The Fathers did not ask for many words. They received one spiritual word, left for the desert, and lived for many years with that word. They attempted to put it into practice and they were nourished by it. We say, and we want to hear, lots of words, but we do nothing to put them into practice. When someone talks a lot, he becomes spiritually weak.
“You need not be despondent. Let those be despondent who do not believe in God. For them sorrow is burdensome, of course, because besides earthly enjoyment they have nothing. But believers must not be despondent, for through sorrows they receive the right of sonship, without which is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Interviewer: Did (iconographer Photios) Kontoglou ever make a distinction between the so-called “big–T Tradition and small–t tradition”? Such a view states that there are some traditions in the realm of dogma, doctrine, and spirituality that are absolutely non-negotiable, but there are smaller traditions like beards and rassa that are negotiable. You don’t have to have them, but you may have them. Did he ever make any distinctions like that?
Fr. Constantine Cavarnos, iconographer & Schemamonk: He did not make such a distinction. He believed that innumerable things organically related make Orthodoxy and give it its identity.
Everything is organically related. About the Church’s arts, for example… iconography addresses itself to our sense of sight, while music addresses itself to our sense of hearing, but both seek to express the same essence, the Orthodox Faith. Architecture has its own tradition, particularly recognizable in the dome, in the round arch, and by the surfaces that are used for the wall paintings, which other kinds of architecture, such as the Gothic, do not provide. The architecture of the Orthodox church is a very important element of the totality; in other words, all of these arts are organically interrelated, though using different media.
“I consider no other labor as difficult as prayer. When we are ready to pray, our spiritual enemies interfere. They understand it is only by making it difficult for us to pray that they can harm us. Other things will meet with success if we keep at it, but laboring at prayer is a war that will continue until we die.”
Featured image: From City Desert
I found this great clip of wolf hunters in Russia, and set it to a bit of music from a compilation of Russian folk songs.
This week’s find is one of my favorites: a 1970 film from the Bedforshire Archives. It is a charming documentary about a bookbinding and repair studio, but specifically the craft of making marbled paper to use as end-papers. It features footage from the studio of the world-famous Cockerell & Sons. Enjoy!
The Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Anthony in Arizona is one of the monasteries in the lineage of Elder Ephraim, former abbot of the Philotheou Monastery on Mt. Athos, who sent six other former Athonites to establish a place in the Sonoran Desert. Desert Monks is a short piece made about the community.
“You usually can’t tell nobody about it…you can see the beauty, but you can’t really describe it in words.”