Quo Vadis

Apr 19, 2023

In this video we share The Prophecy of Tears from Saint Sophrony Sakharov.

"Where there is love, there are tears. And where there is no love, there are no tears." Saint Sophrony Sakharov the Athonite.

How can one become a man who is no longer a slave to pride, nor to vanity, nor a bearer of the desire to trample on his brother?

Through the love of Christ, love which is crucified in this world.

The world hates us for this path, for this is not the path of "the prince of this world." [from John 14:30]

In our era, salvation has become more difficult than ever before.

In the past, the witnesses of God who performed unbelievable miracles were a daily occurrence.

How did Peter, a simple fisherman with no education, suddenly become a teacher for the entire world?

The Lord gave him the power to raise even the dead by his prayer.

There are prophecies of the Holy Fathers of the 4th century who say that in the last times God will hide from people, from His faithful, their own spiritual state.

They will no longer work miracles, and will feel as if they are forsaken by God in a state of emptiness.

This is the only true way, as Saint Silouan writes - the way of tears...

And my prayer is that you listen to the word of Saint Silouan: “the way of the saints is the way of loving tears”.

Where there is love, there are tears. And where there is no love, there are no tears. Even in the greatest sufferings and torments (let us say in the times of war) when we witnessed all kinds of abuse of a defeated enemy, when sadism was becoming a daily routine throughout the world - there were no tears...

But the Lord says: "Love your enemies" [from Matthew 5:44].

From this love, weeping is born for those who sin, for the tormentors who did not know the way to salvation and the true life in the image of God.

On September 23, 1896, Sergei Symeonovich Sakharov was born to Orthodox parents in Russia. As a child, Sergei would pray daily, later recalling that he would pray for 45 minutes without stress. Even as a child, Sergei experienced the Uncreated Light.

He read widely, including such Russian greats as Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Pushkin.

Due to great artistic talent, Sergei studied at the Academy of Arts between 1915 and 1917 and then at the Moscow School of Painting,

Sculpture and Architecture between 1920 and 1921.

Sergei used art as a "quasi-mystical" means "to discover eternal beauty", "breaking through present reality...into new horizons of being."

Later, this would help him to differentiate between human intellectual light and God's Uncreated Light.

In 1921, Sergei left Russia, partly to continue his artistic career in Western Europe, and partly because he was not a Marxist.

After first going to Italy, he went to Berlin, and then settled in Paris in 1922.

In 1925, finding formal theological study to be inherently unfulfilling, Sergei left the Institute and Paris to become a monk on Mount Athos.

Sergei arrived at Mount Athos in 1926 and he became a disciple of Saint Silouan the Athonite, who would prove to be Father Sophrony's greatest and life-long influence.

After the death of his mentor Saint Silouan, Elder Sophrony felt compelled to move to Paris.

By 1958, Elder Sophrony had a number of people living near him, seeking the monastic life.

He eventually formed the Community of Saint John the Baptist at Malden, Essex, England.

Elder Sophrony died on July 11, 1993 and is buried in the crypt of the Essex Monastery.

Mirrored from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eA_f9msQAo