Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as the feast of all the Russian saints!

Today we heard the words of the Apostle Paul from his Epistle to the Romans. We heard that the Lord is not partial to any one race or nation. He judges each sinner and justifies all the righteous, be they a Jew or a gentile. It’s important not to know the law, but to fulfill it. Although the pagans at that time had only a faint understanding about the True God and did not know His law, they still could, by nature, act according to the law, that is, in a moral fashion. God has placed in each person the ability to distinguish between moral and immoral actions. In such a way the law was, you could say, written on their hearts. Their conscience would prompt them as to how they should act, and in their thoughts a spiritual war would begin – should one act according to one’s conscience, or against it.

Although we Orthodox Christians have a very developed law (Holy Scripture, the Church canons, fasting rules, prayer rules, all sorts of rubrics, etc.), in the beginning the Lord hoped that we would live not according to a law, but according to our conscience. Remember that two weeks ago, at the vigil service on the feast of Pentecost, we heard the following words of the prophet Ezekiel: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Our Creator hoped that through baptism, through the acquiring of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to live not according to the written law, but according to the law of the heart, the law of our own conscience. Do you see what an important role our conscience should play in our spiritual lives? In theory, it could take the place of all of our rules. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work out in practice. Often our sins and especially our passions obscure the voice of our conscience. It becomes difficult to hear its voice. Therefore, we need the law not only written on our hearts, but also with ink on paper.

Let’s take note that the conscience is never at odds with the law of God, but is always in concord with it. Therefore if we wish to live like our Creator initially planned, let’s put aside our sinful habits and let’s diligently fulfill God’s law. Only in such a way will we become capable of clearly hearing our conscience, which will always prompt us to live correctly.

priest Alexis

P.S. You can find three nice talks on the conscience by the New-Martyr Serge Mechev here: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Sergij_Mechev/o-sovesti/ (They are in Russian. There is an English translation of these talks that was published in Orthodox Life, but I can’t find it online.)

P.P.S. Today the Russian Church celebrates the memory of all the Russian saints. The majority of these saints are new-martyrs of the 20th century. We all know that the atheists not only exterminated the clergy, but also, by the start of the 2nd World War, had closed practically all of the churches in the country and destroyed many of them. The hatred of the authorities towards the Church, the clergy, and the faithful had no limits. This hatred and fanatical adherence to socialism lead to unthinkable suffering for the whole population of the land. While in Russia churches were being closed and priests killed, Russian people in the West were building churches and they, along with the other Christians of these lands (Catholics and Protestants), glorified the Lord God in their churches and asked in prayer for the intercessions of the Most-Holy Mother of God and all the saints. Glory to God, in the 90’s of the 20th century, the atheistic government in Russia came to naught, churches were restored, new ones were built and once again Russian people could openly glorify their Creator.

During the past month, here in Canada, a very alarming situation has emerged. Although this isn’t a new discovery, only now has the general public become aware that at the end of the 19th century and throughout much of the 20th native children died at alarming rates at residential school. In general, it has become clear that these unfortunate children and their families suffered much. As a rule, these schools were run by either the Catholic or Anglican churches. Canadians, who have only now become away of this, are naturally upset. There is a new desire to learn more about this dark chapter in Canadian history, to honourably mark the memory of those that were hurt, and to help the native peoples raise their standard of living, which is even now very low. Probably we can all agree that these are laudable goals.

But at the same time, an alarming and even frightening attitude of some people, some Canadians, towards the church (especially towards the Catholic) has appeared. During the past two weeks more than ten churches, in different cities, have been damaged by vandalism. Several have even been burnt to the ground. It’s important to note that these churches were located on Native Reserves, that they were operating churches, whose parishioners were native Canadians. Along with this, they were historical buildings, built over a hundred years ago. Some people on the internet have expressed their approval of these sacrilegious attacks. What is perhaps even worse, many of our political leaders have said nothing, or have delayed condemning these assaults on churches (here we have to include even our prime minister). It seems that here in Canada it is becoming normal not only to raze monuments and statues of the founders of this country, but also to burn down churches!

A hundred years ago, the Russian Revolutionaries took no care to notice that through the efforts of many generations, the Russian Empire had become a magnificent and rich county and instead, concentrated all their attention on those problems in the country, society and the Church that had not yet been well resolved. They began to destroy everything, both the good and the bad. Could it be that Canada is ready to forget about all those wonderful achievements it has accomplished in the last 150 years and to begin destroying everything? Could it be that the country that welcomed with open arms a huge number of Orthodox immigrants and not only allowed, but encouraged them to build churches, is ready to silently watch as churches are burnt and destroyed? Could it be that new Christian martyrs will appear here? Let it not be! Let’s pray that the Lord comfort those who have lost their churches, give strength to our leaders to defend Christians, enlighten the vandals and arsonists, and not let things get worse here.