In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
I will speak first in English and then in Russian
because I feel it is immensely important for us to be at one at the very
depth of our souls and lives on this day when we keep the memory of all
the Saints of This Land.
I don't believe there is anyone in our midst who is a
refugee in the sense in which my generation and that of my parents were
after the Revolution, and therefore you do not probably perceive as
acutely as we did what it meant to find ourselves in countries dispersed
throughout the world, whose language we did not know, whose customs were
strange to us, whose people did not see in us brothers and sisters of
their own race, and how incredibly wonderful it was to come into all the
countries of the West and discover two things. The one is that any
country had had a period of time when the Church was undivided, and that
we shared the Saints of those centuries, that we were at one with
innumerable Saints venerated, loved, emulated by the people of this
country and of other countries of the West. And also, how wonderful it
was to realise that even when the Church found itself divided, and
increasingly so through the centuries, there was one thing that united
us inseparably at the very root of our being - that we were Christ's own
people and that this people who first seemed to be strange to us, alien
to us, were the people who through centuries had kept in this Land and
in so many other Lands the faith in Christ as the Incarnate Son of God,
the Saviour of mankind. To see in everyone someone who in Christ was a
brother, a sister, a friend, from whom we were divided by the accidents
of History, but with whom we were at one at the very depth of things.
We realised then another thing also, that it was not
only the Saints of This Land and of other Lands whom we knew to be
Orthodox Saints and their successors, who knowingly or unknowingly were
belonging to other Churches, but that we were rooted inseparably, rooted
deeply in Christ and that they were at one with us and were receiving
us, strangers, as brothers, as sisters in Christ, not claiming from us
unity of the faith, but giving to us from the depth of a common faith
which we possessed the love, the compassion, the support which we so
desperately needed. We can think of the Saints of This Land on the one
hand as Orthodox Saints to whom we belong, with whom we belong, who
receive us in the joy of brotherliness, of sisterliness, but also the
innumerable Saints of later times with whom we have everything in common
if we truly have in common a faith in Christ and a life worthy of Him
and of this faith. The whole Land became to us not a Land of exile but a
Land of Welcome; not a strange country, but a country where love was
offered us, in the name of Christ, in the name of humanity.
And this is why this day, today, the day when we keep
the memory of All Saints of Britain and Ireland, we remember not only
with gratitude all these Saints who received us because we were our own
and because we were their own, but all the people who have kept their
memory and were receiving us in the name of Christ. How wonderful it
was! And how easily we cease to realise this when suffering, agony,
loneliness recede. It is easy now to come to Western countries for a
variety of reasons, because practically no one is a refugee in the sense
in which we were, rejected by our countries, deprived of our
citizenship. A few are, but not a majority. And the few must be
remembered and cared for.
At present a tragedy even greater than the one which
the generation of my parents and grandparents experienced is taking
place in the Balkans. There are refugees of all sorts; people who belong
to all groups of humanity; they need our prayers whoever they are. They
need compassion, they need understanding, they need that we should stand
by them, they need that we should pray for the Saints of all the Lands
of the West to extend their love and their mercy on those who are
rejected by other human people, who are treated in a vile, in a cruel
way by people who should in the name of Christ give their lives for
them; or in the name of humanity, if Christ does not exist in their
lives, see in each person a man, a woman, a child who needs compassion
and love.
Let us today, when we remember the Saints of this Land who meant so
much to us refugees of the early days, let us remember them with
gratitude and pray that their blessing may come upon all of us, and
extend beyond us to all those in the world nowadays who are refugees,
homeless, persecuted, rejected people who need the compassion and the
love of us all whatever the cost to our feelings, or the cost to our
lives.
Amen!
