By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas
Saint Nikolai, Bishop of Ochrid, was born on 23 December 1880 in the village of Lelić in Serbia to pious parents. He learned his first letters at the Monastery of Ćelije and afterwards entered the Clerical School of Saint Sava in Belgrade. Later, with a scholarship from the Church, he continued his studies in Switzerland, Germany, and England, and subsequently was elected professor at the Clerical School of Saint Sava.
During the First World War he supported the suffering and the poor. After the end of the war he was elected Bishop of Žhicha in 1919, and two years later he was transferred to Ochrid. He frequently visited Mount Athos and stayed mainly at the Sacred Monastery of Saint Panteleimon. There he met Saint Silouan, whose holiness he immediately recognized and made known. He also met Saint Sophrony, whom he ordained a deacon.
He loved his flock sacrificially and spent himself in its service, and he was likewise loved by them. He founded orphanages and restored holy churches and ruined or abandoned monasteries. The books he wrote were published in twenty volumes; however, the book that was most loved is The Prologue from Ochrid, in which he briefly presents the lives of the saints for each day of the year together with comments. There are also preserved about three hundred of his missionary letters, by which he answered specific pastoral questions posed to him by the faithful, who regarded each of his words as equal in worth to the sayings of the Gerontikon. He was also a poet and hymnographer. Among his hymnographic works is also the service in honor of the Serbian New Martyrs. His hymnographic work is praised exceedingly by his disciple, Saint Justin the New Confessor (Popovich).
He participated in the Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference in 1930 at the Sacred Monastery of Vatopaidi on Mount Athos, at which he expressed Orthodox theology and boldly denounced the agreement with the Vatican that Yugoslavia was ready to conclude, an agreement that would make the country a field of missionary activity for the Vatican. During the Second World War he denounced the hypocrisy of the Christian West, which justified the terrible crimes committed against the Orthodox Serbs of Croatia. He also wrote about Europe that “Christ has departed from Europe, just as formerly from the land of the Gadarenes, after the request of its inhabitants.”
He was arrested by the Germans in 1941 and was imprisoned in the strictest prisons for more than three years, together with Patriarch Gabriel. In 1944 he was confined in the death camp of Dachau, from which he was liberated on 8 May 1945 with the arrival of the Allies. In 1946, because the atheistic regime regarded him as an enemy of the people, he went to America, where he also “distinguished himself” as a shepherd, teacher, and “ardent preacher of Orthodoxy.” On 5 March 1956, while he was preparing to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, he departed this life in peace. His sacred relics were transferred in 1991 to the Sacred Monastery of Ćelije and were placed beside the tomb of Saint Justin (Popovich).
Next, excerpts from his divinely inspired exhortatory discourse will be presented and briefly analyzed.
- “A thick rope is made from thin hemp fibers. A single thin fiber cannot bind you or strangle you, because you can very easily break it and free yourself from it. But if you are bound with a thick rope, you remain captive and may even be strangled by it, because you cannot easily break it, nor free yourself. Yet a thick rope is made from thin and weak fibers. Thus also the passions of man are composed, at first, of small sins.”
If we do not struggle to avoid the so-called small sins — something we can easily accomplish — then through continual repetition they develop into powerful passions which, unfortunately, are difficult to conquer.
- “The struggle is unceasing and continuous, both external and internal. At times the enemy acts visibly through people and circumstances, while at other times he invisibly attacks man through thoughts. At certain periods the adversary appears openly, with a violent and merciless assault, like an enemy, while at other times he disguises himself as a friend who flatters but cunningly leads astray.”
The devil, “the eternal enemy of man,” is resourceful. He is the father of evil and wickedness and fights man in many different ways. He is confronted only through humility, prayer, the mysterical life, and obedience to the Church, which, according to Saint John Chrysostom, “has the name of Synod.” When a person strives to live according to Christ, then he learns the way by which he will fight against the devil, avoid his traps, despise the sinful and blasphemous thoughts he brings upon him, and cultivate good thoughts.
- “Of all beings upon the earth, none is more blind than man when his nous is darkened by sin!” Then “man falls lower than irrational creation.”
The nous of the first-created in Paradise was illumined by the grace of God, but after their fall into sin it became darkened; therefore they lost communion with God and participation in His glory and were enslaved to irrational creation. The nous of man, which is the eye of the soul, in order to be illumined by the grace of God and to acquire communion with Him and participation in His glory, requires that man struggle to conquer his passions — with the power of God, through the mysterical life, ascetic practice, prayer, and the study of the divinely inspired Scriptures.
- “In every moment of our solitude let us feel all the more the presence of God, who understands us more than any human being. Let us turn our gaze toward Him so that we may overcome loneliness by saying to Him: Come, O Only One, to me who am alone, for I am alone as You see. Come, You who are the Only One, to me who am lonely, because You see how alone I am.”
A person without the presence of Christ in his life and in his heart will feel desperately alone, even if he is surrounded by thousands of people.
The union of man with God “in the person of Jesus Christ” creates inspiration, inner fullness, and meaning in life. And then man does not feel loneliness, since through prayer and love he is united with God and with his “neighbor.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.