Gregory Edelstein - "Save Your People, Lord..." (November 10, 1996)

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-	The third lesson is from	0:11
	the Gospel according to Saint Matthew.	0:13
	Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this.	0:18
	10 bridesmaids took their lamps and went	0:22
	to meet the bridegroom.	0:25
	Five of them were foolish and five were wise.	0:27
	When the foolish took their lamps,	0:31
	they took no oil with them, but the wise	0:33
	took flasks of oil with their lamps.	0:37
	As the bridegroom was delayed,	0:40
	all of them became drowsy and slept.	0:42
	But at midnight there was a shout,	0:46
	"Look, here is the bridegroom!	0:48
	"Come out to meet him."	0:50
	Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps.	0:54
	The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil.	0:58
	"For our lamps are going out."	1:02
	But the wise replied, "No,	1:05
	"there will not be enough for you and for us.	1:08
	"You had better go to the dealers	1:12
	"and buy some for yourselves."	1:14
	And while they went to buy it,	1:18
	the bridegroom came, and those who were ready,	1:20
	went with him into the wedding banquet.	1:24
	And the door was shut.	1:28
	Later the other bridesmaids came also saying,	1:31
	"Lord, Lord, open to us!"	1:34
	But he replied,	1:38
	"Truly I tell you, I do not know you."	1:40
	Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day	1:45
	nor the hour.	1:50
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:52
-	Thanks be to God!	1:55
-	We usually begin,	2:12
	a prayer (clears throat) or a sermon in our church	2:14
	with the words: In the name of the Father,	2:19
	the Son, and the Holy Spirit.	2:23
	I must congratulate you	2:28
	on this day, on a very special occasion.	2:33
	I don't think many of you have ever been congratulated on.	2:38
	79 years ago,	2:47
	we started	2:53
	an experiment,	2:55
	which was called the Great October Socialists Revolution.	2:57
	And not only we, not only Russian people participated in it.	3:03
	People from all over the world, including America,	3:09
	came and helped us to stage that experiment.	3:14
	An American writer and a revolutionary	3:21
	wrote a book	3:27
	which he called "The 10 Days That Shook the World."	3:28
	Today is	3:35
	the fourth day	3:37
	after the seventh of November.	3:40
	It was I think 79 years ago.	3:45
	And I think the world is still shaking	3:50
	as a result of those 10 days.	3:55
	The	4:00
	spiritual	4:03
	and economic engineering	4:05
	has been proved false.	4:10
	And	4:14
	the teaching	4:19
	has gone to pieces.	4:23
	But we'll still suffer.	4:26
	If we have been liberated,	4:31
	so to say physically,	4:34
	our souls are still in Egypt.	4:37
	We are still the same slaves that we were	4:42
	during the last	4:47
	75 years.	4:50
	For 75 years	4:55
	we were crying,	4:58
	"Save	5:00
	"your people, Lord.	5:02
	"And bless those who are yours."	5:05
	I don't think you will take me for a fundamentalist	5:09
	if I tell you that every word in the Bible	5:12
	is very significant.	5:18
	And it is	5:21
	especially significant if you think about the world's	5:23
	save and your people.	5:26
	Who is that people?	5:30
	We have been praying for our villages	5:33
	as I pray every day.	5:37
	But we were praying for our people	5:40
	and for our country.	5:44
	But now that I look at you,	5:47
	are you not the inheritance of Lord?	5:48
	Are you not his people?	5:54
	I think we were praying for you too.	5:57
	And I don't doubt that you prayed for us.	6:02
	I'm quite sure that if	6:10
	our communism,	6:15
	the communist system is in pieces,	6:17
	it's thanks to your prayer,	6:22
	to those who brought Bibles to my country.	6:26
	Thanks to those who remembered that if we want Christians	6:32
	and if one member suffers, all suffer.	6:39
	Many people in the West,	6:45
	many people in America	6:47
	suffered when we suffered.	6:51
	What did it mean to be a priest in Russia	6:54
	in the '20s or '30s	6:57
	or '40s even?	7:00
	It meant to be killed.	7:03
	There were only two ways.	7:06
	A very narrow choice.	7:10
	Be a traitor, be Judas,	7:13
	or you will be shot.	7:17
	Hundreds, thousands of priests	7:21
	were shot,	7:26
	were in exile, and still new and new generations	7:28
	rose to pray.	7:35
	When I was ordained, it was much easier.	7:39
	In a week,	7:46
	next Sunday,	7:48
	I shall celebrate the 70th anniversary	7:50
	of my ordination.	7:55
	At that time I say,	8:00
	it was,	8:03
	no I should say, much easier to be a priest in Russia	8:05
	than anywhere	8:10
	in the world.	8:13
	We usually say in Russia that it's not necessary	8:16
	to drink the whole sea or the whole ocean,	8:19
	if you want to know the taste of the sea water.	8:24
	A glass will quite do.	8:29
	So I'll give you an example.	8:32
	An ordinary priest in an ordinary Russian village.	8:37
	And I think,	8:45
	you will understand what it is	8:48
	to be a priest in Russia today.	8:50
	So I say I was ordained	8:53
	17 years ago.	8:56
	And my Bishop told me, I say it was November,	8:59
	he said, "I'm sending you to a church,	9:03
	"which is destroyed,	9:10
	"where there has been no service	9:11
	"for 13 years.	9:16
	"Go and restore it, and that will be your charge."	9:19
	So I went there,	9:25
	and in three days we celebrated the first Eucharist.	9:28
	I don't think I must tell you that our winter	9:34
	is slightly different from what you call winter here.	9:38
	What you call winter will be a cold summer.	9:47
	(audience laughing)	9:51
	There was no door, no windows.	9:58
	Of course no heating when we celebrated the first Eucharist.	10:03
	I was not prepared; I took the brass cross	10:09
	and in a minute I didn't feel I'm holding it in my hand.	10:14
	During the service, the priest will kiss the challis	10:20
	several times, I did.	10:25
	And my lips stuck.	10:29
	(audience laughs)	10:31
	Yes, I'm willing to laugh with you today,	10:34
	but in that moment,	10:37
	my lips were bleeding.	10:40
	And,	10:44
	you will	10:47
	understand that our services are long.	10:50
	Sometimes they last two or three hours.	10:52
	People had, all of this,	10:56
	easier for the priest.	11:00
	He moves, he can do something.	11:03
	And people stand there	11:07
	and still they were so thankful to me that I came.	11:11
	When they came to the service,	11:15
	they brought something for me to eat.	11:19
	Maybe potatoes or carrots, cabbage, eggs, anything.	11:21
	But besides, they had always something for the church.	11:27
	And their gifts were a pair of bricks	11:33
	and a handful of nails, a hammer,	11:36
	a plastic bag of cement to repair the church.	11:40
	When there were 100 bricks, we repaired the steps.	11:44
	And we could go in next time	11:49
	when we had enough room,	11:54
	we erected something that we called the restroom.	11:57
	Maybe 50 meters from the church.	12:01
	'Cause whenever old people come, they're not old physically.	12:05
	Well, there must be a restroom.	12:08
	And in a couple of days we blasted and painted the wall.	12:12
	And day after day we did something there.	12:18
	And that was my first lesson.	12:23
	There I understood how easy it is	12:27
	to be a priest in such a church.	12:32
	Which you built with your congregation.	12:36
	Which people usually treasure.	12:41
	When I was coming here, when I came here for the first time,	12:45
	I saw an announcement, a poll at the entrance	12:48
	which I liked maybe the best in this,	12:52
	well the Duke Chapel.	12:57
	It was	12:59
	three words: How to behave in a chapel.	13:01
	I'm sorry, it's not there.	13:05
	I wanted to copy it and read it to you.	13:07
	But many people who come here forget it.	13:10
	I saw many cigarette	13:14
	butts on the doorsteps.	13:18
	I tried to count them; I counted 28 or 29.	13:21
	It means that the people who did it	13:26
	do not respect	13:29
	this church.	13:31
	They come here	13:35
	not remembering that this is	13:38
	the house of God.	13:40
	Then I was moved to another	13:46
	diocese, another region.	13:50
	And it was practically the same.	13:55
	Different part of Russia, but again the same.	13:58
	Restoration, work, hard work with the people.	14:00
	And,	14:06
	it is still much more harder.	14:09
	It was maybe	14:15
	to resist the constant pressure	14:17
	of our state, of our state officials.	14:20
	Any kind of religious activity, what they called	14:27
	religious activity was named	14:32
	or listed as	14:36
	religious propaganda and was strictly forbidden.	14:38
	The official who was responsible for the state/church	14:45
	relations in our	14:48
	diocese or region	14:51
	called me once, then a second time,	14:54
	then a 10th time, and at last he got very angry and said,	14:57
	"You are too proud.	15:03
	"Your people come and take your blessing	15:05
	"and then they kiss your hand.	15:08
	"The day will come when you will stand here,	15:11
	"near my armchair, on your knees.	15:14
	"And it will be asking me to give you my hand	15:18
	"to be kissed."	15:23
	I'm very sorry to say I got very angry.	15:27
	Looked at him and said in a very low voice,	15:32
	"Don't you think that you will be carried	15:36
	"out of your apartment?	15:40
	"First your feet,	15:41
	"first in a coffin.	15:44
	"And your relatives will ask me to come and burry you."	15:47
	He turned pale.	15:54
	And didn't say a word.	15:58
	And within a year he died.	16:02
	And I'm very sorry to say	16:05
	that I had another lesson.	16:07
	It was,	16:11
	that a priest has no right to be angry,	16:13
	even when he speaks to his opponents.	16:17
	And I don't remember a single	16:23
	Eucharist where I did not pray for him.	16:29
	His name was Nicholas, and I dare you to pray for his soul.	16:36
	That was a good lesson for me,	16:44
	but still sometimes I do get very angry	16:49
	when I speak to our officials.	16:52
	What the officials couldn't do, what the state couldn't do,	16:59
	my bishop did.	17:03
	For this so called religious activity, I was suspended.	17:05
	I organized a kind of summit camp,	17:12
	and 41 people came from different parts of our country,	17:17
	most of them from Moscow.	17:21
	We worked together, we prayed together.	17:23
	We went mushrooming.	17:26
	If children asked me questions, I was ready to answer.	17:28
	We read Gospel together, that means religious propaganda.	17:32
	And it's only fair that your Bishop punishes you for it.	17:37
	So I was	17:45
	unemployed for a year and a half,	17:48
	and they told me very definitely	17:53
	that I will never be a priest again.	17:56
	Well,	18:01
	I told them that	18:02
	such questions	18:06
	in the end are decided by our Lord.	18:09
	It's for him to decide who I am and who I will be.	18:13
	And in summer of 1988,	18:18
	President Reagan came	18:23
	to Russia for the first time.	18:25
	I think you remember that occasion.	18:27
	And I was invited to the,	18:30
	so called Spaso House, the house where	18:33
	the Ambassador of the United States lives in Moscow.	18:37
	There were three groups of people:	18:45
	The so called Refuse-niks, the Jews,	18:48
	who couldn't leave for Israel, one group;	18:50
	the former political prisoners, second;	18:53
	and a few	18:59
	so called religious dissidents.	19:01
	Believe me, I'm not one of them, I'm not a dissident.	19:04
	I'm just a country priest.	19:08
	So,	19:11
	I was the only one.	19:13
	There were 40 people there, but I was the only one	19:15
	in my Cossack.	19:18
	So,	19:21
	there were many TV companies	19:23
	and they were all concentrated on the Cossack.	19:25
	It was something unusual at that time.	19:29
	On the next day I was abused	19:32
	while one of our central newspapers.	19:35
	They called me fallen priest and something else.	19:40
	And in two or three days after it,	19:43
	I already received a parish	19:49
	in my diocese.	19:53
	So I can say that I received my second ordination	19:55
	from President Reagan.	20:00
	(audience laughs)	20:01
	From it I think, well during these 18 months,	20:09
	I learned one more lesson:	20:15
	And it is,	20:20
	our worst enemy today	20:22
	I'll not hesitate to word it like that	20:26
	is the ruling group	20:31
	of our church.	20:35
	Those who are at the top	20:39
	including	20:42
	most of our Bishops.	20:44
	They were appointed by the KGB.	20:48
	They were appointed by the Central Committee	20:52
	of the Communist Party.	20:57
	They are still there.	20:59
	They were deceiving you for many and many years.	21:02
	They were spying here; they came here as spies,	21:09
	or KGB secret agents.	21:13
	And they are still there.	21:16
	They are still our Bishops.	21:19
	And they are still deceiving you.	21:23
	I say that many times to my Bishop.	21:28
	I never hesitate to write so.	21:31
	I think	21:37
	that if some day	21:39
	you come to my town, to the city of Kostroma,	21:41
	I'll be glad to discuss	21:45
	this problem with you	21:48
	and our Bishop if we sit together,	21:51
	and if you think this question important.	21:55
	If you think about Iran or Afghanistan today,	21:59
	I don't think you will understand much about these countries	22:04
	if you don't take into consideration	22:09
	the religion.	22:14
	If you don't take into consideration Islam.	22:18
	Believe me, you will understand nothing about Russia	22:23
	if you don't know our religion.	22:28
	If you don't know what orthodoxy is.	22:31
	I went to your library yesterday	22:36
	and the librarian showed me what they have	22:41
	on the history of our church today.	22:45
	I'm very sorry to say that there's practically nothing.	22:48
	During the last 10 years	22:54
	you were so sure	22:58
	that we enjoyed full freedom of religion,	23:00
	that you stopped praying for us.	23:03
	And your scientists stopped any scientific investigation.	23:08
	I'm very sorry to say it,	23:16
	but I'm afraid it is so.	23:19
	Now, after the ordination, the second one,	23:23
	I was in I say the	23:30
	region of Kostroma.	23:35
	And four years ago I was here in the United States.	23:38
	I was invited to	23:41
	church in Washington.	23:44
	The board talked to me.	23:48
	They were very friendly and said they wanted	23:52
	to give money to restore Russian Orthodox churches.	23:55
	I was glad to hear it.	24:01
	When I got back, I went to my Bishop	24:03
	and asked him to send me to a	24:06
	church that needed restoration.	24:10
	He said, "Well, I have 30, choose any."	24:13
	I chose one, the one where I am today, and went there.	24:17
	So imagine	24:22
	yourself coming to the village of Karobanova,	24:24
	a small village with 18 houses	24:29
	in it.	24:34
	Well, and several other villages	24:35
	maybe two or three kilometers,	24:38
	maybe eight kilometers off.	24:40
	You have not a penny, not a dollar in your pocket, nothing.	24:46
	The state will not give you anything.	24:50
	The church will never give you anything.	24:54
	And you see in front of you,	24:58
	well, the remnants of a brick house with no roof,	25:01
	no windows, no doors.	25:07
	It was used as a store house to keep fertilizers.	25:10
	Do you realize what it is	25:17
	for the brick to be full of those fertilizers.	25:19
	The snow falling on them and the rain falling on them.	25:24
	Don't forget that at that time	25:29
	we were the first country in the world	25:33
	that the quantity of fertilizers was tremendous.	25:38
	We didn't know what to do with it,	25:44
	so we store it in churches.	25:46
	So nobody wanted to go with me inside.	25:49
	They said, rubber boots are very expensive today, Father.	25:54
	We'll better stand on the road.	25:59
	The fertilizers are very harmful for the boots.	26:01
	So I went there, spread a towel	26:06
	on the windowsill.	26:10
	Put my cross and	26:12
	the Bible there	26:15
	and sang	26:17
	the first hymn.	26:19
	Of course,	26:21
	your wonderful choir	26:22
	sings much better.	26:27
	I had never sung before, you know?	26:29
	Before I was ordained, but I had to sing.	26:32
	Then I took the cross and went round the church	26:36
	praising the Lord	26:43
	for the	26:45
	resurrection of the church.	26:48
	I must tell you that it was the time of our Easter.	26:50
	So, I could sing the Easter hymn.	26:55
	Nobody joined me.	27:00
	Then I found out that nobody knew even the Lord's Prayer.	27:03
	So I went round the church once,	27:08
	and the second time and a third.	27:10
	And I'm glad to tell you today	27:16
	that the church is resurrected.	27:19
	Well, I didn't receive the money from the Americans.	27:24
	There was a group of Norwegian Lutherans who came,	27:27
	worked with me in summer.	27:33
	And then gave me $10,000.	27:36
	And then came a Canadian Baptist,	27:39
	lived with me, didn't ask anything, didn't promise anything.	27:44
	And gave another $10,000.	27:49
	So with the money of the Norwegian Lutherans	27:53
	and the Canadian Baptist, has been resurrected,	27:58
	restored, that church.	28:03
	And when people ask me today if I'm,	28:07
	well...	28:11
	Ready to cooperate with other denominations,	28:14
	if I'm economically minded, I don't say yes or no.	28:20
	I just tell them that story, that's all.	28:25
	Nobody tried to convert	28:28
	my people, my congregation	28:32
	into this or that denomination.	28:33
	They gave, and that's all.	28:37
	What is to be a priest in Russia today?	28:43
	I am responsible for the church.	28:47
	I am responsible for the local store.	28:50
	I am responsible for a dozen other things.	28:55
	For example, during a service,	29:01
	well a month or so ago, an old woman fell.	29:04
	She suffered a heart attack or a stroke.	29:09
	So we tried to call the local ambulance,	29:15
	which is 20 miles from my village.	29:20
	They said, sorry, no gas; we cannot come.	29:24
	I tried to contact the ambulance in Kostroma.	29:29
	They said, sorry not our region, we cannot come.	29:33
	So the daughter of that woman rushed to the road	29:37
	and tried to hitchhike a car, nobody stopped.	29:41
	And the woman laid there in the church	29:47
	for an hour and a half.	29:51
	I think it is my duty	29:56
	to find a car,	29:59
	and to be a kind of nurse	30:01
	in my village.	30:04
	I can go on enumerating my duties	30:06
	because they are the needy,	30:09
	they are the old aged, the handicapped, lonely mothers.	30:12
	Who will help them today?	30:17
	Nobody will.	30:21
	The state	30:23
	cannot do it; we are too poor.	30:26
	Because for	30:29
	75 years we were	30:32
	building that	30:35
	communist society, the brave new world.	30:38
	And we have built it.	30:44
	And that's where we are.	30:47
	Those of you who	30:50
	visited Russia,	30:52
	and who were not only in Moscow in expensive hotels.	30:55
	And who not only went to expensive restaurants	31:01
	where our people cannot afford to go.	31:07
	Those of you who went to just villages,	31:10
	you know what it is to survive in Russia today.	31:14
	Therefore when I	31:21
	pray, when I repeat the same words today,	31:25
	save your	31:29
	people, Lord.	31:31
	And bless those who are yours.	31:35
	Bless thy inheritance.	31:39
	I know that	31:43
	I am praying for my village.	31:45
	I am praying for my congregation.	31:49
	I am praying for my country.	31:52
	And I am praying	31:55
	for all Christians because	31:59
	I must repeat it?	32:04
	If one member suffers,	32:05
	all suffer.	32:09
	Amen.	32:12

Item Info

Title:

Gregory Edelstein - "Save Your People, Lord..." (November 10, 1996)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 2:16. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 20:25.
Preached by a Russian priest, this sermon shares the experience of suffering and poverty in the Russian church and claims that suffering in one part of the church is suffering in the whole church; it calls the hearers to pray for Christian brothers and sisters around the world. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gm8236q

Date:

November 10, 1996

Speaker:

Edelstein, Gregory

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

1 Corinthians

Chapter and Verse:

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0831
ref9810_vuo
uachapelsermaud
duke:321252
dcrau001476
ark:/87924/r4gm8236q
fd9d2fd1-6e96-44b8-afa8-06a98b2043ec

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Limited Re-Use

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Gregory Edelstein - "Save Your People, Lord..." (November 10, 1996)

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