Mihai: “I see in all these martyrs and confessors of Christ asceticism perfected by love at the highest level”
A year and a half ago, as a new Orthodox believer, I came across the book “Poets Behind Bars”. Some time later, I was also introduced to the testimonies of Bessarabian Romanians in the book “Don’t Avenge Us!”, edited by Fr. Moise of Oașa Monastery, and now, as I write these lines, I am reading the volume “The Saint of Prisons”.
When I came to Orthodoxy, I asked myself: What is this Orthodoxy? How is it different from other religions? How is it unique?
I looked for books that would help me to understand it and also to deepen it. I received a lot of material, and with all my eagerness, after a short time I realised that it would take years of study and some preparation to unravel the mysteries of Orthodoxy. But God’s mercy didn’t let me struggle too much with the “flesh”, which had “baby teeth”. And so the book “Poets Behind Bars” fell into my hands, in which I found translated into practice everything I had managed to read so far.
The second book, “Don’t Avenge Us”, brought me face to face with the Orthodox family of confessors who, in the face of cruel persecution, had conquered the gates of hell in spite of all the atrocities to which they had been subjected.
As for the book “Holy Prisoners”, it describes very well the relationships within and between people in the grace of the Holy Spirit.
All these books gave me, as clear as spring water, the answer to the above questions. Namely, that Orthodoxy is lived in asceticism and love towards God and man. I openly confess that I have seen and see in all these Martyrs and Confessors of Christ perfect asceticism with, in and through love at the highest level.
St. Silouan the Athonite left to posterity the profound lesson: “Keep your mind in hell and despair not”. To draw a parallel, let us consider the hell in which all those Martyrs and Confessors lived, and how they were established and grew in faith. So, every time despair knocks at my “door”, I think of them, of those imprisoned in prisons, and in this way I manage to strengthen myself in faith, in hope, in patience and, last but not least, in what is most important, in love, as the Holy Apostle Paul well says in Sacred Scripture: “And the greatest of these” (faith and hope) “is love”.
For their prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy and save us.
(Mihai Gogonea)