Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh Spiritual Heritage Foundation
and the Library-Foundation “Russkoye Zarubez’e”
are pleased to announce that the 2nd International Conference
dedicated to Metropolitan Anthony’s legacy
will take place
11-13 September 2009 in Moscow
Theme:
‘God Believes in Man’:
Man in the Theology of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Venue:
Library Foundation “Russkoye Zarubez’e”
Call for papers:
Please send summary of your proposed talks (around 2000 letters) before 30 June to Conference Organising committee at likvintseva@bfrz.ru. Please, note that the Organising committee reserves the right to select papers for presentations.
All talks presented at the Conference will be published.
An Apostle in Our Time
Conference in Memory of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Saturday June 21, 2008
No one can turn toward eternity if he has
not seen in the eyes or on the face of at
least one person the shining of eternal
life. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Conference Report
On Saturday 21st June there took place in London at the Serbian Church of St Sava the first conference in this country on the Legacy of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, who died in 2003. Organised by the Metropolitan Anthony Foundation, a charity set up to further his work, it attracted a large audience who came to listen to speakers from Europe, America and the Lebanon, as well as England, to testify to the great impact the Metropolitan had made on the life of the Church and the lives of people, and to encourage the continuation of his work.
Professor Amal Dibo from Beirut posed the question at the outset that plagues modern Christians: how can a 2,000-year-old Church spread the Good News of Christianity in today's fast-changing world that is indifferent to God? Metropolitan Anthony had, she argued, found the answer, by addressing this challenge to the human heart – the eternal in us that does not change. She identified in him two qualities that enabled him to do this, speaking as he did not only to his fellow Orthodox but to all Christians, and also to people of other faiths or none: his openness to his listeners; and his deep sensitivity and compassion. He reached out to each person he met, bringing to them and to the world a living testimony to God. In Amal's words, he applied himself to be 'loving of mankind'; he had a deep sensitivity and compassion, nurtured by his family and his life as a Russian ėmigrė, doctor and soldier during the War, and priest. He used his personal talents of wit and generosity to deliver the words of God, always with total conviction. 'I stake my life on what I am saying' was one of his often-used phrases.
Amal then analysed the way Metropolitan Anthony used anecdotes and stories to convey his message: the wit, surprise and irony he employed to bring his spiritual children to understanding, and to lessen the hard, sometimes tragic impact of a Christian facing commitment in a hostile world. He did not impose rules on people, but knew how to lead them to solutions.
He had the ability to make Christianity look easy; and he could ask the impossible of his listeners, by making it look possible and by leading people through the steps they could take to achieve it.
Amal concluded by stressing the importance of Metropolitan Anthony's personal approach to people. He received people with the heart; his eyes pierced then, he understood what was behind their words. She commented on how he would on occasion shake one's shoulders. In his great compassion he put human concerns first, but blended them with the eternal. And by doing so he brought to the world a living testimony to God.
The second talk, by Father Sergei Ovsiannikov from Amsterdam, was billed as a 'Letter to Bishop Anthony'. In it Father Sergei spoke of how Metropolitan Anthony taught him that priests must awaken questions in people so that they could find God themselves. He also spoke to him of the problems of unity within the Church. 'You can see the unity but we have to deal with the disunity,' Metropolitan Anthony had advised Father Sergei.
He also spoke of the many discussions they had had about the will of God: how it could be discerned, whether people were ready to accept it, how one coped with the feeling that one was unloved by God. Metropolitan Anthony had quoted to him the words of one of the Church Fathers, that there were three wills acting in the world: the will of God, which, as at the Annunciation, was never forced on a person but was for him or her to accept; the will of Satan, which seduces and tempts; and the human will, which had to choose between God's will and Satan's will.
Metropolitan Anthony had likened the role and place of the priest to that of the donkey carrying Jesus on Palm Sunday: she must have thought the crowds were cheering her. In the same way, a priest must not be tempted to appropriate the glory due only to Christ. Metropolitan Anthony was aware of the full measure of the humility of the priest. God had chosen him as a donkey to tell people what he had seen: the glory of God. And we had indeed seen that glory, and the kingdom of God, in Metropolitan Anthony's eyes.
Using one of Dostoevsky's stories as an illustration, Father Sergei concluded by repeating Metropolitan Anthony's words that children and the animals simply accept the world, without distinguishing the evil and the good; they are in full unity with God. Now, he added, Metropolitan Anthony was in unity with God, concelebrating the Liturgy in the Kingdom.
The third speaker, Canon John Binns, from St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, talked on Metropolitan Anthony's ministry to students during the 1970s. In May 1969 he preached to students in Cambridge, and these talks continued for a decade, drawing large numbers of listeners. No other preacher was invited so often.
Why did Metropolitan Anthony have such authority in the atmosphere of ferment that existed at that time, when student riots were common and political ideals attracted more interest among the young than religion? Canon Binns suggested it was his certainty – which was not a fanatical dogmatism but a process by which one came to experience the presence of God. He repeated Metropolitan Anthony's words:'God exists. I have met Him'. Metropolitan Anthony had talked at length about God's belief in man, and in a world of suffering; about divine love which exists in the Trinity, and false kinds of human love. He had also spoken of themes such as creation and the sanctity of matter, the Incarnation, redemption and freedom, and God's solidarity with the human condition. In everything he said he had insisted on the importance of setting aside inadequate, twisted ideas of God that made Him too small.
Why was Metropolitan Anthony such an effective speaker? Canon Binns reminded the audience how he had never spoken as an Orthodox but as a Christian, and had never sought to proselytise. He was a Christian leader who belonged to everybody, who always started from the point at which people were, asking them to look at their own experience not just of faith but also of being human. Only then would he introduce themes of the Christian faith.
His mind was sharp and he spoke with clarity, in a systematic, organised and yet passionate way that was accessible to his listeners, and with a vision that was rarely found elsewhere. Behind his words was a complex personality, sensitive to the mood of the age. He urged others to speak out of sheer conviction; and this was exactly what he did himself.
Irina von Schlippe added that at around this time, when the BBC was recording his talks, Metropolitan Anthony had been worried that he had no new ideas; he had said everything he had to say. He had asked Irina what people wanted to hear, and she had replied, 'What God wants of us'. That had given him new inspiration and started him speaking from a whole new angle.
After lunch there were two more speakers. The first, Dr. Barbara Newman, an academic from America, was entitled 'Standing at the Gates of Time'. She spoke, from her experience of knowing Metropolitan Anthony in the late 1970s and 80s, of the way he could compress a lifetime of meaning into a short saying that would stay with his listeners for ever. For instance, he had talked about joy: if we desire to receive joy as a gift, we must practise it as a virtue.
The source of his own joy was prayer. But he loathed conventional piety. His approach was more immediate, more challenging. 'Plunge the dagger of prayer into your heart', he had told her. But this was always to be fulfilled in the doing, and in doing what was possible. 'Don't think of doing God's will; think of delighting His imagination,' he had advised.
His view of salvation was, like everything, maximalist. 'What matters is not that people believe in God but that God believes in them,' he had said. 'As we grow in Christ, our own salvation becomes irrelevant'.
He loved Orthodoxy, but was fully aware of the imperfections of the Church on the ground – which made it a Church that could accommodate human imperfection. If he joined a Church without spot or wrinkle, he would spoil it, he reasoned.
He had long desired 'to depart and be with Christ' in St. Paul's terms, but remained, living out his life for the sake of service. Eternity was a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who stands at the gates of time and opens them, and lets time pour into Him.
The last speaker was Father John Lee, for so many years a priest serving under Metropolitan Anthony at his cathedral in London. Father John entitled his talk, 'My friend Bishop Anthony'. While acknowledging what the previous speakers had said, he wished to present something of Metropolitan Anthony's worry, depression, fear and doubt that had beset him during his final illness and which showed him to be utterly true and human.
Father John described how he had first met Metropolitan Anthony in 1967, and how his relationship with him had gradually deepened, culminating in his eventual ordination.
He saw his legacy in two things: prayer, as had already been acknowledged by the previous speakers. He was adamant that one should be completely honest towards God. 'Don't ever lie to God,' he had said. 'Tell him if you don't believe, or if you are bored with Him.' Only by being true could one truly meet God.
The second thing was how he celebrated the services of the Church. Metropolitan Anthony had been very strict about the conduct in the altar. There was no talking, no leafing through books; such things, he insisted, should be done before the beginning of the service. Father John stressed how important it was that this strict, reverential atmosphere be preserved.
Father John went on to speak of private conversations he had had with Metropolitan Anthony, for instance on the death of Father John's father, who had not been a believer. What would become of him in Eternity?
Metropolitan Anthony's answer was to say: imagine you have just died. Could you be happy in Eternity if your father were not there?
For a number of years Father John had acted as Metropolitan Anthony's driver, taking him to speak at a wide range of places. One was Sandhurst, which the Bishop had loved. He had also driven him to hospital appointments during his final illness, when he had been in a lot of pain. The illness really threw him; he was no longer the confident Metropolitan Anthony.
He told Father John how his grandmother had appeared to him in a dream, holding a calendar. The pages began to turn in her hand, and stopped on 4th August. 'I will die on 4th August', he foretold.
He underwent a lot of treatment, including surgery and chemotherapy. He was a marvellous patient, never asking for anything, and making friends with everyone in the hospital, despite his suffering.
Father John ended his talk by reiterating this point: that Metropolitan Anthony was a man who was no stranger to suffering, and that his humanity included worries and fears as well as the more positive aspects.
The conference ended with a Round Table with the title ' An Apostle in our Time', chaired by Karin Greenhead and with Father John, Barbara Newman, Deacon Peter Scorer and Irina von Schlippe as its panel members. Karin began by speaking of Metropolitan Anthony's special gifts of oratory, a clear mind, a beautiful voice. He inspired us, he urged us to take risks, he showed us divine love. We basked in his gifts; but what had we done with them?
Irina von Schlippe spoke of the joy of being an Orthodox Christian which he instilled, and the joy and love on his face on meeting people. He saw the Russian Revolution as a wake-up call for the revival of Orthodoxy. He taught that every action should be offered to God, and that we should all preach by example. He urged people in their daily lives to seek to move to a place of authority, but retaining humility. Cowardice was to be shunned; we had to show the world what it is to be a Christian, at whatever the cost.
He was passionate about our calling to care for our planet. He called us to see the reflection of God on each person's face, as the Neighbour of the Gospel.
Barbara Newman spoke of Metropolitan Anthony's honesty, and his greatness as an Orthodox teacher.
Father John described two confessions he had made to the Metropolitan: during the first Father John had had to wake him for absolution; at the second he had spoken the words, 'Be faithful'.
Peter Scorer described the Metropolitan Anthony 3-day conference held in Moscow last year, at which there were 24 speakers. It reflected Metropolitan Anthony's great and continuing influence in Russia. There had been a wonderful talk by Freke de Graaf, a former member of the London Cathedral parish, on how Metropolitan Anthony had inspired her current work in Moscow. Another, by a historian, had referred to the Statutes of the Diocese of Sourozh as drawn up under Metropolitan Anthony as a great legacy. They alone incarnated the Gospel into legal terms in a way that did not happen anywhere else. An abbot from the Danilov Monastery had talked of Metropolitan Anthony as a pastor and teacher, and in particular of how he spoke of the freedom of the individual, compared with the absence of freedom which was the dominant approach in the Church in Russia.
Peter concluded by saying that Metropolitan Anthony was a maximalist. He demanded everything of a person. There had been talk in some quarters of the possibility of his eventual canonisation, which worried some people. It was always difficult to see sainthood in people we knew.
The debate was thrown open to the floor, and many questions and comments were put, as they had been following the earlier talks. They included a discussion on Metropolitan Anthony's sympathies with the idea of universal salvation; his insistence that each person had to follow his or her own calling and not a strict set of rules, and that in the New Testament we were all kings, priests and prophets; how he accepted people where they were, how he was burning with the Holy Spirit, how we had all absorbed something of Metropolitan Anthony in our beings; but that we had to find ways of taking this forward, both communally and individually.
Greetings and thanks were expressed to Father Milun of the Serbian Church, and the day concluded with an invitation to Vespers in the church.
Many thanks must also be given to Kelsey Cheshire and her team for organising the conference.