The cowherder from the monastery and the monk from the mountains

One day I went to a monastery near Bucharest. On a green path I was talking with the abbot[1], a man who grew up in a monastery, studied theology and is imbued with the monastic spirit. A herd of cows approached us and the abbot called out:

– Hey, brother, I see you know what obedience is, but you have a long way to go before you learn what faith is!

He was talking to the cowherder, a novice who had come to enter the monastery. I looked at him and shuddered. Meanwhile, the cowherder was running after a cow that had been scratched and was moving on.

– Father, do you know who this man is? I ask the abbot.

– He’s a man who desperately wants to enter the monastery. I’ve tempted him with mockery and ridicule, I’ve chased him away, but he is welded to the monastery.

– Father, I asked, what do you think is more important: to pray or to defend the faith?

The abbot looked at me and said:

– Are you trying to tempt me? You want to drag me into politics, don’t you? Bear in mind I am responsible for this holy place.

– Father, I’m going to make this short: what will be here in a hundred years? No, in fifty, even ten? You’re all old… Young people aren’t allowed to enter the monastery, they don’t have the zeal or the piety. Times have changed. Can’t you see that you will be the last abbot of this secular monastery? What are you doing?

– It is written that the day of trouble will come. We don’t know the future, it’s up to God. We pray and entrust ourselves to God.

– Father, this man with the monastery cows did not leave himself to God, he did God’s will! He fought not to strengthen atheism in the country. He suffered terrible tortures and he was silent as a mute. He was asked to renounce his faith, betray his brothers and obey the atheist state.

– Well, says the abbot, that’s politics. We have an eternal kingdom in heaven, prepared by Christ. It is written that we are to submit to the dominions that God has left us. We don’t do politics.

– It seems to me that you’re playing politics, Father, and you’re playing it backwards.

– Let’s make a long story short: politics with its own, we with ours!

And we parted in an acrimonious atmosphere. Later the prior became a bishop. Then I looked for the “cowherder”, but he disappeared without a trace.

I can still see him now… When he entered the cell, he was gnarled, skeletal but immobile. He was coming from the Securitate. He had been a partisan in the mountains between 1941 and 1943. He was a small man. He walked slowly and stiffly. Although he had a peaceful nature, when the persecutions began in the country, perhaps knowing that his turn would come, perhaps hoping that he could fight again, he went to the mountains.

He formed a group of men and kept them close. They carried pistols but were only allowed to use them in defence. In general, they avoided confrontation. People helped them with food and many were imprisoned as a result. A monastery that housed them was dismantled, the monks imprisoned and the place turned into a home for abandoned children.

Life in the mountains was hard as they had no weapons or supplies. He tried to make contact with foreigners, but received nothing but congratulations. He understood that the battle was lost. The dungeons were overcrowded. The people were subjugated. Without help from the West, they could not fight the Red Army or the Romanian Securitate. But in the mountains they feared traitors, not soldiers.

Years went by and their hopes were dashed. One day the whole group was attacked by a friend who had come to the mountains as a Securitate agent. He thought they would escape, but they didn’t. They were caught and tortured:

– What are you after? What arms depots do you have? What foreign connections? What connections with other partisans? Who informs you? Who supplies you? they wanted to know.

Could he answer them? And who were they? And what were they after? He knew them well. He knew what they would do, and he had nothing to discuss with them. They tortured him and he was silent. He refused to speak during the investigation and the trial. They called him “The Fakir”. They sentenced him to hard labour for life. He remained a lonely, introverted, sullen man. In the mountains he had read the Bible many times and, with his prodigious memory, had retained much of it. He prayed alone day and night, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, and was often seen with his face bathed in tears. Then he was more beautiful than ever. His profile seemed to be carved in white marble. When a painter saw him, he was overcome with emotion and said:

– This man’s face is bright, it glows, it has an expression that amazes me. If I live, I will try all my life to capture in a portrait what I see in him.

The man was also well read. Sometimes he got drawn into discussions and amazed by his power to penetrate things and synthesise them. He spoke neither like a priest nor a philosopher, but on a higher plane that encompassed both. His concerns were broad, general and all were resolved simply, in his sovereign spirit. He enjoyed the respect of all. He passed through prison without a trace of compromise.

And now, when I met him, he was gone…

A few years passed. I’d gone to a hermitage in the mountains to study a famous confessor and ascetic[2]. I was impressed by the power with which he spoke and by his vast theological and mystical knowledge. He moved easily through the Holy Fathers and read them so personally that he seemed to speak for himself.

When he spoke of communion with God, he was at a height that was difficult to follow. I listened to him for a few days and then asked him about freedom, communion and community, about unity, solidarity and grace, about the heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God and Messianism. The monk patiently answered all my questions.

He told me that in his youth he had thought that Christ was to be found in prayer, in great need and in solitude, but now he understood that he was in the world, in deeds and in the “madness” of faith, although without the grace received through communion with God even His witness in the world could not be strong. This is the time of the great confessors. The technology of the modern world has conquered people, but it has also exhausted them, and now people are returning to caves and deserts in search of the prayers of the Saints. People come to ask what is matter, what is social class, what is property, and all that is connected with life, and the confessor cannot speak to them about the invisible war of the spirits and the steps of the Ladder, although these will always remain valid, for from them we must in fact derive the face and the appearance of the Christian world. Spiritualists must have answers to all problems.  They must make people understand that only the invisible and immaterial God is the truth, and that without Him not only we but matter itself is nothing. We human beings cannot cancel out matter by our ideas, but by our passionate way of looking at it, i.e. by materialism, we mutilate ourselves mentally, we become mentally disoriented and life becomes a nightmare. God is so necessary, He has made Himself so obvious through atheistic power, that we only have to live Him sincerely and confess Him with strength.

I listened to him with amazement and joy. 

– Father,” I asked him, “how did you arrive at these conclusions? Here in solitude, between the saints and the Scriptures?

– In fact, everything I told you is hidden in the monastic life, he replied, because it is not the monk who serves himself, but the world. Now men are blind and enslaved, blinded by the false light within them, enslaved by the matter in which they believe. We are living in apocalyptic times. The beast is man and the machine is man’s tool of destruction. We will never succeed if we do not repent, if we do not submit to God, if we do not take Him into ourselves, if we do not become holy.

– Father,” I said, “you are wonderful! Now I know everything you want to say to me. I confess that I didn’t think you cared about such things. I knew that you spoke of grace, of its substance, emanation and work, but I see that you are also unrivalled in matters of life and matter.

– I do not want to humble myself now, for God has humbled me enough, but it would not be fair not to say that many of these things Father M. has helped me to understand.

– But who is Father M? I asked, confused.

– He is your friend and he knows you are here. He’s seen you from the cell.

– A friend? From the cell? Then I’ll go to him!

– He’s too far away! And he won’t even see you. But he’s allowed me to tell you about him.

– How did he see me then?

– He has received from God the gift of foresight, that is, through matter… and through time…

– Please tell me, who is this man?

– You last saw him when you were talking to the abbot of a monastery where he was curate.

– Oh! I exclaimed. Him?! Here?! As you describe him to me?…

– He ran away and hid with me. I had seen him in a dream and welcomed him with open arms. He taught me many things about God and the world. We often meet and spend a long time in silence. You see, I talk a lot, I have been given that gift. He says I am his voice. He has withdrawn from the world, but he is the tightest bow of the world. He amazes me! It seems to me that he is detached from earthly things, but he describes the realities of the world to me in a way that I, as a confessor, cannot yet do.

For him, the world is in heaven, and heaven is the electron microscope through which he sees the mysteries of the world. He is a living person united with God, because you cannot see hell or sin unless you are in the divine light. So he is the eye of God on earth.

– But what does he do? How does he feel? How does he live? I asked, overwhelmed by human worries.

– Good question! He lives among the bees, for he has allowed only bees into his hermitage. God himself looks after his health. We supply him with some food from here, from the hermitage.

– But I knew he was sick!

– He’s healthy! People don’t believe in the healing power of the Holy Spirit any more, but he’s proof that it works.

– Maybe he uses some herbs, I said.

– He doesn’t even think about them! No, sometimes he has asked me for some teas. But don’t think that the teas healed him, no… but the Holy Spirit, the power of faith in him. No, no, don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t faith that healed him, you see, how can I explain myself, if I say the Holy Spirit, that would be enough for me, but people today want something more to their liking. It seems to me that the Breath of God is constantly building the world. In the Breath of God there are forces, powers, it is life itself, it is the very soul of man and everyone lives because of it. That is why I believe that if we separate faith from its source, it too is powerless. Faith united with God is strong; faith confused with autosuggestion is a trifle. But that is the point, we have near us, we have within us, we have in life and in matter a non-material power that comes from God, and if we manage to attract it and use it, it is the best medicine. It flows fire, light, spirit into man and the world. That is how he was healed. And if he uses some teas, it is because the spirit tells him to, it is like accepting to eat in order to live. If you eat poison, you die, but he eats heavenly manna. Heavenly manna is both material and immaterial. He knows how to combine them.

As I listened to him, I became smaller and smaller. A kind of fear came over me. Could I resist seeing such a man? It seemed to me that I was imagining things.

– Don’t be afraid, the monk told me, everything is normal, real, natural. The unnatural thing is to be deprived of God’s power.

He surprised me in my privacy and I was ashamed. I felt too full, tired of too much power. I stopped the conversation. Several days of inner peace followed. My prayer was intense, encompassing my whole being. I ate without feeling hungry and felt very good. I understood that my friend was praying for me and giving me the strength of his soul. I believe that in a similar way, but in proportion, people are also accompanied by God’s love and grace.

Such joy brought tears to my eyes and made me more alive, more profound. New meanings of existence were revealed to me. God was reality. If I could have such a spiritual experience, what was it like for my friend? Thrice as blessed for sure!

I decided to leave. I had calmed down. The pilgrimage to the hermitage had given me more than I could ever have expected. I went to say goodbye. The old man said to me:

– Don’t misjudge him. He remains hidden because that is his gift. I’ve never seen anyone with more love for people than your friend. This is his way of serving them. Go and he will go with you. Wherever you meet wonderful works, think that they can also be done through him… he is at the heart of the world. Bless you! He blesses you too!

And we were off.

(John Ianolide – Return to Christ. Document for a New World, 2nd edition, Bonifaciu Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, p. 341-348)

[1] It is about the hieromonk Roman Stanciu, abbot of Cernica Monastery from 1959 to 1973, and later vicar bishop of the Archdiocese of Bucharest (1973-1994).

[2] None other than Father Ilie Cleopa.