Română
Journey into the depths of faith with St. Sophrony the Athonite (+July 11, 1993) in this rare recording. He sheds light on misconceptions about divine manifestations in our time, challenging the notion that God’s miracles ceased with ancient persecution. Join us as we unravel the timeless truth of encountering the Uncreated Light. Subscribe now for profound insights into Orthodox spirituality and deepen your connection with God.
Essex Monastery, February 17, 1992
Audio source:
English translation adapted after the Romanian version of Fr. Rafail Noica, Cuvantari Duhovnicesti I (23).
St. Sophrony:
Now, when my ability to perceive life is diminished, my memory is weakened, my blindness increases, which does not allow me to read, and my deafness forces me to wear hearing aids, so that my ears are full of noise… But I will talk to you until my last days, until my last breath…
I wanted to talk to you today about another matter. Recently, a Russian priest visited us. And he asked me in a private conversation:
– Father Sophrony, is it possible in our era to see the Uncreated Light?
– I have been writing about this. Did you read?
– No.
– Well, you could take my books from our fathers [Zacharias or Rafail], where I write about this.
The very formulation of the question gave me the impression that he was inclined to believe that: once upon a time, during the first three centuries of persecution, God worked miracles and visible experiences, and then He ceased to work like this, and for centuries now, they no longer happen. But this man belongs to a group of people who logically conclude that in our time God does not appear as Light. And therefore, whoever sees the Light sees something else, and not the truly Uncreated Taboric Light. Of course, if someone asks me like that, what can I say? I am condemned to silence.
Look, Father N., when he was in Russia, met a woman who said the same thing, that God stopped working as before, and that now there are no more Elders, and that this is everywhere – “this is how God works now.”
I am telling you this because such an approach is not the path to knowledge. The same words and the same way of thinking were in the time of Simeon the New Theologian… In the 45th hymn, Saint Simeon speaks of those who deny the Light in which God appears and which is God Himself – and says that they think incorrectly and, in reality, they have fallen into heresy. And that Simeon, who became Silouan, wrote in the chapter “On Humility”: “Some say, this was so once upon a time but now it is over and done with;” And with his characteristic modesty, the Saint says that this is wrong thinking: “But with God nothing ever loses virtue — it is only we who change, get worse and lose grace”.
