1974, No. 2, p. 5; No. 6, p. 4; No. 11, p. 43.
- - "-, 1975, No. 6, p. 4.
- - "-, 1976, No. 1, p. 6.
- - "-, 1979, No. 10, p. 2.
- - "-, 1981, No. 7, p. 6; No. 9, p. 9.
- - "-, 1982, No. 2, p. 49; No. 3, p. 18-25; No. 5, p. 9.
- - "-, 1983, No. 1, p. 26; No. 6, p. 18; No. 7, p. 55.
- - "-, 1984, No. 8, p. 6; No. 12, p. 33.
- - "-, 1985, No. 2, p. 3.
Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh (in the world Andrey Borisovich Bloom) is one of the most famous Orthodox missionaries of the 20th century, who brought many people of Western Europe to the Church by the example of his life and radio sermons.
We bring to the attention of readers ten selected stories from the life of this Orthodox hierarch-missionary, who for a long time headed the Sourozh diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, which can serve as a good Christian example for all of us:
1. While still hegumen, the future bishop attended a dinner in one house. After dinner, he offered his help to the hosts and washed the dishes.
Years passed, hegumen Anthony became a metropolitan. One day he dined with the same family. And again after dinner he offered to wash the dishes. The hostess was embarrassed - after all, the metropolitan, but she will wash the dishes - and violently protested.
“Well, did I wash it badly last time?” Vladyka asked.
2. Once, in his youth, the future Vladyka Anthony returned home from a summer vacation. At home, his father met him and said: "I was worried about you this summer."
Andrei Bloom decided to joke and answered his father: “Are you afraid that I would break my leg or crash?”
But he replied: “No. It wouldn't matter. I was afraid that you would lose honor. You remember whether you are alive or dead - it should be completely indifferent to you, just as it should be indifferent to others; the only thing that matters is what you live for and what you are willing to die for.”
3. Once, in response to the question of one of his interlocutors about how to combine spiritual life with love for people and the example given with the excessive zeal of novice Christians, Vladyka shared a personal recollection:
“It usually happens that everyone in the house becomes holy as soon as someone wants to climb to heaven, because everyone must endure, humble themselves, endure everything from the “ascetic”. I remember once I was praying in my room in the most exalted spiritual mood, and my grandmother opened the door and said: “Peel the carrots!” I jumped to my feet, said, "Grandma, can't you see that I was praying?" She replied, “I thought that praying meant being in fellowship with God and learning to love. Here is a carrot and a knife.”
4. Once Metropolitan Anthony had to stand waiting for a taxi near the hotel "Ukraine". Here a young man approached him and asked: “Judging by your dress, are you a believer, a priest?”
The Lord replied: "Yes." - “But I don’t believe in God ...” The Metropolitan looked at him and said: “It’s a pity!” - "And how will you prove God to me?" "What kind of proof do you need?" - “But: show me your God in the palm of your hand, and I will believe in Him ...”
He extended his hand, and at that moment Vladyka saw that he had wedding ring and asked: "Are you married?" - “Married” - “Do you have children?” - “And there are children” - “Do you love your wife?” - “How, I love” - “Do you like children?” - "Yes" - "But I don't believe in it!" - “That is, how: I do not believe? I'm telling you…" - "Yes, but I still don't believe it. Here put your love on the palm of your hand, I will look at it and believe ... "
He thought: “Yes, I didn’t look at love from this point of view! ...”
5. It seems strange to many why Vladyka Anthony is called Surozhsky. After all, Surozhye (now - Sudak) is an ancient Sugdea, a Byzantine colony, in the Middle Ages - one of the first Christian cities in Crimea. Why Surozhsky?
When Vladyka Anthony was appointed ruling archbishop to Great Britain, the title chosen was Bishop of Great Britain and Ireland. But the Anglicans already had their own Archbishop of London, and such a pompous title for a Russian newcomer would have aroused the enmity of the island Church.
Vladyka Anthony turned to Archbishop Michael Ramsay of Canterbury, his friend, for advice. He, as it were, confirmed the thoughts of Vladyka Anthony: it is better that the title be Russian. This is how Surozhye appeared for the first time. After all, to take the name of a vanished diocese is, as it were, to restore it.
But there was another reason why Vladyka Anthony chose the Russian title. He considered himself a man of Russian culture, and Russia - the Motherland. Vladyka spoke mostly Russian, although he learned several languages during his service. He really wanted to have a Russian title.
Vladyka addressed the Patriarchate with a request, the request was granted. So the archbishop of Great Britain and Ireland became Surozh.
Here is what Vladyka Anthony himself said about this: “In the Russian Church, when a new diocese abroad is created, it is customary to give a title after the diocese that existed in antiquity and died out. In view of this, they gave me the title of Surozhsky. It was gratifying for me to have the title of a purely Russian, ancient, but, moreover, missionary diocese, because I considered our role in the West as missionary.”
6. One day, for the first time in his life, Vladyka Anthony was visited by his future spiritual son, Igor Petrovsky. Metropolitan Anthony was holding a conversation with the parishioners in the cathedral. When new person approached for a blessing, Vladyka said: “I have a feeling that we need to talk” and called him to his cell for a conversation.
When Igor was already leaving, the shepherd said goodbye to him: “I will pray for you as best I can. And let's agree to meet in two months at four o'clock in the afternoon."
“And that's it! Two months later at four in the afternoon! Like in the movies: "At six o'clock in the evening after the war." I did not quite believe the seriousness of these words. He is the head of a huge diocese; hundreds of cases, dozens of meetings, services, trips. How, in the whirlwind of these big questions, can one remember, remember such a small meeting?
Surprise knew no bounds when, two months later, approaching the Assumption Cathedral in London, I saw him sitting on a bench. He immediately got up to meet me, hugged me and said: “I have been waiting for you for a long time”…”, the spiritual son shared his memories.
7. By the early 1960s, Vladyka Anthony's ministry in England was fraught with enormous everyday difficulties. There was no temple that would be considered "Russian" - but they managed to get a specially designed room in order to celebrate the Liturgy. It was the old Anglican church of St. Philip, the rent of which had to be paid a considerable amount.
I had to raise funds, repair, clarify administrative relations. Sometimes I had to preach in the streets.
Vladyka Anthony loved to preach on the streets - it reminded him of apostolic times. Often outsiders turned out to be among the listeners - hippies. In the memoirs there is a story about a young man with a huge dog who came to the sermon of Metropolitan Anthony. People were amazed when his dog, a black Newfoundland, literally rushed to Vladyka as soon as he saw him, lay down at his feet and began to listen attentively to what Vladyka was saying, as if he understood what was being said.
8. In 1956 Anglican Church sold a small area to the city authorities. On the territory there was an old, almost destroyed church of St. Philip, which the authorities offered to Metropolitan Anthony.
The condition for the community to receive the temple was its complete renovation. The repairs were to be carried out with the money of the community and under the supervision of the Anglican diocesan architect. But it was still cheaper than renting.
20 years have passed and suddenly everything has changed. A wealthy Chinese restaurant offered money to the authorities for this building, where it was going to place a dance floor, offices, kitchen, etc. Vladyka Anthony was summoned by the Anglican authorities and set a condition: either the church would be redeemed by the community, or it would be given to the Chinese. Vladyka firmly replied that he was "buying" the temple. Vladyka had no money, and he did not hide it. But he repeated that he was buying, and the money would be. The authorities agreed to the deal.
Vladyka Anthony gathered the parishioners and said: “We have been praying in this church for 23 or 24 years. We buried our parents in this church, we married you, we baptized you, we baptized your children, many of you have become Orthodox here. Are we really going to give this temple for a restaurant and a dance?
Of course, the temple must be redeemed. But Vladyka, understanding all the subtleties of the matter, said: “We will buy the temple with our own money, obtained by our labor. No sponsors, no benefactors. Because a benefactor can lay claim to this place, and then all the works will perish.”
Fundraising has begun. And surprisingly small community pretty soon she was able to raise a significant amount - in a year and a half, 50,000 pounds were collected. It was almost half the amount.
The British decided to conduct a new check with an estimate of the cost of the temple: what if it costs not a hundred thousand, but more? An architect was invited to conduct an examination, but the new price turned out to be 20 thousand less - in total 80 thousand were needed, so that more than half of the required amount had already been collected. But the strength of the community was exhausted, every hundred pounds was given with great effort. Doubts began...
Rumors about the heroic community spread around London in circles. One journalist from The Times, the most authoritative national newspaper, learned about the events from St. Philip and wrote an article in which she compared the apathetic Anglican parishes with a vibrant and developing Russian community. It seems that no one should have paid attention to this note. But a miracle happened.
Money began to come to the temple. Basically, these were small, two or three pounds, donations from the British and Russians: One old Englishman, a Catholic, to whom the books of Vladyka Anthony helped the old man not to lose heart in a nursing home, sent Vladyka Anthony three pounds, and said that was all, that he has. He even sent away his wedding ring, enclosing it with a letter and three pounds. This ring became an engagement ring for a young couple, who were still very poor, to buy a ring; Vladyka Anthony recorded his sermons on cassettes. Some of these cassettes came to an old lady living in Switzerland and she donated her gold teeth to the temple...
By 1979, 80 thousand pounds had been collected and paid, and the temple remained with the community.
9. The story of Irina von Schlippe: “In some cases and when he had the opportunity, he invited a person to come to a long confession. home or temple. And there, not formally, but having well understood - what you repent of and whether you repent - he accepted confession.
I myself have never had such an opportunity, but I know people who spent the whole day with him, confessing with his help. When asked what kind of confessor he was, I would answer this way: every face-to-face meeting with him was actually a confession. He said: “You and I will now enter into eternity and see what happens.”
10. Narrated by Metropolitan Anthony himself:
“When I lived with my grandmother and mother, we had mice in our apartment. They ran in regiments, and we did not know how to get rid of them. We did not want to put mousetraps, because we felt sorry for the mice.
I remembered that in the breviary there is an admonition by one of the saints to wild beasts. It starts with lions, tigers and ends with bedbugs. And I decided to try. He sat down on a bunk in front of the fireplace, put on an epitrachelion, took a book and said to this saint: “I don’t believe at all that something will come out of this, but since you wrote it, it means you believed. I will say your words, maybe the mouse will believe, and you pray that it will work out.
I sat down. The mouse is out. I crossed her: "Sit and listen!" - and read a prayer. When I finished, I crossed her again: "Now go and tell others." And after that, we didn’t have a single mouse! ”
Based on publications of various Orthodox resources. Compiled by Andrey Segeda
In contact with
ANTONY, Metropolitan of Sourozh (in the world Andrei Borisovich Bloom, Bloom) was born on June 19, 1914 in Lausanne, in the family of an employee of the Russian diplomatic service. Ancestors on the father's side - immigrants from Scotland, settled in Russia in the time of Peter the Great; by mother, he is related to the composer A.N. Scriabin. He spent his early childhood in Persia, where his father was a consul. After the revolution in Russia, the family ended up in exile and after several years of wandering around Europe, in 1923 settled in France. Here youth passed, marked by the ordeals of emigre life and a deeply conscious aspiration to live for Russia. The boy grew up outside the Church, but one day as a teenager he heard a conversation about Christianity by a prominent theologian, who, however, did not know how to talk with boys who valued courage and military order above all else. Here is how Vladyka himself recalls this experience:
He spoke about Christ, about the Gospel, about Christianity /.../, bringing to our consciousness all the sweet things that can be found in the Gospel, from which we would have shied away, and I shied away: meekness, humility, quietness - all slavish qualities, in whom we are reproached from Nietzsche onwards. He got me into such a state that I decided /…/ to go home, find out if we have the Gospel somewhere at home, check it out and put an end to it; it didn't even occur to me that I wouldn't be done with it, because it was quite obvious that he knew his stuff. /…/ Mom turned out to have the gospel, I locked myself in my corner, found that there were four gospels, and if so, then one of them, of course, must be shorter than the others. And since I did not expect anything good from any of the four, I decided to read the shortest. And then I got caught; I have found many times since then how cunning God is when He lays down His nets to catch fish; because if I read another gospel, I would have difficulties; behind every gospel there is some kind of cultural base. Mark wrote precisely for such young savages as I - for the Roman youth. I did not know this - but God knew, and Mark knew, perhaps, when he wrote shorter than others. And so I sat down to read; and then you, perhaps, take my word for it, because you can’t prove it. / ... / I sat, read, and between the beginning of the first and the beginning of the third chapter of the Gospel of Mark, which I read slowly, because the language was unusual, I suddenly felt that on the other side of the table, here, stands Christ. And this feeling was so overwhelming that I had to stop, stop reading and look. I looked for a long time; saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. But even when I looked straight ahead at that place where there was no one, I had a vivid consciousness that Christ was undoubtedly standing there. I remember that I leaned back and thought: if the living Christ is standing here, then this is the risen Christ; This means that I know for certain personally, within the limits of my personal, own experience, that Christ is risen and, therefore, everything that is said about Him is true.
This meeting determined the whole subsequent life, not its external events, but the content:
After high school he graduated from the biological and medical faculties of the Sorbonne. In 1931 he was consecrated as a surplice to serve in the Church of the Three Hierarchs Compound, then the only church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Paris, and from those early years he invariably kept his canonical loyalty to the Russian Patriarchal Church. September 10, 1939, before leaving for the front, a surgeon of the French army secretly took monastic vows; in a mantle with the name Anthony (in honor of St. Anthony of the Kiev Caves) was tonsured on April 16, 1943, under Lazarus Saturday; the tonsure was performed by the rector of the Metochion and the spiritual father of the tonsured, Archimandrite Athanasius (Nechaev). During the German occupation, a doctor in the anti-fascist underground. After the war, he continued his medical practice until 1948, when Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov, then Exarch of the Moscow Patriarch) called him to the priesthood, ordained him (on October 27 as a hierodeacon, on November 14 as a hieromonk) and sent him to pastoral service in England, as the spiritual director of the Orthodox Anglican Church. Commonwealth of St. mch. Albania and Rev. Sergius, in connection with which Hieromonk Anthony moved to London. From September 1, 1950, the rector of the churches of St. app. Philip and Rev. Sergius in London; church of st. app. Philip, granted to the parish by the Anglican Church, was eventually replaced by a church in the name of the Assumption of the Mother of God and All Saints, whose rector Father Anthony became on December 16, 1956. In January 1953 he was awarded the rank of abbot, by Easter 1956 - archimandrite. On November 30, 1957, he was consecrated bishop of Sergius, vicar of the Exarch of the Patriarch of Moscow in Western Europe; the consecration was performed in the London Cathedral by the then Exarch, Archbishop Nikolai of Clish (Eremin) and Bishop of Apamea Jacob, Vicar of the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Western Europe. In October 1962, he was appointed to the newly formed in the British Isles, within the framework of the Western European Exarchate, the Diocese of Sourozh, with the elevation to the rank of archbishop. Since January 1963, after the retirement of Metropolitan Nikolai (Eremin), he was appointed Acting Exarch of the Patriarch of Moscow in Western Europe. In May 1963 he was awarded the right to wear a cross on his klobuk. On January 27, 1966, he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan and approved as Exarch in Western Europe; he carried this ministry until the spring of 1974, when his petition for release from the administrative duties of the Exarch was granted in order to devote himself more fully to the organization of diocesan life and the pastoral care of the ever-increasing flock.
During the years of Vladyka Anthony's ministry in the UK, the only parish that united a small group of emigrants from Russia turned into a multinational diocese, canonically organized, with its own charter and diverse activities. The parishes of the diocese and its individual members responsibly bear witness to the Orthodox faith rooted in the Gospel and in patristic tradition. The diocese is constantly growing, which is especially remarkable against the background of the crisis of faith that has gripped the Western world, and the fact that all Christian denominations in the West are losing their members and decreasing in number. Here is the testimony (1981) of Dr. Robert Rancy, Archbishop of Canterbury: “The people of our country - Christians, skeptics and unbelievers - owe a great spiritual debt to Metropolitan Anthony. /...he/ speaks of the Christian faith with a frankness that inspires the believer and calls the seeker /.../ He works tirelessly for the sake of greater mutual understanding between Christians of East and West and opens to the readers of England the heritage of Orthodox mystics, especially the mystics of Holy Rus'. Metropolitan Anthony is a Christian leader who has earned respect far beyond the borders of his community.” It is no coincidence, therefore, that he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Aberdeen with the wording "for the preaching of the word of God and the renewal of spiritual life in the country." Metropolitan Anthony is widely known not only in Great Britain, but throughout the world as a pastor-preacher; he is constantly invited to speak to a wide variety of audiences (including radio and television audiences) preaching the gospel, the Orthodox gospel of the living spiritual experience of the Church.
The peculiarity of Vladyka's work is that he does not write anything: his word is born as an oral appeal to the listener - not to a faceless crowd, but to every person who needs a living word about the Living God. Therefore, everything published is printed from tape recordings and preserves the sound of this living word.
The first books about prayer, about spiritual life were published in English back in the 1960s and translated into many languages of the world; one of them (“Prayer and Life”) was published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1968. In recent years, Vladyka’s works have been widely published in Russia both as separate books and on the pages of periodicals, both ecclesiastical and secular.
In Russia, the word of Vladyka was heard for many decades thanks to the religious broadcasts of the Russian service of the BBC; his visits to Russia became a significant event, tape recordings and samizdat collections of his sermons (and conversations in a narrow circle of close people in private apartments), like circles on water, diverged far beyond Moscow. His preaching, in the first place - the preaching of the Gospel Love and Freedom, was of great importance in the Soviet years. The spiritual experience that Metropolitan Anthony not only carries within himself, but is able to convey to those around him is a deeply personal (although not closed on personal piety) relationship with God, Love incarnate, a meeting with Him “face to face” of a person who, despite the incommensurability of scale , is worth a free participant in this meeting. And although Vladyka often emphasizes that he is “not a theologian,” he did not receive a systematic “school” theological education, his word makes us recall patristic definitions: a theologian is one who purely prays; theologian is one who knows God Himself...
In addition to the already mentioned award from the University of Aberdeen (1973), Metropolitan Anthony is an honorary doctor of theology from the faculties of Cambridge (1996), as well as the Moscow Theological Academy (1983 - for a set of scientific and theological preaching works). On September 24, 1999, the Kiev Theological Academy awarded Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh the degree of Doctor of Theology honoris causa.
Metropolitan Anthony - a participant in theological discussions between delegations of the Orthodox Churches and representatives of the Anglican Church (1958), a member of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church at the celebrations of the millennium of Orthodox monasticism on Mount Athos (1963), a member of the Commission of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on Christian unity, a member of the Central Committee of the World the Council of Churches (1968-1975) and the Christian Medical Commission of the WCC; member of the Assemblies of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi (1961) and Uppsala (1968), member local councils Russian Orthodox Church (1971, 1988, 1990). Awards: Bronze medal of the Society for the Encouragement of Good (1945, France), Order of St. book. Vladimir I Art. (1961), Order of St. Andrew (Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1963), Browning award (USA, 1974 - “for spreading the Christian gospel”), Lambeth Cross (Anglican Church, 1975), Order of St. Sergius II Art. (1979), St. book. Vladimir I Art. (1989), St. book. Daniel of Moscow I Art. (1994), Rev. Sergius I Art. (1997), St. Innocent of Moscow II degree (1999).
