“Following Our Holy Fathers, Eyewitnesses of the Word in Our Day”
- Archpriest Peter Heers
- 3h
- 4 min read
FROM
Volume One
Preface to the English Edition
By Fr. Peter Heers
From the day of Pentecost the Gospel has spread not by “the sharing of the word” of Scripture but through “the eyewitnesses of the Word.” The Word has “become flesh,” and thus what is to be shared with the world is not a book but His Incarnation. The Incarnation continuing, Christ Himself is encountered in and through the Church, in those who declare with the Apostle, “it is not I, but Christ Who lives in me.” Through them the world sees Christ and becomes His disciples.
This “golden chain” of eyewitnesses of the Word and of the Resurrection, this succession of apostolic experience, has like a river of divine fire always burned bright, and has in every generation written a new Acts of the Apostles. The lives and witness of three such recent apostles are presented herein, based on the author’s own personal experience: Saints Paisios, Porphyrios and Iakovos. Three towering spiritual pillars, eye-witnesses of the Word, speak to us through their spiritual son who has become a living link to their holiness.
Like the first disciples of the Disciples, Metropolitan Neophytos has become an apostle to subsequent generations, sharing the latest fruits of the Incarnation, links to the Holy Fathers of old. Marvelous is the providential care of the Lord for us! He brought the then young Homer from a village in Cyprus to sit attentively by the side of God’s precious vessels so that later the now Metropolitan of Morphou might welcome us to sit attentively at his side to be recipients of their divine counsel.
We are eternally grateful to God and to His Eminence for the loving-kindness he has shown us, not only by sharing the saints with us, but also by loving and following them, and imitating them, such as during the dark days of the Covidism. Metropolitan Neophytos’ prophetic stance vis-à-vis the “isms” of our day—whether Covidism or Ecumenism—is appropriate, for he is a student of the prophets and a shepherd of a persecuted, exiled “little flock.” Together, the faithful and their shepherd carried the cross of self-denial and exile which helped to propel them up the spiritual ladder toward the queen of the virtues, discernment.
It is precisely this gift of the discernment of spirits which distinguishes Orthodoxy from heterodoxy, and which is so lacking in the world today and, hence, so sought after and needed. It is a gift, to be sure, which can be given only to those who have suffered, who have struggled to acquire the experience of God, who are thus strangers, sojourners in the world. In the persons of our suffering, sojourning Saints the spiritually exiled everywhere find solace and the way out of the impasse of modern man’s nihilistic state, a spiritual pestilence far worse than every so-called pandemic.
Herein is true hope for wandering, weary Western man, including the numerous inquirers, catechumens and newly-illumined converts which, before arriving at the Royal Path of Orthodoxy, have been spun dizzy by the incessant pendulum swing of religious extremes which in turn spawn an endless array of ideologies. This is indeed essential reading for every serious seeker, for long spent on vacuous platitudes and empty promises, he has need of examples of Orthodox ethos. To be inspired by examples of true life! The continuation of the Incarnation—shining forth in those “made gods by Grace”—which is so lacking for impoverished modern man. This book will aid greatly in filling that gap. Herein one finds an antidote to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, in the witness and teaching of these saints which is so hopeful for the nihilist, so freeing for the enslaved and addicted, so therapeutic for the spiritually sick and diseased.
Yet, it is necessary, dear and pious readers, that you read closely and carefully the words of the saints contained herein, seeking to imitate their example by applying their wisdom, for this is one the chief characteristics of an Orthodox Christian: to follow the Holy Fathers, and this means first and foremost the saints that have immediately preceded us. Of course, in this case being a follower means much more than something akin to a ‘subscriber” to online content. It means first of all becoming a disciple, an obedient son, a loving servant, an ardent imitator, a strident defender, a faithful successor.
Now, if you are a disciple of the saints it is because you see in them the Prototype, the Paragon of Life and Salvation, the health of soul and body. You sought the Physician and he brought you to the hospital of the Church. All who enter a hospital do so voluntarily, because they know that they are sick and in need of a Physician. Approach, therefore, the wisdom found in the stories, examples and teachings of the Saints as if they are various tools in the hands of a master-surgeon who by using them will extract cancerous growths within you: pride, vainglory, self-will, jealously, ambition, sloth, lust, gluttony, greed, and the whole host of soul-killing passions. If you do this, the labor of the saints, of their disciple, and of the translators, editors and publishers of this present text will be justified, your soul will be illumined, and Christ will be glorified.
We are grateful, and we are ever-indebted, to His Eminence Metropolitan Neophytos and his entire retinue of co-workers for the blessing of making us participants in this “transfer of spiritual wealth” from the Old World to the New, from the Romioi of Asia Minor and the Island of Saints to the newly-illumined of the wayward West, and from one generation to the next. We call upon all who read and are blessed by this book to entreat the Lord to grant health, long life and many years of service to His Church to His Eminence Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou and the remission of the sins of the servants of God who labored for this publication.
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