Hieromonk Kilian: Student, Priest, and US Navy Chaplain

When most people think of preparation for ministry in the context of the Orthodox Church, they think of attending seminary: learning how to sing all eight tones of the Octoechos, how to preach sermons, how to swing a censer, how to minister to young and old in a parish.

Officers Development School fire training

How about learning how to put out fires in a burning building, or saving a ship hit by a torpedo from sinking, or getting up at 0430 every morning to run and work your muscles well before dawn, or ministering to believers and non–believers in a combat unit?

I had already completed the requirements in the first paragraph—my M.Div. at St. Vladimir’s—but that sufficed for being an Orthodox priest. I needed the second set of skills in order to embark on another path I have been blessed to tread: that of a chaplain in the United States Navy. The first part of the training by which such skills are acquired is called Officer Development School (ODS), a five–week course in military basics, officer leadership, fitness training, and disaster preparedness. Along with 60 other officers assigned to Class 12110, Uniform Company, I attended ODS at the Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, from September 9 to October 12, 2012.

Having grown up in the military (both my parents were Marines) and having spent several years in a monastery, I was accustomed to a life marked by routine and by orders; the same was not the case for many of my shipmates when we first started our course. A large part of the ODS experience is militarization, especially important because the officers attending this school are “directly commissioned,” that is, they receive a commission not based on any prior military education or experience, but on the basis of the professional knowledge and experience they bring to the military. All of us in Class 12110 fell into this camp: chaplains, clinical psychologists, nurses, dentists, surgeons, and scientists of all sorts. The Navy needed our skills and talents, but before we could serve our nation’s sailors and Marines, we needed the Navy to show us what it means to be an officer and sailor.

Navy “Wet Training”

Our days were long and tiring: waking up at 0430 (that’s 4:30 a.m. for civilians), having an hour of PT (physical training) every morning, getting used to all the military acronyms too! Three meals a day, fifteen minutes only allotted for mealtime, no talking, lest we incur the wrath of the Marine drill instructors and Navy RDCs (recruit division commanders) watching our every bite. Wearing our uniforms and preparing them for inspection: this badge must be one quarter inch above the pocket and centered, no more, no less; your bed sheets folded just so; your shower shoes and laundry bag hung on the hook thus. All this attention to detail is important—it helps make one aware of the details in all of our lives as Naval officers, of the small things that can make or break a ship, or save or kill a life in battle or in a hospital. But to me, as a hieromonk in the Orthodox Christian tradition, the attention to detail was very welcome, a sign pointing to the present in the midst of our trials and tribulations throughout the five weeks. “Don’t worry about the inspection tomorrow,” I’d say to myself, “just worry about marching in step right now,” or: “Just focus on your thousand–yard stare right now.” Past and future fled away to reveal simply the present, and simultaneously, simply the presence of God guiding me and my shipmates in our training.

As a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, I enjoy certain privileges, but also must bear certain crosses no other officer must. As a chaplain, I can bypass the chain of command—I have direct access to the commanding officer (CO) (whether he/she be a commander, captain, admiral, depending on the type of command), and the COs confer with chaplains often about the climate of their command, and how their sailors and officers are doing. But as a chaplain, I also am the only officer who has complete confidentiality: if a sailor or Marine comes to me in confidence, I cannot tell anyone else what he or she has said. This is much like confession in the Orthodox Church, but can be a great burden at times, both in the military as well as in the parish. I am called to enter into both the joys and sufferings of others.

Graduation photo of Class 12110, Uniform Company

This took place even during my training time. One night, after a long day involving me as a chaplain, after keeping my chin up and my military bearing spot on, I retired to my hatch (=my room) after chow (=dinner), shut the door, and just started to cry, and offer up the pain and sorrows that had been given to me in confidence to the one Person I can always talk to, Jesus Christ. One of my shipmates, a nuclear instructor, heard my sobs and knocked on the door, to see if I was all right. I said I would be, but that this was one of the hard parts of the chaplaincy, one of the sacrifices I and other chaplains make for our nation and those whom we serve: to bear their pain in silence and confidence, opening it only to the Lord. My shipmate had not realized until that point the real sacrifice of the Chaplain Corps, and that moment brought us together in greater understanding of how we both were serving our fellow sailors, albeit in different but equally important ways.

Chaplains in the Navy serve our country’s sailors, Marines, and Coast Guard on the spiritual front; but like any other officer or sailor, we too are full Naval officers, and must be ready to help in any way, in any emergency. Part of our training involved passing the 3rd Class Swim Test, which involves: jumping off a 10-foot tower and swimming to safety; being submerged in full khaki uniform, and inflating your trousers and blouse to be life vests; and swimming 50 meters nonstop to safety. We learned how to fight fires onboard ships, and consequently suited up completely in firefighting gear, complete with oxygen tanks and real flames, to put out fires in a simulated ship space. We also learned about water damage control on board the “SS Buttercup,” a ship simulator rigged to give us the experience of a torpedo striking the hull. We started to list about 30 degrees to starboard (=to the right), taking on water, and had to put our book knowledge into practice: bracing breached hatches, turning off valves to burst pipes, deploying hoses to drain flooded compartments. We saved the ship, we grew closer together as a team and company, and we emerged ready to serve our nation’s finest.

Bishop Michael, Fr. Kilian, Mrs. Kemper and CAPT Vernon Kemper

On October 12, 2012, we had our graduation ceremony in front of many family and friends. I was very blessed to have my diocesan bishop, The Right Rev. Bishop Michael, and my uncle and aunt, Lt. Col. David Searle, USAF, and Mrs. Jodie Searle, attend the celebrations. The commanding officer of Officer Training Command Newport, Captain Vernon Kemper, beamed at all of us, 61 officers from all parts of the United States, who had come to Newport as individuals, but were leaving as brothers and sisters in the US Navy, and welcomed our guest speaker, Rear Admiral Rebecca McCormick-Boyle, the Chief of Staff, Bureau of Medicine. RDML McCormick-Boyle, a nurse who had trodden the same path as us at ODS some 30 years prior, inspired us to hold on to that spirit of camaraderie and dedication as we embarked on our Navy careers, and our families and friends applauded as we renewed our Oaths of Office.

For me, a bit of a pause had come. Unlike the other 59 officers, I and the other chaplains have one more year of Reserve and parish service before taking up active duty service. Yet the experience of attending ODS confirmed for me the sense of vocation to this rare calling: to be an Orthodox monk, and priest, and Navy chaplain. I don’t know of many others who’ve had this particular combination – in fact, right now, I’m the only such chaplain the U.S. Navy. But by God’s grace, I hope to spend many years being a presence of love, comfort, consolation, and confidence to all who serve our nation and put their lives in harm’s way so that ours might not be exposed to such dangers.

Anchors aweigh! Hope to see you in the Fleet!

Bishop Michael congratulates Fr. Kilian

Hieromonk Kilian (Sprecher), a seminarian in the Master of Theology program at St. Vladimir’s, is a chaplain in the U.S. Navy Reserves. Father Kilian was the first monk to be tonsured to the monastic rank of “Lesser Schema” in the seminary’s Three Hierarchs Chapel in 2010 and was the first monk on campus to be inducted into the U.S. Naval Reserves as a chaplain. Father is also serving as the Acting Rector of St. Gregory of Palamas Church in Glen Gardner, NJ.

Witches in the Basement

Hans Baldung Grien – Hexen (Witches; woodcut, 1508)

When I was a child, I enjoyed playing in the basement. There were nooks and crannies to hide in, and decades of accumulated stuff to explore. It was a little spooky down there, and I was convinced that witches lived down there. But as long as the lights were on, I was unafraid. When I had to go back upstairs, I had a problem. The switch for the lights was at the bottom of the stairs, so I had to turn off the lights before I was safely upstairs. When I flipped that switch and the light went off, I was sure that the witches would come grab me if I didn’t get up the stairs in about five seconds. Every time I came up from the basement, I turned off the lights and sprinted up the stairs as fast as I could, just to be safe from the witches. I must have been fast enough, because I’m still alive today!

Like the witches in the basement, sins and temptations can’t grab me if the light of Christ is shining in the basement of my soul. When we confess our sins openly to Christ in the presence of a witness (the priest) the light comes on, and our sins can’t get a hold of us. Our problem comes when we hide our sins out of shame or pride. This is why David prayed, “Cleanse me from my hidden faults.” (Psalm 19/18) When we look honestly at ourselves and confess our shortcomings, we begin to get freedom from the sins and temptations we try to hide from others.  As St John Cassian wrote, “The devil, subtle as he is, cannot ruin or destroy [someone] unless he has enticed him either through pride or through shame to conceal his thoughts.”

Confession is not meant to produce guilty feelings. It is a safe place to be open about the secrets that bother us and cause sinful behavior. Honest confession cleanses us from hidden faults.

Fr. David Poling

The son of a Church of the Brethren pastor, Fr. David Chandler Poling (SVOTS ’12) grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Emilita, married in 2000, and moved to New York City in 2002. A few years later they joined the OCA at the Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection. They have three children: Elias, Mariam, and John. Fr. David is the acting rector of St. Innocent Mission in Oneonta, New York. You can read more of his writing, where this reflection originally appeared, on his blog: Fruits of the Spirit.

On what support

Written by Fr. Lev Gillet, also known as “A Monk of the Eastern Church,” In Thy Presence is a book of short spiritual reflections on the presence of Christ. As in the case of the quotation below, these reflections are sometimes imagined as words spoken from our Lord to the believer.

“Poor children, you want to manage without Me. What then will you look to for support?

Poor child, thou thinkest to escape Me by plunging into what thou dost believe to be nature, into what thou callest nature. But what thou dost clasp is not nature in its truth, in its depth.

Thou thinkest to live a fuller life by estranging thyself from the Love which goes beyond all limits and loves beyond the visible. Thou desirest to give thyself exclusively to the visible. Thou doest speak of asserting thy personality, of realising thyself. Thou dost speak of earthly foods, and expect from them harmony and joy.

But thou wilt run up against the refusal with which all the elements of creation will oppose thee. The universe gives no peace to him who professes to separate any situation or person from total Love.

Thou seekest the support of reality. Thou dost conceive of nature alone as being what is real. Thou dost want to lean on a reed, and this reed will pierce thy hand.

In a world where everything is bound by a Love that is limitless, all the creatures which thou dost desire to separate and grasp by themselves, without reference to absolute Love, will withdraw from thee, one after another. Thou wilt be left alone, wounded, lying helpless on the road. Everything will abandon thee at the moment when thou dost abandon Me.

Poor child, whom wilt thou find to save thee, if not Me? Whom wilt thou find to love thee, if not Me?”

Excerpt from In Thy Presence by Lev Gillet, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977, p. 25.

Forty Two

Recently I ran across an article mulling over the reasons young adults leave the Church. It’s no secret that as a group we Orthodox haven’t done a very good job of keeping our children connected to our Faith. Indeed, attrition estimates among college aged adults range as high as 60%. The article offered a few sensible explanations as to why young people walk out the door of the Church when they walk through the gates of the university, but as I was reading another question, almost the opposite question, formed itself in my mind: why should they stay? What justification can we offer for asking someone to forego sleeping in on Sunday, giving up meat and dairy for about 6 months of the year, abstaining from the premarital sex their friends are enjoying, and all the other “no’s” that seem to crop up when you’re talking about being a Christian? Our young friends aren’t likely to find the answer, “to stay out of hell” or, “to go to heaven” very persuasive for the simple reason that heaven and hell seem very abstract, very far away, and the pleasures of life seem intensely close, tangible. If we are honest many of us would admit that those answers don’t motivate us either. So why should we ask them to stay? Perhaps we should ask ourselves the same question. Why do we bother with the trouble of being Orthodox Christians, accepting the effort and sacrifice that it requires, rather than just enjoying whatever makes us happy?

In his work, On The Apostolic Preaching, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, reflecting on the fall of man, describes Adam and Eve as little children, biological and spiritual babies, in Paradise. As Irenaeus sees it, Adam and Eve were created immature but with the dynamic capacity to grow and become more and more like God, sharing increasingly in the brilliance of His holiness. St. Symeon the New Theologian says that the human spirit was created to be filled with God and that grace was meant to overflow into our very bodies, filling our whole being with the power and glory of God. But Adam and Eve were young and this capacity was not yet developed when they were tricked by the serpent and cast out of the garden. As a result their growth was stunted. Adam and Eve grew up biologically but their spirit withered outside of Paradise and they never became what mature humans are, the meeting point of the created world and the uncreated God, all full of glory. This was the fate of every person before Christ but through His death and resurrection Christ overturned our sad, unfulfilled lot and made it possible once again for us to come alive and share in the boundlessness of the Father’s eternal life. By washing away our sins in baptism, sealing us with the Holy Spirit in chrismation, and filling us with Himself in communion, Christ draws us up again into the life we are made to experience. This provides what I think is the most powerful answer to the question, “why bother with the trouble of being Orthodox?” We bother with fasting, confession, long services, and all the rest because we want to know what it’s like to be fully human. We want to experience the communion with our Creator that fills us with life. We want to enjoy the awake-ness, the intensity of being, that belongs to a creature wholly itself, shot through with the glory of God.

Young people, perhaps all people, need a purpose in life that is worthy of their effort, worthy of their sacrifice and this is it. If you want to know what it’s like to be fully awake and alive in this life, be a Christian. If you want to experience the fullness of the glory of God that humans are made to experience, put God first in your life and pursue him hard. Don’t settle for a merely biological life that will not last. Reach out for a share of God’s divine life that will not end. Through the disciplines of the Church, we can be, if we are willing, transfigured by the grace of the Holy Spirit into fully human persons capable of experiencing God’s brightness and sharing it with a darkened world. When we reach for that grace, we become more and more alive, more our true selves, more capable of bringing healing to the world around us. Fasting, confession, communion, and all the rest are the road to awe; they make us fully alive and restore us to our calling as stewards of all creation. That is a goal worthy of our sacrifice, and it is what makes all of the trouble worth it.

Fr. John Cox is a 2011 graduate of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Following graduation Fr. John and his family were assigned to Dormition of the Theotokos Orthodox Church (OCA, Diocese of the South) in Norfolk, Virginia.

Triumph and Transformation

Christianity is peculiar, there’s no doubt about that. We serve the crucified and risen Christ, who revealed Himself as God in the way that He died. Instead of self-fulfillment Christ offers us self-sacrifice; instead of power he offers us a cross. As Holy Week expertly teaches: we must go through the cross to get to the resurrection; there is no empty tomb without Golgotha. We learn that with God our expectations often go unmet, yet if we have patience, his plan transcends our expectations. The Jewish religious leaders of Christ’s day, and many of his own followers, did not grasp this concept. They wanted military triumph over the Romans and instead were offered a kingdom not of this world. They were so bent on victory in this life that they unwittingly rejected victory over sin and death.

I was thinking of these things as the Church celebrated the Sunday of St. Thomas, because a mere week after we share in the great Paschal triumph we are immediately confronted with the question of doubt. Courtesy of St. Thomas, our own doubts about Christ’s resurrection are brought to the forefront. But something different and altogether new sprang to my mind as I listened to the juxtaposition of the Epistle and Gospel readings. I found an entirely new way of thinking about the nature of doubt and the role it plays in our lives.

In the Epistle we are presented with the early days of the apostolic ministry and we are able to see the disciples, especially Peter, anew. They are boldly proclaiming Christ with little care of the consequences. It is even said that the sick were carried out on pallets that “as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.” It was only a little over a week ago, during the Gospel readings of Holy Thursday, that we saw Peter, weak of will and overcome with cowardice, deny Christ three times. Yet here he is, so infused with the grace of the Holy Spirit that people crave a brief encounter with him. The Sadducees are so overcome with jealousy at this development that they throw the apostles in prison, yet again rejecting the work of God within their midst. Even this doesn’t dissuade the apostles from their work. They are set free from prison by an angel of the Lord, only to be charged: “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”

How powerfully this speaks to our own fears and doubts. It’s as if we instinctively want to turn victory into defeat. It’s one thing to believe in the reality of the crucified and risen Lord and quite another to act on that belief. And yet here we have a powerful testament to God’s ability to transform our doubts and us with them. We are often like Peter in the Gospels, unable to see God’s hand in the chaos and tragedy around us, so ready to give in to fear and doubt. We are more like the Jewish leaders than we give ourselves credit for, too…ready to abandon Christ when God’s plan doesn’t conform to our expectations. We forget that God is more than the God of triumph; he is also the God of transformation. To truly reflect Christ, we must take up our cross. We must also see our doubts about God’s ability to work in the trials and tragedies of our lives for the imposters they are. When St. Peter stood between Christ and the cross, Christ admonished him saying, “Get behind me, Satan.”  Similarly, we must not let our doubts get between us and the cross. For God’s grace to transform us, we must fight through our doubts, knowing that the cross always comes before the empty tomb. It isn’t the doubts that count, it’s our reaction to them. God is always waiting to transform us the way he transformed St. Peter.

Fr. John Ballard (SVOTS ’10) is the assistant priest at St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in North Royalton, Ohio. He currently lives in Cleveland with his wife, Rebecca, who is a neonatology fellow at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. They have one child named Max and are expecting their second child at the end of May.

Holy Thursday: A Feast of Humility

Every year, the services of Holy Week bring before us selections from the Old Testament, of Jacob, of Joseph and his brothers, the great prophets Moses and Job.  We hear the ancient prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah with an awareness that everything that has happened before, everything that has been spoken, reaches its fulfillment in our Lord’s passion. During the services, the Gospel passages recount Christ’s final teachings to his disciples, as well as the events that lead to his Passion.  As the week moves on, the pace quickens as our Savior hastens to the events that are so familiar to us: the dinner, the trial, the scourging, the haggard procession with the cross, and the brutal crucifixion itself.  The Church speaks of an end, but now as the end of this week draws near, we must also speak of the beginning, and understand both what is old and coming to an end, and also what is new and coming to life.

All around us outside, the natural world proclaims this pattern: the sun casts more light upon the earth than night’s darkness.  As the prophet says, “For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come.”  (Song of Solomon 2.11-12)  The Hebrews even reckoned the annual commemoration of the date of Pascha according to this natural order: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, is the Lord’s Pascha.”  (Lev 23.5-6)

Commenting on the Lord’s Pascha, some Church fathers seized on this idea of annual re-creation and used images from it to describe this liturgical season of the death and resurrection of Christ.  Many noted that this was even the traditional time of the original creation of the World; it was a natural transition to see Holy Week and our Lord’s death and resurrection as a recapitulation of that original creation.  The new creation begins on Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday when our Lord once again separates light from darkness as he calls forth the dead to life.  And as the great King and true light of the world, meekly bearing salvation, he enters into his city, Jerusalem, with great acclamation.  This great light increases even more as his death, burial, and resurrection draw near.  In the face of the brilliant light of our Lord’s passion, the two lights of creation, the sun and the moon, diminish and no longer illumine the world alone.  The week goes on, and on this holiest of all Fridays, our God fashions man anew, as his Christ is crucified.  From the side of this new Adam will not come a rib, but blood and water, by which he establishes and nourishes the Church.  After this will be the Great and Holy Sabbath, the last day of the old creation; God will rest again.  And on the next day, the eighth day, the first day of the new Creation, the man of the earth, once bound by death, will be freed in the life of Christ Jesus.  There will be a new Creation, peopled by those who have been formed by his word, nourished on the food of his body, and illumined by the light of his power.

Here, on this fifth day, on this Holy Thursday, our attention is drawn to numerous themes – the mystical supper, the scheming of the elders, the treachery of Judas.  But let us stop and consider only one event of this day, the washing of the feet.  For here again on this fifth day, the waters splash as they did on the original fifth day, not with every sort of sea creature, but with our Savior calling forth a new way of life for his new creation.  With the knowledge “that the Father had given all things into his hands,” (Jn. 13.3) the eternal Word of God stoops down and humbly puts his hands in the basin of water to wash his disciples’ feet.  By this humble act, as he washes away the filth and grime from feet that trod upon the dusty paths of Palestine and the alleys of Jerusalem, he will create new winged creatures, as man will soar to the heavenly heights of virtue and will keep company with the angels in the presence of God the Father, with his Son, in the Holy Spirit.

The hymnography of Holy Thursday speaks of the washing of the feet as the time “when the disciples were illumined.”  Illumination is, of course, also the way the Church speaks of the mystery of Holy Baptism.  The Church can use this term for both the washing of the feet and Holy Baptism, because the results are the same: we put on Christ, who is our Teacher and Lord, and strive to be all that he is, by doing what he has commanded.  He says as much plainly: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”  (Jn 13.14-15)  This is how the heavenly heights are opened for us: we will ascend to the heavens when we understand what he did to his disciples and for us, and when we follow his command to “wash one another’s feet.”

We should make no mistake; “foot washing” is not an easy task even now, in our world with all the benefits of modern hygiene.  The extent of our Lord’s love for us can be seen precisely in this, as he takes the filthy, dirty feet of his disciples and washes them clean.  The dirt and grime are precisely what makes this act so beautiful.  In that soiled water, our Lord has called forth new life, a life purified and clean.  He has called forth life that proclaims power in weakness, the triumph of humility and service, the victory of love, and the death of selfishness.  Out of these waters, just like the waters of baptism, he has not called us to be proud or powerful.  He has not empowered us to be self-centered or self-interested.  He has not challenged us to become successful men or women by the standards of the world.  No, he has called us to emulate him.  If we have called him our Lord and King at our baptism, we ought to “wash one another’s feet,” just as our Lord and Teacher has done.

On this day, we are given a vision of God’s new creation.  For all of us who live in this new creation, “washing one another’s feet” means giving ourselves to one another in all love, humility, and service.  The new creation is to be populated by those who are willing to beautifully debase themselves and wash the feet of their brothers and sisters, to offer themselves, to humble themselves, to give entirely of themselves, not being concerned by position, status, authority, pride, pomp, or any consideration other than loving their brother and sister the way the Lord has loved them and in exactly the same fashion.

Fathers, brothers, and sisters, as we stand now at the foot of the steps, ready to ascend to the upper chamber and, as companions of our Lord, to partake of the Divine Word, let us commit ourselves once more to this same Lord, who is going to his voluntary passion for us and for our salvation, to inaugurate a new creation.  Let us pray therefore that by emulating in him in our words, deeds, and thoughts, we may find ourselves in that chamber with him and with all those who have been well pleasing to him from all the ages.  Amen.

Archpriest Alexander Rentel (SVOTS ’95) is Assistant Profess or of Canon Law and Byzantine Studies and the John and Paraskeva Skvir Lecturer in Practical Theology. Fr Alexander finished his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Fr Robert Taft, SJ, at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome in January 2004. Prior to coming to St Vladimir’s as a professor, Fr Alexander was a 2000-2001 Junior Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. He has taken numerous research trips to Greece, Italy, and France. He was ordained to the priesthood in July 2001. He and his wife, Nancy (née Homyak, SVOTS ’95) are the proud parents of three children, Dimitrios, Maria, and Daniel.

The Matins of Holy Thursday: A Meditation

“Great are you, O Lord, and marvelous are your works, and there is no word which suffices to hymn your wonders!”

These words, which come from the blessing of water at the baptismal service and at the water blessing on Theophany, are probably not the first words that come to mind now, at the midpoint of Holy Week. (The matins of Holy Thursday, a rich and beautiful service, is usually celebrated on the evening of Holy Wednesday. In many parishes in North America, however, the Service of Anointing is celebrated at that time, and the matins service is omitted.) This is hardly a time for celebration.

We are now at the point in Holy Week when things go from bad to worse. The shouts of “Hosanna” have long faded, and the crowds will soon be yelling “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The religious authorities, threatened by Jesus’ popularity and his assaults on their traditions, are plotting to kill him. The civil authorities have their own agendas, focused on maintaining their positions of power and preserving the pax Romana. Judas, one of the Twelve, is laying his own plans to betray the Master even as he eats and drinks at the Last Supper with the Lord and the other disciples. And immediately after the supper, the disciples begin to argue among themselves about which of them is the greatest. Soon, the disciples will abandon him as he undergoes the passion. Peter will deny him three times, and all the apostles will scatter after Jesus’ arrest. Only a few women remain faithful as they accompany him at his crucifixion, and later as they come to anoint his dead body—and for this reason they become the first witnesses to the resurrection.

No one knows or comprehends the cosmic events that are taking place. The world at large is completely oblivious, and the story of Jesus leaves almost no mark on the official historical records of the day. The Jewish nation rejects the Messiah as, at best, another prophet who met a sad end—he was certainly not the triumphant, worldly king they were expecting. Jesus’ followers, bewildered and confused, give up. Even the women who remain faithful do so not because they understand the significance of what is happening, but because of the personal love they feel for him.

And what about us, who gather together some two thousand years later to remember these events? As the texts of the Holy Week services make abundantly clear, we are just like those weak, sinful individuals portrayed in the scripture readings and in the hymnography. Indeed, it is to us that these texts are addressed. We are just like those crowds that yell “Hosanna” one day, and a few days later crucify our Lord. We do this whenever we despise or ignore our neighbor, who is the living image of Christ. We do this when, like the Pharisees, we concern ourselves more with the externals of the faith than with the law of love. We do this when, like Judas, we value the thirty pieces of silver more than the gift of eternal life.

For the Holy Week liturgical cycle functions as one big parable: a story that first draws us in, and then pulls the rug out from under us as it reveals the weakness of all our own arguments, our own rationalizations. We think that it is the Jews who are responsible for crucifying Christ—and at one time people calling themselves Orthodox Christians would launch pogroms against Jews on these days. We may even consider that some of the Holy Thursday and Holy Friday texts are anti-Semitic, and we fail to realize that they are actually speaking about us. For it is by our own sins and actions that we crucify Christ. It is we who stand condemned.

These Holy Week services thus paint a dark picture of the fallen world in which we live. This is a world in which darkness reigns, where individuals and nations commit the vilest atrocities and genocides. Modernity, despite bring much improvement of the lives of so many people, has also made the extermination of entire peoples ever more efficient and impersonal. Our cities are full of suffering and crime, and that in the richest nation on this earth. And in many parts of the world, conditions are far worse.

In short, these services unmask the reality of this world, a reality we try so hard to conceal even from ourselves. Like the emperor in the familiar fairy tale, we are revealed as having no clothes. Or, in the language of the exaposteilarion that we sing at the matins services from Monday to Thursday of this week, we have no “wedding garment” to enter into the bridal chamber.

Yet it is only when we become aware of this absolute emptiness that we can begin to understand why it was necessary for Christ to come into the world in order to overcome this darkness. We begin to see this now, as Christ first washes the feet of his disciples, then offers his Body and Blood to us in anticipation of his own death on the Cross for our sake. He, and He alone, is under no delusion. He alone sees this fallen world for what it is—a world that rejects its Maker. And yet, as we hear in John’s Gospel, God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son, who, by his presence among us, fills the darkness with light. The One who created the world never stops loving his creation, even when that creation does not return his love and chases after idols.

Later today, as we celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy of Holy Thursday, we shall sing “One is holy, one is the Lord, Jesus Christ.” As we do this, we confess not only that he alone is holy, but also that we, because of our sins, are not. Yet we do this with the certainty that through him, we too become holy, not because of anything that we do or have done, but because he freely bestows his holiness on us. We become holy when, at our baptism and chrismation, we are clothed with the “robe of righteousness.” And we reaffirm this each time that we approach the chalice.

The garment that we lack is provided to us freely by the Master. At the time of Christ, the host would provide a wedding garment to all the guests he invited. They did not have to purchase or earn it for themselves. So, in the familiar parable about the wedding feast, the man who comes without the proper attire does so only because he has rejected the free gift of the garment from the Master (Matt 22:11-13).

Our calling today, as we prepare for the liturgy of Holy Thursday, is not to reject that gift, that festal, baptismal garment, but to accept it with gratitude, knowing full well that we do not deserve it. It is for this that Christ comes to us, and why he accepts to suffer and to die on our behalf. This, even more than the many miracles that Jesus performed during his sojourn among us, is the greatest wonder of all.

“Great are you, O Lord, and marvelous are your works, and there is no word which suffices to hymn your wonders!”

Dr. Paul Meyendorff (SVOTS ’75) is a leading specialist in the history, theology, and practice of the Orthodox liturgy and is The Father Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.