Drops of golden wisdom, or what is significant about Silouan the Athonite?
Saint Silouan loved and cried, prayed and sang. He prayed by weeping
and singing in humility and love. He grew up in Russia, labored on
Mount Athos, and loved the whole world and prayed for everyone. He did
not read newspapers, he was not interested in the news, but he felt
the pain and suffering of people as his own. “Understand – it is so
simple. I feel sorry for those people who do not know God or go
against God; my heart suffers for them, and tears flow from my eyes.
We see clearly both paradise and torment. God said “The Kingdom of
Heaven is inside us.” From there begins eternal life; from there
begins eternal torment.
So what is so special about him?
Simeon Antonov, the future Silouan, was a simple, barely literate
peasant from the Tambov gubernia. He was born in 1866 and served in
the army. He was tall, well built, kind and extremely sensitive (this
characteristic he inherited from his father). Already on Mount Athos,
an elder remembered how once, while working with Silouan on the field,
he prepared meat for lunch and forgot it was Friday. Silouan appeared
not to notice. After half a year had passed, he related that he had
eaten the meat then with disgust, as if it were carrion, but did not
make any comment. He found the appropriate moment for the lesson only
after a long time had passed.
When he was 12 years old, Simeon heard the story of Saint John
Sezenovskii and suddenly understood: “If he is holy, that means God is
with us, and there is no need for me to go all around the world to
find Him.” The young boy so lively and seriously turned to his faith
that he immediately wanted to become tonsured as a monk. His parents
restrained him: “First, finish your service in the army, and then you
will be free to go to the monastery.” Life again began to flow with
everyday cares, work, vanity, and various distractions deepened his
spiritual thirst. Simeon lived “like everybody”. Village girls were
lost in admiration of him. Simeon did not refuse their attentions and
sinned with a fellow village girl. The next morning, his father
quietly asked him, “Where were you yesterday? My heart hurt.” These
words struck Silouan deeply in his soul. Later the elder said, “I
never came close to my father. He was completely uneducated…but was
meek and wise.”
Already the time to join the army approached, when his desire for
monasticism was resurrected. In a dream he suddenly saw and understood
the futility of his life and resolved to save his soul forever,
leaving the world. Soldierly life only strengthened him in this.
Simeon Antonov came to Mount Athos in 1892. Taking the name Silouan,
he worked on a mill, then as a housekeeper. The Russian monastery of
Panteleimon at that time was a town in and of itself, with its own
agriculture and a population of about 2000 people. The monk Silouan
died in 1938. Biographical facts only bring about disappointment –
there was no speedy “rise among the ranks”, nor any kind of
exceptional accomplishments… the elder Silouan did not even use his
special fame among the Athonite brotherhood – some admired him, but
others asked in bewilderment: “What do you find so special about him?”
Fortunately, our information concerning the saint is not exhausted by
facts from the monastery archive. The closest disciple of Silouan –
Archimandrite Sofronii (Sakharov) compiled his life story and
spiritual portrait, how he understood the elder after many years under
his direction. And, even more valuable, Father Sofronii published the
notes of Silouan himself, wonderful drops of golden wisdom. Reading
them, we gradually discover the mystery of the spiritual path of the
saint – a most vivid and unusual path, filled with the highest joys
and painful sorrows, a path passing along the very border of the
despair of Hell and Heavenly comfort.
Silouan never had a spiritual guide on Mount Athos who could protect
him from the dangers that without fail present themselves to a new
monk. He was led by the centuries-old traditions of the Athonite
ascetics, the rule of monastery life. The primary way to salvation was
to give oneself over to the Will of God.
“When there are no good spiritual guides,” wrote the saint, “then one
must give oneself up entirely to the Will of God in humility, and then
God through his grace will make you wise, for God loves us so much it
is impossible to express, and the mind cannot comprehend it, and only
through the Holy Spirit can the love of God be known from faith, it
cannot be known by the mind.”
In such a manner Silouan described his spiritual life: a sequence of
searches, encounters with God, losses of grace, again searches: “The
Lord calls the sinful soul to repentance, and the soul turns to the
Lord, and He prayerfully takes it and shows it Himself. The Lord is
very merciful, humble and meek. According the abundance of His
goodness He does not remember the sins of the soul, and the soul falls
in love with Him completely, and breaks towards Him, as a bird from a
crowded cage to the verdant grove. The soul of a person knows God, the
God of mercy, and compassionate, and most-sweet, and completely falls
in love with Him, and through the great heat of love it is drawn to
Him unsatisfied, for the grace of God is highly sweet and burns the
mind, and the heart, and all the weak body. And suddenly the soul
loses that grace of God, and it thinks then: somehow I must have
offended the Master; I will ask mercy of Him; maybe He will again give
me grace, for my soul already does not want anything else in this
world other than God. The love of God is so intense that if the soul
tastes it, it will not desire anything else; and if the soul loses it
or if grace is lessened, then the soul will pour out such prayers
before God, desiring again to obtain His grace. In such a manner,
Saint Seraphim stood three years day and night on a rock, for his soul
knew God, and was sweetened by His grace, and fell in love with Him
entirely.”
My heart suffers for the entire world
The notes of Saint Silouan the Athonite belong to a completely
different genre. The ascetic did not receive much education, but was
able to read and write. Therefore the rich spiritual experience and
natural gifts of the soul were expressed in short axioms, deprived of
any kind of literary beauty, not darkened by any kind of outside
“plan” (the many grammatical and syntactical mistakes were corrected
by editors). In essence the works of Silouan are an unalloyed
expression of Orthodox theology, in form an extended song, an
unhurried prayer, praise, weeping, weaved from the wisdom of the Holy
Fathers. It is difficult to describe them rationally, just as it is
pointless to describe music.
Here are a few of the excerpts from the notes of the elder Silouan:
“My soul always yearns for God and prays night and day, for the name
of God is sweet and longed-for by the praying soul and burns the soul
to love God.”
“Some argue about faith, and there is no end to these arguments. It is
not worthwhile to argue. Only pray to God and the Mother of God, and
the Lord will quickly enlighten without arguments.”
“There are people who say that there is no God. They speak this way
because in their heart lives a proud spirit, which leads them to lie
against the Truth and the Church of God. They think that they are
intelligent, but really they do not even understand that these ideas
are not theirs, but proceed from the Enemy; but if someone takes such
ideas to heart and loves, then such a person comes close to an evil
spirit. And God forbid that anyone should die in such a condition.”
“Pride does not allow the soul to walk upon the path of faith. I give
the unbeliever this advice: Let him say: “Lord, if you exist, then
enlighten me, and I will serve You with all my heart and soul.” And
then he will be constantly enlightened for such a humble thought and
preparedness to serve the Lord God. But do not say: “If you exist,
then punish me”, for if the punishment comes, then perhaps you will
not find the strength to thank God and repent.”
“If people were to know that there is a spiritual science, then they
would throw away all there other sciences and technology and
concentrate only on God. His Beauty captivates the soul, and attracts,
and greatly desires to be with Him, and does not want anything else.
It looks on all the kingdoms of the world as clouds drifting by in the
sky.”
“We all suffer on earth and seek freedom, but few know what is
freedom, where it is. And I also want freedom and day and night I
search for it. I know that it is in God, and from God it is given to a
humble heart, which has repented and cut off its will before Him. The
Lord gives His peace to the repentant and the freedom to love Him. And
there is nothing better in the world than to love God and one’s
neighbor. In this the soul obtains peace and joy.”
“O peoples of this earth, I fall down before you on my knees and
beseech with tears: come to Christ. I know His love for you. I know
and therefore cry out throughout the world. (If one did not know this,
then how could one speak of it?)”
“You ask: ‘Well, how can I know God?’ And I say that we see the Lord
through the Holy Spirit. And if you humble yourself, then the Holy
Spirit will show you our God; and you too will want to cry out
concerning Him throughout the world.”
“I am old and await death and write the truth about love to the
people, concerning whom my soul suffers. Maybe one soul will be saved;
and for it I will thank God. But my heart suffers for the whole world,
and I pray, and I shed tears for the whole world, so that all would
repent and know God, and live in love, and would be sweetened by
freedom in God.”
“O all peoples of the earth, pray and weep over your sins so that Lord
would forgive them. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is
freedom of conscious and love, even if only a little.”
Priest Nikolai Solodov (translation by RM from
http://www.pravmir.ru/kapli-zolotyx-myslej/)
