Students and Teachers Celebrate Transfiguration at the Church of Christ the Saviour
Introductory lectures, consultations, exams and tests in Ancient Hebrew, Church singing and reading, Catechetics, Ascetism, Holy Scripture, Ecclesiology and other interesting disciplines find their completion in our common feast and agape meals, where professors, students, and graduates share the fruits of their knowledge and perception of God.
And on Sunday, at the forefeast of the Transfiguration, everyone gathered, as has become our tradition, to celebrate liturgy at the Church of Christ the Saviour, where 1812 people received communion that day. Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Fr Georgij Martynov; Founder and first Rector of SFI Fr Georgij Kochetkov served with the cathedral clergy.
The sermon after the liturgy was given by well-known church historian Fr Ilya Solovyov, who spoke of those saints remembered on this date in the Church’s calendar, including the new martyrs and confessors. “Their torturers imagined that by causing suffering to these warriors in Christ they would scare the public and especially Christians, so that they would be afraid of confessing Christ as their Saviour. Probably some people were scared off. But through their achievements, the blood of the martyrs strengthened many Christians in their confession of Christ. Today we remember their sufferings, and their faith strengthens our own confession.”
“Usually, we pay primary attention to their sufferings,” said Fr Ilya. “But it is that moral choice, between a life of leisure with a fully belly and probably power, and the confession of Christ, which is primary to the martyr’s victory, and which makes the martyr holy. And in the case of the martyrs, it not only brought them suffering but even death. For them it was a choice between life and death, been Christ and anti-Christ.”
“It seems that we live in times when martyrdom has receded into history,” the priest added, “No one is persecuting us, we can confess our faith openly and bear witness, as we see from this packed church. But not so far from our border we see the canonical church under persecution – over there, there is time for confessors and even martyrs – and perhaps there are already some whose names we don’t know yet. And all of us have exactly the same moral choice in our everyday lives: will we trick those close to us in order to lead a life of unrighteous pleasures, or will we follow Christ in lockstep with his commandments? Will we fortify our personal preferences in life by paying the price of sin and dishonesty, or will we walk with Christ? This is the same choice that faces each of us today.”
“I thank you for our common prayer during the Divine Liturgy,” said Fr Georgij Martynov, congratulating those who had received communion. “Today, on this holy day which is so important for you, when all the Transfiguration Brotherhood comes together, almost the entire church received communion. Today our parishioners were here, too, and we all prayed together in this church, which was consecrated 24 years ago. And the Church of the Transfiguration, which bears the same name as your Brotherhood, was consecrated 28 years ago. We have touched the Lord, received the Lord – and that means we’ve also received the commandments that he has given us, that we might come into life eternal.”
Members of the Transfiguration Brotherhood from many cities across Russia and from abroad, teachers, employees, and students of St. Philaret’s Institute, and new applicants who have come to begin their bachelor’s degree studies or continue their education at the master’s level came to the Divine Liturgy to pray together.
