Kevin Basil

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A fascinating passion play is beginning to be noticed by mainstream media. The Washington Post has reported on the questions of financial accountability which have become, as Father Joseph Huneycutt noted, “the elephant in the living room.” The Post article only tells the story according to the accuser, the former treasurer of the Orthodox Church in America, because his beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, has requested that Church officials remain silent on the matter.

Ordinarily, we might think ourselves justified in inferring guilt in this move. However, it brought to mind the example of Abba Saint Macarius the Great:

Then it once happened that an unmarried pregnant girl accused him of fathering her child. The pious saint did not protest; he quietly accepted the responsibility she had unjustly laid on him, and was attacked and beaten by the villagers and the girl’s family, who demanded that he support her. He did so, selling the baskets that he wove and giving the money to her parents. When the time came for the girl to give birth, she was in great agony and cried out that it was not St. Macarius, but another man who was her baby’s father. As soon as they heard this, the villagers felt ashamed of the way they had treated the saint, and went to ask his forgiveness. When they arrived at his little hut, they found it completely empty; he had fled from their praise and flattery.

May the Lord continue to have mercy on the Church in our land.

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A brother questioned an old man, saying: “Here are two brothers. One of them leads a solitary life for six days a week, giving himself much pain, and the other serves the sick. Whose work does God accept with the greater favor?”

The old man said: “Even if the one who withdraws for six days were to hang himself up by the nostrils, he could not equal the one who serves the sick.”

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An old man was asked, “How can I find God?”

He said, “In fasting, in watching, in labors, in devotion, and, above all, in discernment. I tell you, many have injured their bodies without discernment and have gone away from us having acheived nothing. Our mouths smell bad from fasting, we know the Scriptures by heart, we recite all the Psalms of David, but we have not that which God seeks: charity and humility.”

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