[kosta50]

Also I was just reading last night one of my favorite Hopko writings. He said there is no such thing as an individual Christian

A fine example of a "true" Orthodox mind, Fr. Hopko.

Agrarian understood me: we cannot seek salvation among people, so there is no "lateral salvation." He also understood what I said about community -- one does not transform into a God-centered person and not extend his love to others. To the contrary! The more we advance in thoesis the more we can love our enemies, the more we forgive them, the more we can pray for their salvation. One should not do good and expect salvation in return. When one becomes good, he will do good because good cannot do anything but good

There is a plenitude of examples of solitude as being the transforming vehicle in many a Christian, even a Saint. I have already posted the official (Russia) Orthodox Catechism that leaves no doubt that each and every one of us experiences God in a very personal and unique manner and not as some "mass consciousness" or "communal grace." It leaves no doubt that our faith is a very personal and very individual reality. Unless some care to characterize Russian Orthodoxy as "unorthodox."

Solitude frees us from temptations and distractions, from passions and ultimately from sin. The more energy we spend on worldly realities, the more we separate from God and continue to sin. Clearly, theosis cannot advance by being intimately tied to the material and physical and devoting time to God when it's convenient.

Here is an excerpt from an article entitled The Spiritual Father in Orthodox Christianity

St. Seraphim followed a comparable path. After fifteen years spent in the ordinary life of the monastic community, as novice, professed monk, deacon, and priest, he withdrew for thirty years of solitude and almost total silence. During the first part of this period he, lived in a forest hut; at one point he passed a thousand days on the stump of a tree and a thousand nights of those days on a rock, devoting himself to unceasing prayer. Recalled by his abbot to the monastery, he obeyed the order without the slightest delay; and during the latter part of his time of solitude he lived rigidly enclosed in his cell, which he did not leave even to attend services in church; on Sundays the priest brought communion to him at the door of his room. Though he was a priest he didn't celebrate the liturgy. Finally, in the last eight years of his life, he ended his enclosure, opening the door of his cell and receiving all who came. He did nothing to advertise himself or to summon people; it was the others who took the initiative in approaching him, but when they came—sometimes hundreds or even thousands in a single day—he did not send them empty away.

One, +Seraphim spent time alone and without anyone around him. Having been a priest, he did not celebrate the Divine Liturgy. He did not have the Eucharist sitting on a tree stump. He did not participate in communal life nor in a community. Did that make him less of a priest, less of an Orthodox Christian? Not if he was in repentence. And the only one he had to share his self-accusation was Christ. I am sure he did not feel alone for one moment with such Company. Yes Kolo, +Ignatius is right: Church is where Christ is; and Christ is everywhere. But sometimes I wonder if there is truly one Orthodox Church.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

nice post kosta. Thanks.