Interview of the Metr. of Morphou, Neophytos to the Russian channel «Спа...
[Evgenii Sivakov, Russian reporter]: Hello, viewers of our channel, “Lord Save and Protect”/ «Спаси и Сохрани» [in Russian].
We are glad to welcome you to our channel and, of course, we are glad to see you dear Father. Your blessing. [Morphou]: Have a heavenly blessing. “Христос воскрес” [“Christ is Risen” in Russian].
[reporter]: “Воистину Воскрес” [“Truly He is Risen” in Russian]. Dear Bishop, thank you for welcoming us to your Metropolis. I am glad to see you in person.
What is most important is that all your sermons can be found in our channel «Спаси и Сохрани».
Dear Bishop, on our Russian channel, many viewers and subscribers watch you and follow your sermons.
They appreciate your labor and effort for the whole world. Your voice has great power inside the church.
Many people, new to the Christian and spiritual life, pay attention to you as well as do older Christians.
As you understand, Father, coming from Russia to Cyprus, I was impressed by the nature and the interesting Christians
But most importantly, here reigns the spirit of Orthodoxy.
[Morphou]: Orthodoxy is the soul of Cyprus. [reporter]: I know that many Saints lived here and that there are people here who fight for Orthodoxy.
In addition, I was present in the morning Liturgy at the church of Saint Panteleimon.
I was impressed on how you chant with your unique loud voice.
I can say that it’s the strongest and most lively voice that I have heard in the church.
[Morphou]: It’s not too sweet … It is loud. Sometimes it is a bit wild.
Excuse me, when people were praising my voice as a deacon, [saying] that it was loud and sweet,
my mother used to tell them, “No, it is just loud. His father’s was both loud and sweet.”
In this way, she never let me believe that I am sweet voiced. She did not like [people] praising us.
[reporter]: Bishop, please tell me, from where do you draw such strength and energy to preach Orthodoxy?
[Morphou]: Nearly the same question, my dear Evgenii, was asked to me by the [former] Archbishop of Cyprus, the late Chrysostomos the II.
It was a strong conversation, a dialogue inside the Holy Synod [of Cyprus] concerning the big issue of [covid] vaccines.
I was the only one who had strong and persistent opinions against the vaccines, the covid vaccines.
I emphasized to our Archbishop and the archpriest brothers that this issue is not just medical. It is also mainly spiritual. Thus it is a matter of faith.
And the faith of the Orthodox, I told them, is “energetic”. It is a gift, it is an energy of the Holy Spirit.
This is why in the Creed we say, “And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life […].”
It is the Holy Spirit that gives us life and life comes through energy. The Archbishop then understood really well what I meant,
that my position against the vaccines was more an issue of trust in the life that the Holy Spirit gives to me and not the vaccine.
And he asked nearly the same question. He said, “Let me ask you something and I want you to answer me in all the honesty that characterizes you.”
“Where did you find so much faith? Such strong faith?”
And I told him this. First from my parents.
Especially from my mother Milia, who is now in heaven with her mother Myrofora, that is, my grandmother. Both of them are holy women.
Afterwards, when I grew up and became a university student in Greece, first in law school and then in theological school.
The great modern Saints I met since my 19 years of age imparted and increased this energy of the Holy Spirit.
First Saint Porphyrios [of Kavsokalyvia], then St. Iakovos [Tsalikis], then St. Paisios and then St. Eumenios.
My child, when you have met even just one Saint, you have met Christ.
Since God saw that I am a really quirky person, a difficult person and fatherless since a child,
He sent me many fathers and holy mothers so that I would not deviate this energy I was bearing inside me.
Not throw it to sin or to atheism. Or other things that are not so beneficial, money for example. Or cultural [affairs].
I could easily have become a good attorney, a good professor, teacher, reporter.
But God sent me from my childhood until I became 20, even 25 years old, all these Saints,
both in my house, the parents and the grandmother, and then the elders I told you about.
When you realize the great mercy of God and his beneficence in your life,
you have to activate and increase this energy of your ancestors and the teachers, the elders,
and be vigilant, especially, when you are young. It also helped me a lot being selective with my friends.
Although I was open to everyone, I was not cautious, meaning not afraid of a friendship.
[But] when I realized that a friendship had no God, had no Orthodoxy, I would leave.
This helped me a lot. Thank God! Excuse me! Additionally, we learned from my mother to not love money and to not love praise. This helped a lot.
To trust much in the providence of God. That He gives us life, He is raising us. He takes care of us.
From my elder, Saint Iakovos Tsalikis, I learned every morning, as soon as I wake up, to cross myself and ask from a Saint for my faith to be increased, [for it] to be more than the previous day.
[reporter]: Bishop, I am worried about the events happening in Russia and Ukraine. I also have two questions about Israel.
[Morphou]: Are you not worried about Israel? [reporter]: Yes, yes, I am worried. [Morphou]: Worry more about it. About Israel and Persia [Iran].
[reporter]: Bishop, the first question has to do with why the Lord allowed for a war to happen between Russia and Ukraine.
[Morphou]: The question must be why God allowed for a Third World War to start.
The Ukrainian [issue] is a part of the Third World War. It is not the beginning, neither the end.
There are spiritual and geostrategic causes. God is guiding history. Do you want to talk about the causes?
[reporter]: Yes. [Morphou]: Look, on a spiritual level, something that many do not speak about. Most just watch the human [affairs].
They see the interests, the confrontation between Russia and NATO, the energy issues, the gas pipelines, the economic interests, right?
These are [causes] too. They are the humanly, the earthly [causes].
However, there are also the spiritual causes which were told to me by some of the modern Saints.
Such a modern Saint that slept two years ago [2021] was gerondissa Galaktia of Crete.
Another great Saint, ascetic and missionary, Agiorite [i.e, of Ayio Oros/Mount Athos] was elder Ephraim of Arizona.
Another one [is] older, I read about her and she describes the whole Ukrainian [situation].
[This] is Saint Alypia of Kiev. [There are] as well Russian starets and Saints such as Saint Laurentius [†1950], Saint Makaria.
They all lived in the 20th century, right? The great Saint of the Holy Mountain, Saint Paisios.
Our elder, his holy icon is behind me, Saint Iakovos Tsalikis.
Saint Iakovos, for example, one time he went to venerate the relics of Saint John the Russian which is in Evia, he saw the Saint alive.
The two Saints, Saint Iakovos and Saint John the Russian were talking. At first, since St. John is a pilgrimage just like St. Cyprianos is [a pilgrimage] for you,
St. Iakovos said to St. John, as a compliment, “So many pilgrims arrive to see you, my Saint John. You must be really happy!”
[St. John the Russian replied,] “The pilgrims are many, Father Iakovos. [But] the faithful are only a few!”
“The world is full of impiety, immorality and unfaithfulness. For this, for this world to be fixed, there must be a war.”
St. Iakovos was upset when he heard these words because he was a refugee from Asia Minor.
He had experienced war ever since his childhood like few [have].
“No more war,” he tells St. John. “No more wars, a lifetime of warfare. In 1922 the Asia Minor disaster, the Turks sent us away from our homes."
"Then, the Second World War. Then, the Civil War in Greece, communists against right-wings, they were killing each other."
"Then, we had so many disasters in Cyprus, Russia, the whole world. [Why] war again?”
St. John the Russian replied, “There has to be a war, there has to be a war, there has to be a war. There is no other way to fix humanity.”
When St. Iakovos was telling me [this] later, I was a university student [back] then, and I asked him,
“Why do you think, elder, St. John the Russian insists on [the fact] that there will be a great war?”
He told me, “God revealed to me that the next generations [of people] will not give birth to normal children. But ‘devil-children’!”
This is what he told me and he gave me no other interpretation. Now think of the people of the New Order who say that the next children will be a mixture of artificial intelligence, that is like robots, and half-humans.
And they advertise this. It is going to be the so-called “meta-human.”
They want to “repair” the creation of the Triune God. The rest of the Saints, I mentioned earlier, they all say the same thing.
If God does not intervene, the following generations will not be an image of God.
They will be a species of man with a deceased soul, meaning, they won’t be able to become holy.
A society, a humanity that will not give birth to holy people has no point in living.
Now, in order to complete the spiritual causes of the war, not just in Ukraine, but of the whole "system" that is coming, that we are experiencing:
What has distorted the humankind so much in spiritual terms?
It’s not just technology, the artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, the microchips … it is our sins as well. Especially, three of them.
The first sin which is very widespread in the whole planet is abortions.
Not only because they take place, but also because they are legalized by the governments, the MPs, the states, even the Orthodox ones.
When sin becomes law [of the state] and a right, God resents man.
He resents man because man has no longer a disposition to repent.
God is not afraid of our sin. He is “afraid” of the man who justifies sin, turns it into law and does not want to repent at all.
The second sin, as elder Ephraim of Arizona and gerondissa Galaktia said, is the unnatural sexual [acts] that take place inside as much as outside marriage. The unnatural [sexual sins].
If you consider that, in our days, all these [people], have made homosexuality, pedophilia into law.
They are even going to legalize bestiality. They abolish the distinction God made, man [«άρσεν»] and woman [«θήλυ»].
They say that there are 60 genders. Not one, not two, not three, not four, sixty-four they say.
They make [these things] into law. And they are proud about it and make parades.
The third is witchcraft, satanism, the worship of Satan. Astrology, parapsychology, meditations, guru, yoga.
Everyone who teaches these things is a priest of Satan.
Modern people prefer the energies of sorcerers, satanists, Masons, all these people who prefer devil instead of Christ.
A fourth cause, in my humble view, is [the fact] that most modern ecclesiastical leaders wherever they exist,
and thank God, they exist all over the world, do not speak about these things! They do not teach people on these things. There is a tolerance, a silence or a reduced reaction.
Thus, you realize that when the shepherds do not lead the ship rightly, [meaning] the faithful people, then first the Saints and afterwards God, Himself, will intervene.
As regards the Ukrainian issue, if we want to limit [ourselves] to Ukraine, one who knows well what this war hides.
It’s a war where the people of the New World Order want to weaken the resistance against all these evils we mentioned.
To not be a resistance. And who is it that can resist? Only the Orthodox [people], only the Orthodox!
So, in Ukraine there were all the conditions we described earlier, both the secret and the obvious ones, both the spiritual and the worldly.
I characterized the current President of Ukraine, Zelensky, a Khazar. Few people, especially among the Westerners and the Greeks, understood what Khazar means.
I did not describe him as a Ukrainian, as a Russian, as a Jew, right? No, Khazar!
The New World Order of Bill Gates, Soros, Rockefellers and Rothschilds fears a lot the people who know history and the people who have Orthodox faith and holiness.
You also had in Ukraine, a prophet who prepared you for all this. Starets Ionas. Everything that happens has been prophesized by him.
They want to divide Orthodoxy and, afterwards, weaken her.
They want to weaken man. For him not to be able to become holy, not to be able to be an image of God.
To make people crazy. For the people to be acceptive of their magic, technological and “medical,” in quotations, energies.
The problem is not just the Ukrainian issue.
Next to the Ukrainian, it’s not incidental that the problem of the vaccines was developed which we described earlier.
We are going to have problems with artificial earthquakes, fires in a way that the natural environment could be destroyed, that is, the paradise that God created for man on earth.
The fishes of the sea to be destroyed. I was reading today that small Cyprus has butcheries that will sell artificial meat.
You asked me, at the beginning, about my energy. A young child … you, for example,…do you have kids?
[reporter]: No. [Morphou]: I wish that you will have them [in the future]. [reporter]: Thank you! [Morphou]: A goal, that the people of New World Order pursue, is for fertile men and fertile women to not exist.
They want to reduce the human population,
If possible [to constrain] the human population to reach 500 million so it can be under control. The rest will be done by the computers.
This is the way, they think, they can have a world dictatorship and a world religion, the religion of Antichrist.
When your children will not be fed with natural food ... even meat will be artificial.
Europe, itself, now suggests eating worms and cockroaches.
We might be laughing, but all these things have already been made into law. For our kids, this is going to be their reality. It is going to be their McDonald’s.
So, when man is not fed with healthy food, he does not receive the Body and Blood of Christ.
He does not wish for the energies of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Inevitably, he will become a man full of fear, guilt, insecurity, of reduced intelligence.
He won’t wish to become a man of God but will wish to live even at the expense of his children.
Is it not so? You realize how prophetic was the word of St. Iakovos. “They won’t be men, my child. They will be devil-children and devil-men.”
At the time, these words seemed tough to me. Right now, I realize they were prophetic.
They do not want the physical, neither the spiritual man.
Thus, the war that takes place in Syria, the war that takes place in Ukraine, the war that will start in the whole Middle East soon and the Chinese will take part [in this war]. This is how it will turn into a World War.
On the one side, it is the people who want humanity to remain within physical and spiritual limits just as the Triune God created it.
On the other side, it’s the camp of the Antichrist. The Antichrist does not love the image of God, which is called man.
[reporter]: Bishop, I would like us to talk about the synodality of the church. What does the synodality of the church means for you?
[Morphou]: It means that we do not have a papist system. That simple!
The synodicity is expressed [in the following way]. In each local church where there is one bishop, presbyters, deacons and faithful people. This is a complete church.
It is really important for this church to be revealed in the [Holy] Mysteries and, especially, in the Mystery of Mysteries which is called Divine Liturgy.
Whenever, problems occur among the [Orthodox] churches as it is natural...
The Orthodox church always had the heretics, the schismatics, the people of cacodoxy.
[Since the Orthodox Church] believed in the synodical system, meaning that each local church preserves the whole truth! That’s the meaning!
A local church preserves [the truth], when it has the schema I described—bishop, presbyters, deacons and Orthodox faithful people—and whenever there are problems as I described them before.
[For problems] concerning either persons or certain local churches, they resort to the Great Synods. Let me give an example.
In Cyprus, we had an autonomous church which regulated its own affairs,
meaning, it organized the elections of its bishops. If there were problems with the Bishops, they were adjudicated by the Synod of the Church of Cyprus.
We had a self-governing church. At the end of the 4th, beginning of the 5th century, the neighboring Patriarchate of Antioch in Syria, which was a strong political and ecclesiastical center at the time,
started claiming [authority] over the Church of Cyprus. It had the political, the population and the monetary power [to pursue this].
Geographically, it was justified to claim Cyprus. Cyprus is next to Syria.
The Archbishop of Cyprus died at the time and [the Antioch Patriarchate] sent a message through the then political governor of Anatolia
that the Cypriots will not elect themselves, as they did until then, a new Archbishop. We [meaning the Patriarchate of Antioch] will hold elections and send you an Archbishop.
In this arbitrary and fascist way, the synodicity of the Church of Cyprus was abolished, but the synodicity of the Patriarchate of Antioch was also problematic.
Then, in Ephesus, that is the capital of Asia Minor, the Third Ecumenical Council took place.
The issues were theological. One was really sensitive, it concerned the role of Virgin Mary as Mother of God ["θεομητορικότητα της Παναγίας" in Greek].
That is, whether this woman, the Panagia, Mariam, gave birth to the perfect God and the perfect man.
President of the Synod was the Great St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. The Patriarch of Constantinople was accused of heresy.
This is why Cyril of Alexandria was presiding.
There, the Synod said that Panagia is Theotokos [“the one who gave birth to God”].
The Cypriot bishops took advantage of the Third Ecumenical Council and the problem they had with Antioch,
although it seemed as not a theological one, it’s an administrative one, they took it there.
Meaning, when a small synod cannot give a solution to a local problem, you go to a larger Synod and the largest one is the Ecumenical one.
Then, the Third Ecumenical Council said that the Cypriots will continue being autonomous.
They will elect their bishops, their Archbishop, and when they have problems, they, themselves, will adjudicate them.
[The Church of Cyprus] was the first Autocephalous [church] of the world. Thus, you realize that the problems that exist today. I understand what you mean, the Ukrainian one [for example] concerns and affects all of us. They will be solved dear one…
We have other problems too. It is not just the Ukrainian one. [All these problems] will be solved with a great Ecumenical Council, which has been prophesized by great Saints of our church such as St. Porphyrios,
and which will take place with the end of the Third World War.
The Bishops that will then be alive, [having survived] the vaccines, the gases, the radio energy, the war events,
we will go there, invited by the then Patriarch, and they will solve the Ukrainian and all the problems. Until then, patience and prayer.
Ukrainians are blessed to be tested now, because in this way it will become clear who the faithful are and who are the people of little faith.
Cyprus has gone through many trials and still does with the Turks and other things as you see.
The faith of all is tested right now. Ukraine is particularly blessed, do you know why?
Because amidst all this exacerbating evil of a Khazar President, and Khazar for me means satanist,
[are the] interests of 50 countries, because the war taking place there is not between Russia and Ukraine.
It is between Russia, and Russia has behind it other powers, other countries that are hidden.
But, behind Zelensky, 50 countries are hidden. Not one, 50.
What is the great blessing of Ukraine? That it has a praying ascetic, [the] Metropolitan of Kiev, Onoufrios.
I remind you what happened in 1999 and 2000 in Serbia, in Orthodox Serbia.
The NATO, American, British, French airplanes were bombarding Serbia for months.
Even more, [they were bombarding] with nuclear charge whose energy has stayed in the ground up to date and children with disabilities have been born.
We were watching [the war events] with pain and tears. We remembered our own [suffering] by the Turks in 1974,
again, in collaboration with NATO and the Americans. Who was the Patriarch of the Serbs [back then]? Patriarch Pavlos. Here he is, with a halo. Saint Pavlos.
What does this mean for Ukraine? Today cross, tomorrow resurrection, right? Today temptation, tomorrow holiness.
Still, for whoever [manages to] endure, for whoever holds the Orthodox faith, whoever is martyred for Orthodoxy, either with his blood or with his word.
The example of St. Pavlos, Patriarch of Serbia, must be imitated today, with lots of patience, lots of prayer, our prayer as well, [by the Metropolitan of] Kiev Onoufrios.
The Orthodox [people] must stop being afraid of the martyrdom and the Orthodox witness.
Let us not be deceived by the earthly life with its pleasures and its joys.
The Orthodox [man] lives to enjoy the eternal life of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Our times, our era provides a great opportunity. We live apocalyptic times.
Let us be careful of divisions, judgements, criticisms.
And let us not be deceived by the game of the devil and the Antichrist and the New World Order. He who is able to understand, let him do so.
[reporter]: Спасибо. [“Thank you” in Russian] I am worried by the next question, which is related with the modern doubts of Orthodoxy, on which, Bishop, you have already talked.
The issues of transgenderism, homosexuality, abortions, the digital currency, whatever relates to the laws of the Antichrist.
And this is because we, modern Orthodox Christians, face difficulties, special difficulties.
How can the Orthodox Christians fight?
As I see, it’s not that they don’t hear, they just don’t want to hear anyone. As some bishops say, although there are few of them.
There is a prophecy which says that the stars will fall from the sky, and the decoding of [this prophecy] is that the stars are the bishops who will no longer exist.
How would you then estimate this state of apostasy that is taking place today? How should modern Christians face it?
[Morphou]: At a night without stars, look for stars, even one is enough.
One star led the Magi of the East to the newborn Christ. [Just] one!
As a matter of fact, St. John the Chrysostom, the great interpreter of the Gospel, says that the star of Bethlehem was not an astrophysical star, celestial in the sense of matter.
But it was the Archangel of the Panagia, Archangel Gabriel. Over there. Star-like angel.
Thus, no matter how many stars fall, our Christ, my dear, is He who holds history in His hands.
That’s why I say the Orthodox [man] has no excuse for being afraid, if he is indeed Orthodox in faith,
as Orthodoxy has been tested many times. But since it is the truth of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, this truth cannot be lost.
Even one bishop, and there will always be bishops who will “rightly divide the word of Thy truth” [from the Divine Liturgy of St. John the Chrysostom], always!
When I became a deacon, I was 25-26 years old. I went to visit my elder, St. Iakovos Tsalikis, in Greece.
I tell him, “Elder, I became a deacon, but maybe I should not have become a deacon. I should have stayed a simple monk.”
[St. Iakovos]: “Why do you say that?” [Morphou]: He did not like what I said. I tell him that I have a bodily problem. My hand is shaking a bit.
My mother’s family had this problem and I inherited it too.
How am I to give the Holy Communion to people? I am afraid. My hand is shaking.
He laughed. He told me, “You will be a priest only for a few years. They will make you a bishop at a very young age.”
[St. Iakovos]: “You have to be a bishop. And you will have deacons. In your whole life, you will have deacons and they will give the Holy Communion to the world.”
[St. Iakovos]: “God expects other things from you.” [Morphou]: Am I to become a bishop?
[St. Iakovos]: Yes, you will, at the place of your birth. [Morphou]: Indeed, close to here is the village I was born.
[St. Iakovos]: You have to speak. Always speak and fear no one.
[Morphou]: What shall I say to the world? I don’t have anything of mine to tell them.
[St. Iakovos]: Do not talk about your own. Talk about what you saw and heard by your holy mother.
[St. Iakovos]: By your good father, Nicholas. Your holy grandmother Myrofora.
[St. Iakovos]: Whatever St. Porphyrios told you, the Great Hagiorite St. Paisios and whatever you heard by me, the sinner.
[St. Iakovos]: Whatever you saw [among] the lepers. --This is where St. Eumenios lived, the disciple of St. Nikephoros the Leper.--
[St. Iakovos]: This is what the people would want to hear. Not academic theologies, [but] experiences of God.
[St. Iakovos]: But I ask of you one thing. Since you will become bishop at a young age, at first talk a little.
[St. Iakovos]: Talk a lot, after your fifties. [Morphou]: So I waited to become fifty [years old]. I turned fifty years old in 2012.
If you look into it, the homilies I make, started after 2015.
Afterwards, I went to St. Porphyrios. He told me the same things. He only added this.
[St. Porphyrios]: Your voice will be heard from Canada to Australia, from Russia to South Africa.
[Morphou]: How will this be possible? [St. Porphyrios]: Technology will help.
[Morphou]: I am saying this personal example, for you, [for] your era of young people that will make your families or that now have made your families, with your little children,
who live among all the evils you described and others that will come, maybe [even] bigger [ones].
Take care to find the voices that hold the truth of the Holy Fathers and the Holy Mothers.
The technology today can help very, very, very much.
[Including] what you do with the internet and we, with our homilies, our sermons.
Russia especially has a lot of potential, a lot of potential for technology.
Her power is Orthodoxy. It’s not just the weapons of Putin. They too [hold power]. They too are needed as a defense. Let us not nullify them.
But our goal is for the Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers and Mothers to be heard in all nations.
The world today needs catechesis, needs teaching, needs therapeutic treatment of its soul and its body.
The world does not know what to eat nowadays. Church even tells us what to eat.
She [the church] talks about fasting, talks about silence [“hesychia”]. For example, the nutritionists, the dieticians come and say that the best diet in the world is the Mediterranean diet.
“But the Mediterranean sea extends from Gibraltar to Syria. Which exact diet?” you ask.
And they reply, “The diet, the Orthodox monks follow.”
The teachers who work on musical harmony and do the so-called “musical therapy” come.
They say, “The most therapeutic music in the world which captures even the smallest intervals of sounds is the Byzantine music.”
Why do I say these things? We have the experience of the best physical life, of the best spiritual life, of the health of body and soul.
Can we find people who make Orthodox schools? Which teach the things we discussed?
Orthodox diet, exercise, informatics, [foreign] languages and especially, and I am not saying this because I am Greek,
let us all learn, and first of all the Greeks, Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek have an ability to be a language of philosophy, science, theology and hymnology.
The only language in the world [for] technology, science and hymnology, meaning music.
We, Orthodox, must stop grumbling.
Dostoyevsky realized it 200 years ago. He says, “I went to an endless graveyard where they killed God.”
Some years ago, ten years ago, they called me and I went to Moscow.
There was a festival of Orthodox culture organized by Fr. Cyprianos.
He is a hieromonk, archimandrite who is responsible of the cultural programs in the Patriarchate of Russia.
He called me and I went there. It was a festival organized by Mrs. Medvedev [then first lady of Russia], Svetlana Medvedev.
I remember what this lady said. She said that all Orthodox must collaborate and make movies, documentaries, [and radio] stations.
The Internet was only starting back then. So that we can give our children “orthodox quality” because right now our children and grandchildren consume the European and American garbage.
She says that only people who know and experience Orthodoxy can do this thing.
[reporter]: Dear Bishop, the next question has a different character.
It concerns us, the Russian Orthodox Christians of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Lately, there is an issue with the Tsar family concerning their burial.
There are certain contemporary elders such as Nikolai Gourianov who says that we should cease looking for the relics of the Tsar family, since they were killed ritually.
But we honor the Tsar family. We love her.
And this is where disputes erupt on the burial, whether it should happen or not, as there are many testimonies that say it is not needed.
I, myself, am of that view. Do you have an opinion on this issue?
The history is widely known and nobody denies that the rebels betrayed the Tsar family. Lenin, Trotsky and the other Bolsheviks.
After that, unfortunately, the Russian empire ceased to exist. The last emperor of Russia, anointed by God, was Nicholas II. Could you comment on this?
[Morphou]: My first, rash answer should be, “It’s not for me to say.”
I have only studied a little this issue. Let the Russian archpriest brothers forgive me that I comment on an issue they, definitely, know better than me.
In my life, I have learned to listen a lot to the God-bearing people, not what the people, as a majority say.
One God-bearing person can see what is the truly real and necessary, whereas the people don’t.
Or, maybe, some can deceive or radicalize the people.
That’s why, always, in every Orthodox country we need Orthodox, God-bearing people, men and women,
especially [for those topics], where two or three God-bearing people agree, the so-called, in theology, “Agreement of [Holy] Fathers or Mothers.”
I think that the regicide that took place then, has taken its place in our days inside the life of the church.
Already, they [the Tsar family] have been received as martyrs [by the church]. In the Metropolis [of Morphou], I have a holy icon of them.
Saint John Maximovitch, whose incorrupt relics are in San Francisco of America, has spoken very well on this.
The problems of the society are so many that we should not add extra questions, doubts, nor have obsessions
to look relentlessly for their relics, which as far as I know, have been found, right?
[Nor should we] have speculations and ask for more searches … this reminds me of the scholasticism of the Westerners, Catholics and Protestants.
The most beloved disciple of the Lord is St. John the Theologian. The first “Theologian” of the Church.
Where are his relics? It’s a mystery. Same with many Saints. Do you know what I would say as a last word to this question?
Let us, the modern bishops and Orthodox faithful, take care to become relics ourselves.
When Nicholas the Tsar became a Tsar, I don’t think he ever expected to become a relic, or a martyr even more so. And yet God made him worthy.
[reporter]: Bishop, please tell us do you know Father Andrei Aliosin?
[Morphou]: Yes, sure. His children as well. [reporter]: Great! He has written a book, “The Saint Tsar Martyr Nicholas II and his Times.”
[Morphou]: I did not know that. [reporter]: Some of his books are about Nicholas II and the Tsar family in volumes.
We knew each other personally and we had a show about the martyrs of the Tsar family.
Father Andrei studied this issue a lot and I, deep inside, was also greatly concerned with the issue.
This is why, Father, I made this question to you as concerns the Tsar family.
It is just that this issue has yet to be resolved at a high level.
Father Andrei served in the church of Apostle Andrew the first-called and [the church of] All-Saints of the Russian land.
He slept not long ago. [Morphou]: Yes, I am aware of that. [reporter]: Unfortunately, the death of the Father is related with some secrets.
Some speak of a chronic illness, many of our subscribers think that he faced a martyrdom, but we are not sure about it.
He always spoke about the truth without considering the threats and the prohibition to preach.
Many believe that he faced a martyrdom, although the Father, himself, on YouTube stated that he had been poisoned.
What do you believe? What [purpose] did the death of the Father serve? Why did the Lord take a faithful Father who always spoke about the truth?
[Morphou]: [Because] he was ready. He was ready for the eternal life … It seems that Fr. Andrei served the plan of God. He completed the plan of God. What better?
He was a confessor priest. I experienced him a bit. At first, when he came with his large family, he wanted to come near me.
To be a priest near me. As a matter of fact, I “gave” him a really small village, up in the mountains, at St. Dimitrios of Marathasa to go and liturgize,
especially, for the Russian brothers who lived there as well as in Lemessos,
at a chapel of the village [dedicated to] St. George. Until today, Russians go there and liturgize.
Afterwards, he met the Metropolitan of Tamassos, Isaiah. Metropolitan Isaiah told me, “He [Fr. Andrei] is a really important man. He can’t be [secluded] in a small village in Troodos."
He also had cardiological problems, respiratory problems and the [high] altitude did not help him.
So, I agreed and I gave him episcopal release and he went to the Metropolis of Tamassos and was appointed at the big church which is [located] in the courtyard of the Metropolis of Tamassos.
Fr. Andrei also gave me as a gift a holy icon with a relic of a Russian Saint inside.
Later when his disease came during the time of coronavirus, his son, who is also a priest, called me and told me that our father is having a really hard time and refuses to go to the doctor.
[This was] because the law, the protocol then [demanded] isolation and he said, “I want to die in my home.”
“I do not want to follow these atheist protocols.Ask [the Metropolitan of] Morphou.” That’s what he told them.
As I understood, the whole family respected him a lot, his wife, his children. They treated him as a Patriarch.
We agreed with his son, the priest. “Whatever the Father [Andrei] wants, let it be done.”
He was ready to die. He preferred to die in his home instead of following the suspicious protocols.
[That is] the least we can say about them [the covid protocols], right? From a medical standpoint and so on.
Father Andrey lived as he wanted, orthodoxly, priestly, and slept priestly, orthodoxly and confessionally.
This is enough for me. It says, “righteous into the hands of the living God.” [cf Hebrews 10:31]
Let us pray that many priests and archpriests will appear resembling the spirit of Fr. Andrei.
Evgenii [name of the reporter], if God wills, either now or after years, if there is something that has to be revealed, God, Himself will reveal it,
[in a way similar] to what happened with the relics of St. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene, [and the relics] of St. Ephraim of Nea Makri.
After so many centuries, the martyrdom, the relics, the power, the miracles [of them] were [all] revealed.
What I tell you is an answer both to the previous question about the Tsars and Fr. Andrei.
Let [us], modern people, let God, who is a God of truth reveal His truth whenever He is willing.
It might be that our generation is not worthy [of a revelation]. Another generation will come, your children, your grandchildren.
Let us leave something to be solved by the next [generations]. Do we have to solve everything ourselves?
Certain mysteries will be solved in heaven, when we go there, in eternal life.
It is enough for us that we are Orthodox and, glory to God, that with the small fight we do, we receive so much grace and joy.
Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God! [reporter]: Dear bishop, please give us a spiritual counsel on how the Orthodox Christian must face difficulties.
I am thinking it is a spiritual question. [Morphou]: First of all, to thank God that He makes us worthy to experience what we experience.
Secondly, to ask for God’s will in our life and not our will.
And say, “My Christ reveal your will in my life.”
To our people that I speak here in our area and on the web, that they upload our homilies.
From 2016 until today, how many years is it, Dimitris?
Seven years now, I remember where I said this [prayer] for the first time.
It was in the church where Dimitris, our translator, is a deacon [«διακονεί»]. It was the Vespers of St. Cyprianos and St. Justine in front of their miraculous icon and their relics.
I felt at that time that I should prepare our people.
I asked both our people and our priests and I told them, “Over the next few years, pray and say, ‘My Christ grant me the patience and the faith of the Saints’.”
Our patience as well as our Orthodox faith will be tested a lot.
There was no coronavirus at the time, neither vaccines, nor did people understand that a World War is coming.
Let us keep three things. Our Orthodox faith, let us allow no one distort her.
Neither with ecumenisms, nor with zealotisms and fanaticisms. That’s one thing.
Second, let us learn about our personal sins, about our desires and our thoughts with attentive nous, a quick nous to cleanse our hearts. This is what repentance [truly] means.
And as soon as we fall into some sin, quick repentance. Let us repent quickly.
Do not let our guilt, eat us. To the contrary, as soon as possible go repent and talk to our Christ and if the sin persists, visit our spiritual father.
The third, with the blessing of the spiritual father and with a forgiving spirit—to learn how to forgive our fellow man and pray for him, even if he wrongs and accuses us—to receive the Holy Communion, Body and Blood of Christ, as often as possible and as permitted.
The Orthodox should stop being afraid. We only have to repent. We only have to confess. We only have to receive the Holy Communion.
He who we receive is not just someone. It’s the perfect God and the perfect man, Jesus Christ.
Saint Justin Popovic, the Serbian, says [this]. I recommend that all of you read him. He is the most relevant of all Saints.
The best dogmatic I read is this. It says, “Christ is the victor. The victor of death, the victor of devil, the victor of sin.”
The problem is, do we Orthodox want really to live with the victor? Do we want the eternal life?
Or do we [simply] want an ideology of Orthodoxy? And let life pass by like that?
I end with this. An 80 year old woman told me, “Ah, my bishop, ah!”
“How stupid have I been all these years?” “I was religious. Now that I am listening to your homilies, I understand what the meaning of the Christian life is.”
“This Russian Saint, St. Seraphim of Sarov said it.”
“The meaning of the Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit. We feel the energy of the Holy Spirit slowly, slowly, slowly cleansing our hearts.”
"Why cleanse our heart?" “I now understood that the Holy Spirit cleanses the heart so that it becomes a clean throne for our Christ to sit there.”
“To become the love of our life. And I wrote a prayer and I want you to tell me if it’s right.”
I say, “Tell me about it.” “My God, make me worthy to love You before I die.”
This woman caught the meaning. Amen for us [too].
[reporter]: Lord save [us]. [Morphou]: Exactly. Glory to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment