Mission Monthly – July 2003
“Fr. John believed that God was experienced ‘objectively’ only in the sacraments of the Orthodox Church.”
A PRODIGAL SAINT: FR. JOHN OF KRONSTADTby Nadieszda Kizenko
Because our Christian backgrounds and “experiences” are so varied I suspect that some might feel defensive because of what St. John reportedly believed. It is not personal, though it is a very personal matter. I believe it to be a topic of substance. Apparently, so did St. John. St. n’s priesthood spanned nearly four decades of the late 19thand early 20thcenturies. He had to deal with religious pluralism as much as we do here in the early 21st century. I suspect, however, that the variety of Christian religious life, and religious life in general, in his day was much less “cafeteria” style as it is today. Nevertheless he had to deal with Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, the Jewish and Muslim faiths, as well as a Russian people who are said to have been “very superstitious.” The question that I am asking is this: Is it possible to gauge one’s experience of God?
It is not my intention nor am I inclined to judge the sincerity or authenticity of anyone who makes a claim to have had an experience of God. I am simply intrigued. I have had my own experiences which obviously have led me to where my faith life is today. Each of us associated with our St. Ignatius community, regardless of his background, unquestionably can say the same. Yet St. John apparently makes a claim of objectivity regarding these personal and powerful experiences. What could he possibly have been thinking? I know that he was a man of respect. It is said of him that he was very engaging and considerate in faith discussions with those of both non-Orthodox Christian and non-Christian backgrounds. I believe we can conclude that St. John did not say or believe that God is only working in the Orthodox Church. Stories of St. John’s life tell us that he was a man of boundless energy who made it his custom to frequently visit and travel around his city and region. Without a doubt he was acquainted with God-fearing, virtuous people of many different backgrounds. What I therefore believe he is expressing is the caution one must have in claiming a “personal experience” of God.
An encounter with God is a salvific moment. It is awesome and, dare we say, charismatic. It is worthy of repeated recollection! The Orthodox Christian belief in a personal God clearly articulates the validity and need for these “encounters.” These events, however, by their very definition are based on subjective interpretations and emotion. From an Orthodox Christian point of view, giving oneself over to subjective interpretation of any particular life event is spiritually precarious. I am reminded of a saying from one of our Desert Fathers, “Whoever guides himself spiritually has a fool for a spiritual father.” When left to a subjective determination of an experience of God, of interpretation of Scripture, of how to pray or be disciplined in the life of virtue, can one maintain any certainty in his conclusion?
Orthodox Christianity is often criticized because of her rituals, her creed, her disciplines, and as the above writer also wrote, her “thicket of regulations;” but her stability and inner unity is unquestioned! It is the safety born of this stability and inner unity to which I believe St. John is referring in the objective experience of God. Orthodox Christians must have conviction about their faith and the forms used to communicate the grace of God. These forms are God given, not “man made.” My question to critics of Orthodoxy is this: Do you really prefer to trust late theological developments or, dare we say fads, over faithfulness to the entire wisdom and experience of Christian history and tradition? Orthodoxy is very much aware of the condemned of Matthew 7:21-23, yet I would much rather face any criticism of legalism than be subject to the instability of subjective, individual interpretation. There is form to our worship and form for our Sacraments—Baptism, the Eucharist, the Confession of our sins and all the rest. These forms are objective and, even more importantly, they are proven. What any Orthodox Christian will tell you, whether cradle or convert, once they have fully entered into the richness and authority of objective Orthodox worship and prayer, Sacraments, patristics, lives of the Saints, personal discipline, and theology, is that Orthodoxy is not a “religion” or simply one expression of Christianity—it is the fullness of Truth, the fulfillment of God’s Israel, the faith united in the undivided Trinity, the fullness of Life!
St. John of Kronstadt was an amazing man, priest and pastor. There were few in his day or in ours that exemplify the zeal for God that he possessed. His life was consumed with prayer, liturgy, administering the sacraments, visiting the sick, writing, arranging provisions for the poor and needy, and love in action; in my view his life was as “charismatic” as any who might lay claim to such experience. Still, what was the basic hope for his life? That he might serve at the altar of God and that he might “revivify the relation of his parishioners to God [by making] their experience of the sacraments more intimate and more frequent.” For Fr. John love for God was first experienced and expressed in obedience to the (objective) life of the Church. This is not to count the number of times we take the Eucharist or attend Vespers, but unless we are doing these things, intimately and frequently, our subjective experience of God, individually or as a community, may not be what we think it is.