The Pillar and Ground of the Truth

"Living religious experience as the sole legitimate means of knowing the dogmas"—this is how I would like to express the general aspiration of my book, or more precisely, of my sketches, written at different times and under different moods. Only by relying on immediate experience can one survey and appreciate the spiritual treasures of the Church. Only by running a moist sponge along the ancient lines can one wash them with living water and make out the letters of ecclesiastical writing. The ascetics of the Church are alive for the living and dead for the dead. For the darkened soul the countenances of the saints grow dark; for the paralyzed soul their bodies stiffen in dreadful immobility. Is it not well known that the possessed and the demoniacs are afraid of them? And is it not sin before the Church that makes one fearfully look askance at her? But clear eyes still see the countenances of the saints shining, "as the face of an angel." For the purified heart they are as welcoming as of old; as of old they cry out and call to those who have ears to hear. I ask myself: why does the pure spontaneity of the common people involuntarily reach out toward these righteous ones? Why does the people find in them consolation in mute sorrow, the joy of forgiveness, and the beauty of a heavenly feast? I do not deceive myself. I know firmly that I have lit for myself no more than a splinter of wood or a penny candle of yellow wax. But even this little flame, trembling in unaccustomed hands, has sparkled with myriad reflections in the treasury of the holy Church. Over many centuries, day after day, treasure was gathered here—precious stone upon stone, golden grain upon grain, gold coin upon gold coin. Like fragrant dew upon the fleece, like heavenly manna, the grace-filled power of the God-illumined soul fell here. Like the finest pearls, the tears of pure hearts were poured in here. Heaven, as well as earth, made its deposits here over many centuries. The most hidden hopes, the most secret impulses toward likeness to God, azure moments of angelic purity arriving after storms, the joys of communion with God and the holy pangs of sharp repentance, the fragrance of prayer and a quiet longing for heaven, eternal seeking and eternal finding, fathomlessly deep insights into eternity and a childlike peace of soul, reverence and love—love without end… Centuries flowed on, and all of this abided and accumulated.

And every spiritual effort of mine, every sigh that slips from the tip of my lips, summons to my aid the entire store of accumulated grace-filled energy. Invisible hands carry me across the flowering meadows of the spiritual world. Blazing with myriads upon myriads and legions upon legions of sparkling, scintillating, rainbow-playing glances, overflowing with cascades upon cascades of luminous spray, the treasures of the Church fill my poor soul with reverent awe. Innumerable, immeasurable, ineffable are the riches of the Church. I may take for myself a portion of them for use, for my own benefit—how can the eye not grow covetous? Greed seizes me; I grab the first handful that comes to hand. I have not even looked yet at what it is: diamonds, carbuncles, or emeralds? Or perhaps delicate pearls? I do not know whether my handful is better or worse than all that remains. But—in the words of Athanasius the Great—"having taken little from much," I know that I am dissatisfied with my work in advance, because the eye has grown too covetous for the treasures. What do one or two heaps of precious stones amount to when they are measured by the bushel? And I involuntarily recall how the general spirit of the work gradually changed in my mind. At first the plan was to make not a single reference, but to speak only in my own words. But soon I had to enter into a struggle with myself and make room for short excerpts. Then they began to grow, expanding into whole passages. And finally it began to seem to me that it was necessary to cast aside everything of my own and print nothing but the writings of the Church. Perhaps this is the only correct path—the path of direct appeal to the Church herself. And who am I to write about spiritual things? "For I too know my own poverty and am reproached by my conscience and by my feeble mind; and moreover, because of my many sins, this great task is burdensome to me." And if I nevertheless attach some significance to my Letters, it is exclusively a preparatory significance, for the catechumens, until they receive direct nourishment from the hands of the Mother—a significance, as it were, of catechetical words in the churchyard.

For churchliness—that is the name of the haven where the heart's anxiety is stilled, where the pretensions of the intellect are subdued, where a great peace descends upon the mind. Let neither I nor anyone else have been able, be able, or, of course, ever be able to define what churchliness is. Let those who attempt to do so dispute one another and mutually reject each other's formulas of churchliness! Does not this very indefinability of churchliness, its elusiveness for logical terms, its ineffability prove that churchliness is life—a particular, new life given to human beings, yet, like all life, inaccessible to the intellect? And do not the disagreements in defining churchliness, the possibility of attempting from various sides to establish in words what churchliness is, this motley of incomplete and always insufficient verbal formulas of churchliness—do they not in turn confirm for us experientially what the Apostle has already told us? For the Church is the body of Christ, "the fullness (τὸ πλήρωμα) of him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). How, then, can this fullness—τὸ πλήρωμα—of the Divine life be laid in the narrow coffin of a logical definition? It would be laughable to think that this impossibility somehow testifies against the existence of churchliness; on the contrary, the latter is rather established by such impossibility. And inasmuch as churchliness is prior to its individual manifestations, inasmuch as it is that divine-human element out of which, so to speak, the ritual orders of the sacraments, the formulations of dogmas, the canonical rules, and even, in part, the fluid and transient pattern of ecclesial life condense and crystallize in the historical course of the Church's humanity—to that extent it is to churchliness, to this fullness par excellence, that the Apostle's prophecy applies: "There must be also differences of opinion among you—δεῖ—καὶ αἱρέσεις ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι" (1 Cor. 11:19)—differences of opinion in the understanding of churchliness. And yet, everyone who does not flee from the Church receives into himself through his very life the one element of churchliness and knows that churchliness is, and what it is.

Where there is no spiritual life, something external is necessary as a guarantee of churchliness. A definite office, the pope, or an aggregate, a system of offices, a hierarchy—this is the criterion of churchliness for the Catholic. A definite confessional formula, a creed, or a system of formulas, the text of Scripture—this is the criterion of churchliness for the Protestant. In the final analysis, in both cases the decisive factor is a concept—a juridical-ecclesiastical concept for Catholics and a scholarly-ecclesiastical concept for Protestants. But in becoming the supreme criterion, the concept thereby renders every manifestation of life unnecessary. More than that, since no life can be commensurate with a concept, every movement of life inevitably overflows the boundaries traced by the concept and thereby proves to be harmful, intolerable. For Catholicism (I am speaking, of course, of both Catholicism and Protestantism in their limiting cases, in their principles) every independent manifestation of life is uncanonical; for Protestantism it is unscientific. In both cases life is truncated by the concept, rejected in advance in the name of the concept. If Catholicism is commonly denied freedom while Protestantism is emphatically credited with it, both judgments are equally unjust. Catholicism too recognizes freedom, but… freedom defined in advance; everything outside those limits is illegitimate. Protestantism too recognizes coercion, but… likewise only outside the pre-established channel of rationalism; everything outside it is unscientific. If in Catholicism one may discern a fanaticism of canonicity, then in Protestantism there is a no lesser fanaticism of scientificity.

The indefinability of Orthodox churchliness—I repeat—is the best proof of its vitality. Of course, we cannot point to any ecclesiastical office of which we could say, "It sums up churchliness in itself"—and besides, what would be the purpose then of all the other offices and activities of the Church? Nor can we point to any formula, any book, that could be offered as the fullness of church life; and again, if there were such a book, such a formula, then what would be the purpose of all the other books, all the other formulas, all the other activities of the Church? There is no concept of churchliness, but churchliness itself exists, and for every living member of the Church, the life of the Church is the most definite and tangible thing he knows. But the life of the Church is appropriated and apprehended only through living experience—not in abstraction, not by reasoning. If one must apply any concepts to it at all, the closest fit would be not juridical or archaeological concepts, but biological and aesthetic ones. What is churchliness? It is a new life, life in the Spirit. And what is the criterion for the rightness of this life? Beauty. Yes, there is a special spiritual beauty, and though it eludes logical formulas, it is at the same time the only sure path to determining what is Orthodox and what is not. The connoisseurs of this beauty are the spiritual elders, the masters of the "art of arts," as the holy Fathers call asceticism. The spiritual elders have, so to speak, acquired a practiced hand in discerning the genuineness of spiritual life. The Orthodox taste, the Orthodox countenance, is felt, but it cannot be subjected to arithmetical calculation; Orthodoxy is shown, not proven. That is why for anyone who wishes to understand Orthodoxy there is only one way—direct Orthodox experience. They say that abroad people now learn to swim on apparatus, lying on the floor; in just the same way, one can become a Catholic or a Protestant from books, without the slightest contact with life, right in one's own study. But to become Orthodox, one must plunge all at once into the very element of Orthodoxy, begin to live in an Orthodox way—and there is no other path.

Sic semper. — It is always thus.