Towards celebrating

When I was a student, returning home, or rather, to the student dormitory, on a late winter evening, I took a short-cut through the cemetery. I was surprised that the little church in the cemetery was lit up inside. What could be happening there at night?

An old grey-haired priest was serving in the church, all the people were singing "God is with us", and later, "Your Nativity, Christ our God...". And it was then that I realized it was the eve of Christmas, that it was Christmas Eve... I immediately remembered childhood, kutya and uzvar, and how I used to bring Christmas Eve dinner to my godmother. But my childhood memories were abruptly interrupted because what I saw in the corner church vestibule, did not match with my understanding of reality.

Our professor of biology stood in the corner of the vestibule with his collar raised... Our eyes met and he pulled his head into his shoulders, pulled his collar up even more. Afterwards, that professor always kept avoiding meeting me, and looked down whenever we drew close.

I stayed very briefly in the vestibule of that little church. I simply felt guilty before that learned older man and thought it most expedient to disappear and not bother him. He probably didn't expect to see any of his students in the cemetery chapel, and particularly at midnight.

In those days, it was no longer news to me that those people who officially taught us atheistic ideology can be truly religious people. I knew about that since elementary school, and even then, my dad ordered me to always keep my mouth shut in those matters.

But what surprised me was not the fact that the professor was a devout Orthodox Christian, but the fact that he risked both his position and his life, because he publicly appeared in the church for the service. What made him do that?

Truth to tell, in those days I couldn't even think of what made that senior professor go to church on Christmas Eve. And for a long time after that I could not understand the strange motivation of that man, until, being in this free country and trying to learn the behaviours and actions of Christians of different faiths, I seem to have come to know the truth.

I have press clippings, mostly from daily newspapers, in which journalists report that most suicides occur during major holidays, especially the Christmas season. Why?

- At such a festive time, people who are not  participating in loving close relationships, are outside the Church, may feel their loneliness most painfully. Persons who are isolated may experience pain in their soul, may feel emptiness everywhere, even though they can walk and live among many people; and that is why such people may become desperate and driven to commit rash deeds.

Of course the circumstances of life in the 1930s under godless rule were very different from those we have in Canada, but looking back I realize that the older religious man who could not be frank with neither his fellow professors nor his students, was so thirsty for the need for union with God and brotherhood in Christ, he was so spiritually hungry and thirsty that he went to the church for the service.

The danger was great, because if someone reported that he was a Christian believer, he would immediately be fired from his job, thrown out of his home, slandered through the press, and then arrested and falsely accused of some crime. After all, it is well known that people were beaten and abused interminably, until they were ready to sign any confession just to bring an end to all those tortures.

A truly believing person always strives for union with God, with people similar to him or her.  That is why believers unite in Christ's Communities, that is why they seek to participate in Divine services, and that is why they want to unite with Christ-God in the Holy Sacraments.

And whether any of us are a lay member of the church or a clergyman, for us to go to church, to the temple of God on Sundays or on Holy Days, is not an obligation, but simply a spiritual necessity. Especially here, in countries where we are scattered in a foreign sea, our soul longs for unity with those similar in faith and nationality, for we have a common spiritual culture (not only religious). And all of us are thirsty for unity in God, (and) not just for associating with some organization.

The failing of many people is that they do not appreciate what they have, do not value treasures, gifts from God -- people simply forget that they are baptized, born "from above", born in God. They are anointed, and therefore, they are living with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which need to be nurtured and developed.

May the Nativity of Christ remind us that the Son of God came to earth for our salvation, to unite us, people, with our Creator, with God, to return to us the sonship of God, so that all of us who believe in Christ become children of God.

Apostle Paul says:

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

That is why we are not just servants of God, but children of God. Our God is not only our Creator, but also our Father, that is why Jesus Christ taught us to turn to God as to the Father - Our Father. (Matthew 6:9-13)

And apostle Paul assures us:

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Romans 8:16-17)

Our joy with Christ, and in the celebration of His coming to earth, and in His appearance as the Son of God, will be complete only when we profess Him, His teaching, sincerely, when we are ready not only to rejoice in Christ, but, as apostle Paul says, to rejoice, and endure.

Amen.

Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko

Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.

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