When scandal breaks out in a parish, at work, in the national Church, or in civil government, how do we typically respond? If it concerns or interests us, we typically try to get more information. “What happened? Is it true?” Then we begin to assess what happened. We talk about it. We read about it. We write about it on the internet. We monitor the latest postings of others, the latest analysis, the latest developments. We may be energized by this and labor to change things in whatever way we can. We may just grumble to ourselves and a few others and stay on the sideline. We may be perplexed as to what has really happened and what should be done, since discerning the truth of things from afar is uncertain at best. The problem has taken on a life of its own in us. We cannot get to the bottom of it, we do not understand it fully and are frustrated. We want resolution and solutions, but they do not come quickly enough to satisfy us. It can eat us up as we obsess over it. It taints our relationships with others who do not see what happened in the same way we do. We may despair in the face of it and flee from it. Alternatively, our world may become largely defined by the parameters of the problem so that we can scarcely see anything else. In such cases, how the sin of a few can catalyze the sins of many and cause many to stumble may be clearly seen.In response to a pious woman who wrote him about a ‘bad’ priest who was scandalizing parishioners, St. Theophan the Recluse wrote a letter recommending a different approach altogether. 

What To Do About A Bad Priest

From The Letters of St. Theophan the Recluse

Question: “We had a good priest; but he was transferred to another parish. In his place came another, who is a grief to the soul. In his serving the services, he is careless and hurried; when conversations occur, he talks only about trivial things; if he starts to talk about the things of God, then it is all with a kind of limitation and truncation of the strict truth. How is one to escape from such a temptation?”

Answer: You yourselves are at fault. You made poor use of the good priest, and the Lord took him away. Tell me, did you become better from your previous good priest? Here you falter to say, “Yes.” But I from a distance shall say that you did not become better, judging by the fact that you are judging the new priest, not knowing how to control your feelings in relation to him as you should. Indeed, you had a good priest even before this good priest who has now departed from you, and the one before him was good too. You see how many good priests the Lord has sent you; but you all have not become any better for it. And here He has decided: why waste good priests on these people? I’ll send them one not so good. And He did. Seeing this, you should have at once paid attention to yourself, to repent and improve, but you just judge and keep judging over and over again. Improve yourselves, and then the priest will at once be changed. He will think: “With these people I cannot carry out my holy work carelessly; I must serve reverently and conduct edifying conversations.” And he will mend his ways. If priests are negligent and hurried in serving the services and are trivial in conversations, then most of the time it comes from conforming to the parishioners.

Saying this, I am not justifying the priest. He has no excuse, if he tempts the souls entrusted to him not only with action against the ustav but even unwise action according to the ustav. But I say only what is more useful for you to do in the given case. And the most important thing I have already said: do not judge, but pay attention to yourselves and improve yourself both in prayer and in conversation, and in all your behavior. Pray for this with all your heart, that the Lord will correct the priest. And He will correct him. Only pray properly. The Lord said, that if two agree about anything and will begin to pray, then they will have their request (Matt. 18:19). So all you right-thinking parishioners gather together and decide to pray for the priest; join fasting to your prayer and  redouble your almsgiving; and do this not just for a day or two, but for weeks, months, a year. Labor and afflict yourself with brokenness so long as the priest has not changed. And he will change; be certain that he will.

I recently heard about a similar podvig and its fruit. One old woman, a simple peasant, a deeply pious woman, noticed that someone she respected had begun to depart some from his customary strictness of life, and she began to be sick at heart for him. She came home, locked herself in her hut, and began to pray after she had said to the Lord: “I will not leave this place, or taste a crumb of bread, or drink a drop of water, or give my eyes a minute of sleep until Thou hearest me, O Lord, and hast turned this person back to his former ways.” She did just as she had decided: she labored in prayer and afflicted her-self with broken-hearted tears importuning the Lord to hear her. Already she had become fatigued, already her strength had begun to leave her; but she all over again prayed: “Though I die, I will not give this up until the Lord hears me.” And He did. The confirmation came to her that this man for whom she was praying had again begun to keep himself as of old. She ran to have a look, saw that it was so, and broke into rejoicing. Her grateful tears had no end. And so this is the kind of prayer you are to establish—although not such in form, because, perhaps, for you it would not be suitable to do as she did—but such in zeal, self-sacrifice, and persistence. And undoubtedly you will receive what you desire. If you will some-times say, “Grant, Lord, that He may become good” only in passing, whether at home, or in church, or during conversations, then what sort of fruit is to be expected from such prayer? For this is not prayer, but words only.

I have said the main thing to you. I should add still one thing more; but it is the sort thing that is most difficult to carry out in such a way that it achieves its aim. Here is what I think! It may be possible for you who are right-thinking and respected to come to the priest and ask him to change in his actions that which incites you and leads you into temptation. To do this—there is nothing simpler; but to do it in such a way that it bears fruit is difficult in the extreme. Everything must breathe with the most sincere and zealous love—not only the content of what you say, but even your glance, and expression, and tone of voice. Then it may be hoped that this will achieve its aim. But without this love, it is better not to undertake such a step: it will come out worse, produce the most sorrowful discord. One could, perhaps, write everything to him in like manner, but, again, the whole matter must be carried off in the spirit of all-conquering love. It is also as possible to spoil the whole matter by this means just as it is by personally appearing to the priest. This is why I am not unconditionally decided to recommend this approach. I know, that it may be crowned with success, but the main thing is proper execution. Many good people will be found to come to the priest or to write him without seeing him and to express everything in the most polite manner, but for success, something other than gentleness is needed. Gentleness without love is a wounding sting. I know that in other places they act in this way and then boast: “We have done our part!” But I shall say, that it had been better had they not done it. 

I shall not say anything more to you about this—maybe just one thing more: be patient. There are still other legal means; but they are not my field, and I shall be silent about them.

Translated by Fr. Justin Frederick, all rights reserved

Popularity: 96% [?]

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

We Americans pride ourselves on our freedom, considering ourselves to live as a free people in a free land. Our President has even advanced the claim that it is our freedom that causes many Muslims to hate us and to commit acts of terror against us. Whether that be the case or not, it is an axiom for us that we and our land are free. Patrick Henry’s words, which once rang in the hearts of all Americans, place the highest value on liberty: “Give me liberty, or give me death.” We might well ask ourselves whether we yet feel so strongly about it.

But what is this vaunted freedom? Do we possess authentic freedom or a cheap imitation? From what are we free? Are we absolutely or relatively free? If only relatively free, what are the proper limitations on our freedom keeping it from being absolute, and at what point does relative freedom become ‘unfreedom’? And once we have understood what this freedom is in which we exult, to what end is it to be directed? One could write a long treatise to address these questions and others concerning this concept we hold dear.

 This evening in our parish’s Dostoyevsky reading group, we encountered the following passage from Book Six, Chapter Three of Brothers Karamazov (published in 1881) which should prompt us to think about the nature of freedom:

The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says:

“You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires.” That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.

Since Dostoyevsky’s time and even before, a freedom has been proclaimed in the world that may well be false, that may actually be slavery and self-destruction. The essence of this freedom is to be able to satisfy your desires. “This is a free country, I can do what I want.” If we have grown up in these United States, we have no doubt heard someone say this, and perhaps we have said it ourselves. If this is how we conceive of our freedom, to be able to do what we want, then this is a freedom that Dostoyevsky claims is actually slavery and self-destruction. Is this a just assessment? We shall presently see.

‘Multiplication of desires’ may well be said to be the goal of advertising. Is it freedom to be full of desires? To have an ever-growing appetite for consumption? To have eyes bigger than our stomachs or budgets? One frequent result of growing desires that calls this conception of freedom into question is a heavy burden of  consumer debt . Is indebtedness freedom? Is it freedom to be full of desires that cannot be fulfilled due to lack of means (in the case of the poor)? Is it freedom to be able fulfill each and every desire as it comes along? What happens to a human being when he can and does indulge every desire?

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honour and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free? I knew one “champion of freedom” who told me himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, “I am fighting for the cause of humanity.”

Dostoyevsky challenges the notion that freedom is defined by the ability to satisfy desires. People often become enslaved to the desires that they habitually satisfy. Of course, ’satisfaction’ of desires is fleeting in this world. We eat, satisfying our hunger, only to hunger again a few hours later. We experience the satisfaction of a pleasure, but it is short-lived and must be sought again. But then the law of diminishing returns kicks in: more of the pleasure is needed to achieve the same level of satisfaction; as time passes, it satisfies less and less, but we are addicted. Can one who is addicted to anything be considered to be truly free? Does our way of life tend to result in addiction or moderate, self-controlled use? 

How can such a one fight, what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it’s no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. And therefore the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is more and more dying out in the world, and indeed this idea is sometimes treated with derision. For how can a man shake off his habits, what can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

Living to satisfy desires leads to bondage to habits, and this bondage to the habits which bring us pleasure renders us self-centered and isolated from others. But man is a social animal, not an island unto himself. It is only in relation to others that he can truly find and know himself, but his so-called freedom enslaves him to pleasures and cuts him off from his fellow man.

Dostoyevsky goes on to contrast this way of life with monasticism, how through prayer, fasting, and obedience man is freed from the tyranny of desires that he can truly love God and others. But this freedom is not limited to monks: it is available to every Christian who submits himself to Christ and His Church and gives himself to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Of course, in this reflection we have neither established what true freedom is nor demonstrated a Christian conception thereof such as Dostoyevsky’s; no, we have only challenged a prevailing notion of freedom and found it wanting. What is true freedom in the spiritual, social, and political realms? Freedom from what? Freedom to do, to be what? I hope to consider these and other questions in reflections to come. 

Popularity: 96% [?]