December: Day 3: Teaching 1: Venerable John the Bishop of Kolonia

December: Day 3: Teaching 1:
Venerable John the Bishop of Kolonia
 
(Silence and Humility are Great Christian Virtues)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today we commemorate our Venerable Father John the Bishop, about whose life we will speak. In the Monastery of the Venerable Savvas the Sanctified there lived a holy man named John, called the Hesychast, since he underwent the feat of "silence." He was formerly a Bishop in Armenia, then he left his see, went to Jerusalem and, concealing his high rank from everyone, was accepted by Venerable Savvas as a novice. After some time, the abbot entrusted him with the careful position of steward and asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem Elias to ordain him as a priest. The Patriarch was already on his way to the Church of Golgotha to perform the Mystery of Priesthood over him. Then John, seeing that he could no longer conceal his rank, stopped the Patriarch and said to him: "To you, holy father, I will reveal a secret which I ask you to keep; otherwise I will be forced to leave these countries. I am a bishop. The consciousness of my own sins prompted me to leave my rank and flee into the desert, in order to seek God's mercy there." The Patriarch, amazed at his profound humility, called the abbot and said to him: "This monk has revealed to me a secret that forbids ordination of him; and so leave him in peace and do not disturb his peace in any way." Venerable Savvas was very upset, thinking that he had made a mistake in the silent man. He spent the whole night in tears and prayer, asking the Lord to reveal this secret, and heard an angelic voice: "A bishop cannot again become a priest."

II. Our Venerable Father John teaches us two great lessons.

a) First of all, he teaches us extreme caution in speech, since man sins most and most often in words. That is why he chose the difficult feat of silence. Once our Lord Jesus Christ said: "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37). And the Holy Apostle James attests that he that sins not in word "is a perfect man, and able to bridle also the whole body" (Jam. 3:2). The Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church, having comprehended the great significance of the virtue of silent lips, do not find enough words to praise silence: they call it "the mother of repentance, prayer, the mirror of sins, the parent of all good, the fiery chariot that leads to heaven" (Ephraim the Syrian's "Discourse on Silence"; John Climacus's Step 11 on Silence). The Holy Church blesses the holy silent ones as "earthly angels and heavenly men." Therefore, wishing to avoid condemnation for idle words and to preserve unbroken prayerful contemplation of God, some ascetics of piety placed the seal of silence on their lips, avoided human conversations, voluntarily deprived themselves of the gift of speech, and entirely sacrificed it to God. Such ascetics were given the name "Hesychasts." Due to the difficulty of the feat of silence, which requires special willpower and selflessness in a person, those who kept silence were rare in the most flourishing times of Christian asceticism.

b) Another lesson that we learn from the life of Venerable John the Bishop is that a Christian must be adorned with humility, without which it is impossible to be saved. "Truly I say to you," Jesus Christ teaches, "whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a child will not enter it" (Luke 18:17).

What are the means to achieve Christian humility?

The following means are useful for acquiring humility:

1) Reflection on the greatness of God and our nothingness. God is everything, and we are a creature, nothing. Holy Abba Dorotheos says: “The closer the saints come to God (through repentance and purity of life, they see the greatness of God’s perfections more clearly), the more they see themselves as sinners (in the splendor of God’s glory they more clearly see their shortcomings, weaknesses, sinful impurity) and humble themselves” (Instruction 2).

2) Reflection on our complete dependence on God in everything. We have received everything from God - both life and strength, without the assistance of God's grace we can do nothing good. Venerable Makarios of Egypt says: "If a king places his treasure with some beggar, then the one who has received it for safekeeping does not consider this treasure his own property, but everywhere admits his poverty, not daring to squander someone else's treasure; because he always reasons with himself: 'This treasure is not only someone else's, but was also placed with me by a powerful king, and when he wants, he will take it from me;' likewise those who have any gifts from God must think of themselves, be humbly wise, confess their poverty. If a beggar, having accepted from the king the treasure entrusted to him and having placed his trust in this foreign treasure, begins to exalt himself with it as with his own wealth, and his heart is filled with pride, then the king takes his treasure from him, and the one who had it in safekeeping remains as poor as he was before; likewise if those who have gifts from God become exalted and their hearts become puffed up, then the Lord takes away His gifts from them, and they remain the same as they were before receiving grace from the Lord” (Discourse 15; see also "The Ladder," Step 23).

III. May the Lord protect us from the spirit of pride and grant us the spirit of humility and good caution in the use of the precious gift of speech given to us by Him, which we so often abuse!

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.