Nun Philothei, Abbess of the Sacred Hesychasterion Panagia of Vryoula, writes:
The Eldress [now Saint Gabrielia] emphasized how privileged we Orthodox are, because we do not have a “bogeyman” God, in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, where there is absolute submission:
“We, by divine grace, were born into a Church that is free. And this spirit of Orthodoxy is the true pedestal, on which Christ is directly the head. No one else - Christ is the head. When an Orthodox person says that Christ is not the head, he ceases to be Orthodox. That is why you will not see a truly Orthodox priest telling you absolutely to do this or that. If you see such behavior and it does not encourage you to ask your conscience and not discuss it, in order to make a decision, it means that something is wrong.”
And she continues by giving an example from her personal experience with the well-known holy cleric Father Athanasios Hamakiotis [now Saint Athanasios]:
“There was also here in Neratziotissa an elderly priest who would start confession from one morning and finish the next morning. The Church offered him the position of Bishop and he refused. They offered to give him a large parish and he refused that as well. This man had such deep humility that, after someone opened his heart to him and told him of a serious sin, he would say at the end: 'Pray, my child,' because he understood that Christ is within the sinner.
I still think about him and weep. I went to this man one day and told him that I had just come from India and was staying with my two older siblings for a while, but that I was suffering terribly because they had the radio on all day and I couldn’t stand it because I had come from India where I was in silence and contemplation.
He told me:
'You will tell them: Either me or the radio, and they will turn it off and that’s the end of the matter.'
I was scared and told him:
'I cannot obey you because I love them so much that even if they have a hundred radios, they deserve my love for them. What will happen then?'
And the priest said to me humbly:
'What shall I do with you, my child? Then lock yourself in your room as much as you can, so that you don't hear it.'
Only an Orthodox priest would dare to say this.
A Roman Catholic would insist, saying: 'So that your soul is not lost, do not even take a step in there again, if the radio bothers you.'
Losing your soul is not so terrible in Orthodoxy, because it is not possible. In the end, something holds you back. That is the strange thing. We reach the 'now and forever'. And then an invisible hand comes and lifts you up. Why? Because we are free and we will not lose this freedom and we must not lose it.”
What the Eldress emphasized is that our obedience should be obedience in freedom and not become “a dead obedience.”
Source: From the book of Nun Philothei, The Eldress of Joy, Nun Gabrielia Papagiannis, Epistrofi publications. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
The Eldress [now Saint Gabrielia] emphasized how privileged we Orthodox are, because we do not have a “bogeyman” God, in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, where there is absolute submission:
“We, by divine grace, were born into a Church that is free. And this spirit of Orthodoxy is the true pedestal, on which Christ is directly the head. No one else - Christ is the head. When an Orthodox person says that Christ is not the head, he ceases to be Orthodox. That is why you will not see a truly Orthodox priest telling you absolutely to do this or that. If you see such behavior and it does not encourage you to ask your conscience and not discuss it, in order to make a decision, it means that something is wrong.”
And she continues by giving an example from her personal experience with the well-known holy cleric Father Athanasios Hamakiotis [now Saint Athanasios]:
“There was also here in Neratziotissa an elderly priest who would start confession from one morning and finish the next morning. The Church offered him the position of Bishop and he refused. They offered to give him a large parish and he refused that as well. This man had such deep humility that, after someone opened his heart to him and told him of a serious sin, he would say at the end: 'Pray, my child,' because he understood that Christ is within the sinner.
I still think about him and weep. I went to this man one day and told him that I had just come from India and was staying with my two older siblings for a while, but that I was suffering terribly because they had the radio on all day and I couldn’t stand it because I had come from India where I was in silence and contemplation.
He told me:
'You will tell them: Either me or the radio, and they will turn it off and that’s the end of the matter.'
I was scared and told him:
'I cannot obey you because I love them so much that even if they have a hundred radios, they deserve my love for them. What will happen then?'
And the priest said to me humbly:
'What shall I do with you, my child? Then lock yourself in your room as much as you can, so that you don't hear it.'
Only an Orthodox priest would dare to say this.
A Roman Catholic would insist, saying: 'So that your soul is not lost, do not even take a step in there again, if the radio bothers you.'
Losing your soul is not so terrible in Orthodoxy, because it is not possible. In the end, something holds you back. That is the strange thing. We reach the 'now and forever'. And then an invisible hand comes and lifts you up. Why? Because we are free and we will not lose this freedom and we must not lose it.”
What the Eldress emphasized is that our obedience should be obedience in freedom and not become “a dead obedience.”
Source: From the book of Nun Philothei, The Eldress of Joy, Nun Gabrielia Papagiannis, Epistrofi publications. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
