The Present Suffering of Christ in the Orthodox Church
Posted Dec 21, 2022 by Alex Ge in Priesthood of Christ
Daily He suffers the agonies of the crucifixion. Daily men and women are piercing Him by dishonoring Him, by refusing to do His will. (ST, Jan 28, 1903)
Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him. (Education 263)
Ellen White formulated this 120 years ago. Who thinks about it in my country of Russia? Is there a revelation in the Orthodox mind about the daily suffering of Christ? It turned out that there are such examples among Russian authors, but so far I have found only three pieces of evidence.
Orthodox priest Tikhon (Agrikov) (1918 - 2000). Veteran of the Second World War. The decision to become a monk and priest was made by him already in his mature years. In the 1960s, the Orthodox Church was persecuted in the USSR, and the priest Tikhon was forced to hide in the mountains of the Caucasus. Here is his testimony:
“Beloved brothers and sisters! Our Lord Savior until now (and still now) walks the way of the cross, still grieves, cries, abandoned, despised, persecuted by those people for whose sake He went through this sorrowful path of human life and endured these terrible torments. (Biography, sermons, letters - page 187).
Farewell conversation of Archimandrite Tikhon (Agrikov) with spiritual children before going into seclusion:
“Take, eat, this is My Body and Blood, which is shed for you until now.” And now the Lord is suffering for us. And now He is tormented on the Cross. Blood is pouring in a stream, a stream, a stream is pouring, and the Lord is ready to purify every soul with His Divine Life-Giving Blood.”
The second testimony is also from a veteran of the Russian Civil War and the First World War. George Meyer (1894-1966) - this philosopher was forced to emigrate from Soviet Russia and died in exile in France. Here is a quote from his book “Light in the Night”, where he reflects on the fate of an innocent Spanish boy, whom the revolutionaries shot together with his father:
“And only very gradually, painfully slowly, not the head (purely rational), but the heart-wrenched thought that this Spanish boy is a living and irrefutable symbol of Christ crucified by us every day. It is vain to think that the crucifixion of the Son of God lasted only until the ninth hour, it continues, and there is no end to it, no edge.
“Whatever evil we do to another, we do evil to Christ. And when killing a person, one must understand that I am killing Christ,” says our contemporary, priest Alexander Vostrodymov. “But if I, being a not very good father — harmful, boring, evil — still feel the pain of my children, then do you really think that Christ does not feel the pain of children when they shoot at each other?”
https://maranathamedia.com/book/view/the-crucifixion-of-christ-in-the-days-of-noah-and-lot