“The Beautiful Elder”

“For you are holy, our God, and in the saints You rest,” sings the holy Church in the service of the Matin. When we honour our fathers and brothers in the Lord, those who – among us – have been witnesses of true faith, true love and the joy of Pentecost, we glorify the Lord God Himself. But these people whom we honour, whom we remember with love as true followers of the Tradition of Christ and His Church, did not want to be respected, honoured or distinguished among others. They wanted only one thing: to make us love Christ and His Church, to make us love the Mother of God, to make the faithful progress on the path of holiness, which is the only way for man to attain perfection and happiness.

Likewise, Father Sofian: he would never have wanted honour for himself; it would have seemed to him that he was stealing the glory that belongs to our God alone. Nevertheless, we would like to thank God for having allowed us to meet such beautiful and holy people; we would also like to encourage the people of our time by showing them the sacred and divine-human reality of the Church, which is neither a power of this world nor a philanthropic society, but the assembly of the faithful and the saints, whose Head is the One who is Holy, Christ our true God; In order to lighten our hearts from the burden of gratitude, we dare to bear witness to what was and what remains for us – the good and beautiful Father Sophian, “the beautiful elder”, as the Greeks say: kalogeron, which in Romanian means monk. Father Sofian was a monk of our Church.

The face of Father Sofian

For us, the name of Father Sofian brings to mind, first of all, a face, because the name of each person belongs to his icon, and this is, first of all, the face of the human being who spreads his spiritual gift, his step of sanctification. The face of each one of us is more or less like that of Christ, his model. Full of human and spiritual sublimity, Father Sofian’s cheek was very light, his hair and beard very white, his gaze smiling or smug, his eyes almond-shaped, his nose fine, his lips thin like the icons of the saints of our Church, his head usually bent towards his chest, towards the heart in which the spirit prays.

He looked into our depths, but without indiscretion, rather with friendship, with love. He did not peer: he looked with understanding. He looked inward, to the heart where the name dwells, or outward, to the face of his neighbour, or to the holy icons, to the invisible presence of the friend of man. Father Sofian was not very tall. But even when he was seated, his cheek seemed to be bent towards us with compassion and mercy, sometimes a little inclined to listen to confessions. It was the face of a listener, a listening eye. The listening eye can be seen in the icons of some saints. This eye is not greedy to catch, but ready to receive; such a gaze is made to receive, it is like an outstretched hand: a gaze for dialogue and sharing. This face is full of the depth of silence.

Father Sofian’s voice

Those who heard him loved this voice, which was made to read the Holy Gospel in the Church and to sing the unceasing Glory. It was a deep, deep voice that sounded like a voice calling its lost son. But Father Sofian could speak sweetly, almost in a whisper, with a note of jest or love. His voice was not sharp, even when it had to be sharp; it was simply firm, without harshness. But it was usually sweet and humble, even when he spoke with strength. This voice had its own music, even when he spoke; it was like a song, so full was it of liturgical prayer.

Father Sofian was totally imbued with the liturgical way of life, you could see it in his voice and in the gestures of his hands, in the way he moved without haste, as if in a continuous chant. It would be difficult to separate his voice from his gestures because, as in the case of the saints, in his person they were all one. Monos, the root of the Greek word monachos, indicates that the monk is in union with God, human unity, perfect hypostasis. Gesture, gait and voice come together to show the inner unity of mind and heart, in the true un-passion, dispassion, apatheia of our Holy Fathers.

This voice had no passion, but was full of compassion. It was born of the silence of face and movement. There was silence before him, because Father Sofian was not in a hurry to speak: there was a pause before his word; and when he spoke, it was measured, slow, with punctuations of silence. It was a voice full of silence.

The Servant

The first image of Father Sofian that we had was that of the priest: from the depths of the church of the Holy Monastery of Antim, we saw him coming with the chalice from the altar, barely making a sound, with gentle movements, his eyes turned to his heart. His gentleness moved as a single, single movement from the altar through the whole church, a single movement of divine love, embracing the gathering of the rich and the poor. His censing was resembling a mother’s embrace: all were embraced in the circle of divine love. And he moved like a white light, a mist with a human face. It was a strange sight, full of warmth, which gave confidence to the scholar I was at that time. Then I saw what penance can be – the image of divine glory pouring out from the altar into the world, as it poured out from the Ark of the Covenant in the days of the holy prophets.

Father Sofian was, as a priest can be, penetrated by the depth of liturgical gestures. He was neither a formalist nor a ritualist. He was simply aware. It is said of anxiety that it is the sign of the Spirit through which all that is good, beautiful and true is accomplished. Father Sofian carried out the ministry of the Holy Sacraments with all the joy that the Spirit gives to His holy priests. At the altar, as in the midst of the Church, his every movement was gentle and serene, his gait light and supple. I believe this was because he was in constant prayer in his heart. He moved like a man who carries a precious perfume, like one who, when he has in his jar a precious liquid, is afraid not to spill it. All the time he walked as if he were carrying Christ full of the Holy Spirit in the chalice and on the disc. And it was simple and natural, because life in the Lord is the natural life of man. He who has found this naturalness does not show tension or effort of the will, but acceptance, submission and freedom. He seemed to be guided by the living movement of the Holy Tradition, by the natural preservation of the typical, by the profound knowledge of the sacred ritual of the Holy Church.

It was truly a priestly ministry, the ministry of one who prays for his sins and for the salvation of all. Our Father in the Lord left much room for prayer for the living, for the sick, for the departed. Father Sofian spent countless hours in prayer, either at the altar or in the cell. He was, now and forever, a man of unceasing intercessory prayer before God. He loved the liturgy, the great mystagogical feasts, and he gave them his energy and his health. Only when it became physically impossible for him to do so did he have to give up the service and listen to the hymns of the Church from his cell. Wherever he went, he was a man of prayer and service.

He was rigorous and precise, knowing that the tradition of the Church does not belong to us; I once saw him sharply rebuke a cantor who had let himself be stolen away by a light and worldly style: he then reminded him of what the liturgical chant of the Church means.

The spiritual father

In the Romanian language, the one who guides us on the path of salvation is called a confessor, and in Greek he is called pneumatikos. Father Sofian followed the holy canons with confidence, especially those of St. Basil. There was no weakness in him. He knew the danger of death in which sinful man finds himself. He knew that we can participate in the Holy Mysteries “even to damnation”. He used the canonical tradition of the Holy Fathers for the salvation of the sinner, not for the defence of the moral or ecclesiastical order. He knew that the law was given for human beings.

But he listened to each believer for a long time without ever seeming bored or superior to them. He was full of compassion, even when he punished. With him I learned and glimpsed the orthodox spirit in which justice is the measure of mercy, that divine balance between commandment and freedom, between bitterness and penance. It is a balance that cannot be found in books; it can only be learned by living in the Church and being open to the breath of the Spirit. Father Sofian had this right balance, which is the measure of true spiritual fatherhood. However, he did not seek to have spiritual sons, which also puzzled him. His fatherhood was free. He did not seek power. He was only willing to answer questions, to advise, to guide, to bind and to release.

He taught more by parable, gentle in speech and in manner. We looked at him more than we asked questions. As was said of Saint Anthony the Great, it was enough to see him. His fatherhood was more a spiritual sharing of the meaning and content of Christian faith and life. He bound and loosed according to God’s command, but more precious was his person, the living image of divine fatherhood. It is true that he was a man of words. But these words were always simple, brief, humble, hidden behind those of the Holy Fathers. He never spoke of himself. He spoke in the name of the Church and of her Head, the Lord.

We also confess here that his fatherhood was a motherhood. I think he loved us. He sent us letters full of love and honour. He looked at us with love. He spoke to us with love, even when he was strict and serious. A spiritual father is one who makes you feel loved like a child by your mother. I don’t know if there are people who can dare to say that they consider themselves to be the spiritual sons of Father Sofian: they would have to resemble him, have his sweetness and humility, his gentleness… But these divine gifts poured out from him like a call, this was his paternity: it made you want to live a holy life in Christ Jesus. Through him, the Spirit planted in us the desire to go to the Father, through true “life in Christ” – the desire and the call to be sons and daughters of our Father “who is in heaven”. Perhaps this means daring to call Father Sofian – our “spiritual” father, our father “in the Spirit”: it was he who made us seek the Father…

A Father for the People of God

“Priests should be co-patrons, merciful to others, seeking the lost, looking for the sick, not forgetting the widow, the orphan and the poor, but “thinking good thoughts before God and before men”[1], not being overcome by anger, protecting themselves from the judgement of others, from unjust condemnation; to turn away from the love of silver, not to be hasty in thinking evil of others, and not to be immovable in their judgments, knowing that we are all subject to sin” – so St. Polycarp of Smyrna teaches the priests[2].

We can testify that Fr. Sofian was such a priest, a loving father to all, as far as we could know him from 1980 until his dormition in the Lord. The faithful told us that he was a priest who listened to them, who spent – I do not say wasted – time with them, who helped them in the difficulties of their lives. Father Sofian was sought out by Christians of all kinds: bishops, other priests, the greatest men in the world, doctors and other men of responsibility, but also by the poorest of the poor, especially in Bucharest – in the monastery of Antim, where those who had nothing to lose went.

These poor people were considered as the others, which seems natural for a priest. He was not in a hurry to do something else or to receive someone more important or more famous: he was attentive to the man in front of him, rich or poor, who sometimes came to ask him for something, for an illness, for a job, for a house, or simply for some money. That’s why it sometimes took him half an hour to walk the few metres from the church to the dinning hall or to his cell! Foreign students like us, theology professors from France and other countries, came to see him. All of them found in him the paternity of the priest, of this elder brother whom the Lord gave us to accompany us, to support us, to guide us. In the long periods of suffering that the People of God had to endure at one time in Romania, many found in Father Sofian, powerless as he was in the face of their situation, fraternal consolation, paternity and kindness.

On several occasions he allowed us to stay in his cell while he received someone: I witnessed his mercy, his gentleness, his tenderness towards people. He often used oil in different situations: the oil of mercy, the oil with which the Good Samaritan anointed people who were victims of life’s trials. In the name of the Christian saints, rich and poor, we thank Father Sofian for the love of Your Holiness! Above all, we thank the Lord who has enabled you to be an instrument of His mercy!

His teaching on prayer

It is difficult to speak of the teaching on prayer. Difficult because it is a matter of transmitting the grace of prayer, not a technique or a science from outside. It is a teaching that is entirely spiritual, entirely “interior”, a sharing through the Holy Spirit, something like osmosis or “molypses”: a sharing of a way of being that words cannot express. Rather, let us remember the image of the icon, the right movements of grace, the prayerful sound of the voice, the attitude of the whole creature of our Father in the Lord, engraved not only by liturgical prayer but also by silent prayer.

Father Sofian’s teaching on prayer did not use the grammar of words; he taught less by giving advice, more by being, or by a story, a parable, as if prayer were a simple thing, apart from great words. Father Sofian was a true Hesychast, one of those who are not said to be so, so deeply are they in that peace of grace, in that hesychia, in that monastery of which the Philokalia speaks, but of which our Father in the Lord hardly spoke. He belonged, as we know, to that group of Hesychast discoverers, the “Burning Bush”, in Bucharest, gathered around a certain Father John, about whom he spoke to us. He, too, had been a disciple of a holy priest before becoming the son in the Lord that we claim to be. But apart from a few rare stories from that period of his life, and the philological parable of Father Kulâghin, Father Sofian did not speak about the prayer of the heart. It was as if he left the subject out. He often answered questions with the density of silence. Perhaps he feared the alienation of prayer, its transformation into speech.

Of course, he felt that personal experience could only be shared by praying together, by praying for each other, by the gradual penetration of presence. I learned much more from sitting with Father Sofian for long moments in the cell, at the altar or in the cemetery for a funeral service, or in the hospital next to a sick person, than from spoken teaching. Because prayer is not a “thing”, an “object”. Prayer cannot be objectified in a spiritual discourse.

Prayer, speaking to God, or silence in God, is the life of the Holy Spirit in the one who tries to pray without fading and to remain in the state of prayer as in a silent movement. The way Father Sofian carried his body, the position of his head turned towards his heart, the lightness of his movements, all spoke of his way of standing without faltering in the silent and hopeful invocation of the name of Jesus. Like the Mother of God, he kept everything in his heart: The Holy Name, the names of the living, the sick, the departed, for whom she prayed unceasingly and for whom she had inexpressible mercy. He did not judge; he prayed for others; therefore the grace of the prayer of peace lived in him.

Finally, today…

In the eyes of us Westerners, of French converts to the Orthodox faith, who are aware that we have found in the Church of the Holy Fathers the opportunity for the spiritual renewal of Christian life in our countries, Father Sofian represents a whole spiritual and religious civilisation, that of holy Romania. He is for us the face of Romanian sweetness and delicacy, so similar – though so different – to Father Dumitru Stăniloaie, Father Benedict Ghiuș, Father Paulin Lecca[3], Father Theophilus of Sâmbăta, and even Father Cleopas, the so fervent! In Romanian civilisation there is a gentleness, a femininity, a gift for welcoming others, a hospitality, a sensitivity of soul and a sublimity that are its own. Of course, in every people there are sinners, God forgive them!

But in Romania, in this holy Romania, in its civilised people among the peoples of Europe, there are people like Father Sofian, the crowning glory of universal Christianity, a parable of moderation and human perfection. In the fruits that the Church produces, we see her reality in the people she gives birth to and in the hope she gives to the whole world.

And behold, the Church is the tree of good fruit, and by its fruits of holiness and discipleship we call it “the Church of Christ”.

(Dean Marc – Antoine Costa de Beauregard, The Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe – Father Sofian, 2nd edition revised and added by Constanța Costea and Ioana Iancovescu, Byzantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, pp. 233-242)

[1] Solomon, 3, 4; Romans 12, 17; Corinthians 8, 21. 

[2] Philippians VI, 1.

[3] Acts. Paulin Lecca (1914-1996), graduate of the Faculty of Theology in Chișinău, ennobled in Frăsinei, sent as a preacher to Transnistria (1941-1943), met Fr. Ioan Kulâghin in Odessa; close to the Burning Bush group, exarch in the dioceses of Bucharest and Galați, abbot of Arnota Monastery, author of important translations and original works.