How to combat spiritual apathy?
Archimandrite Markell (Pavuk) on why a show of concern for the fate of the Church often hides spiritual indifference.
If we are to believe modern mass media, one might get the impression that most people are exceedingly concerned about the fate of the Church and that their personal spiritual life is perfectly fine – almost like that of the holy martyr Ignatius the God-Bearer – God is always in their soul.
Such people confidently wave their sabers and are ready to destroy anyone who opposes their notion of how Church life should be arranged. But in reality, their anxiety is caused not by seeing the Church as the God-man organism, the living Body of Christ (cf. Eph. 1:23), but as a kind of nationalist party, which, for the sake of pleasing its electorate, must hastily resolve problems of earthly order.
Back in the early 1990s, many people demanded that clergy urgently baptize them or marry them without any catechism. Today, these same people demand that the Church respond quickly to the shifting political agenda. Yet true church life is not built on demands made to the Church, but on sacrificing oneself for Her. And here is where the problems begin.
Self-sacrifice is not so easy. To do this, one must have faith, love, patience, and other virtues. And so it turns out that there are not so many true Christians who genuinely care for the Church. Statistics show that 70–80% of citizens call themselves believers, but in reality, only 3–10% actually participate in church life.
It is the parishioners who regularly, on every Sunday and feast day, go to church and partake of the Sacraments – they are the ones who truly care for the Church and for their spiritual life.
Thus, the indifferent are those who do not participate in church life, who do not sacrifice themselves for the Church, and at the same time demand that She change in accordance with the winds of political weather.
Such indifference is not overcome by external reforms, but by reforming one’s inner state through sincere repentance and fervent prayer. Were they to study thoroughly, in practice, at least one of the five volumes of the Philokalia, their itch for reform would immediately vanish.
The various “media activists” who today demand reforms from the Church thereby testify about themselves that they have never truly entered into spiritual and ecclesial life, but only dwelt within its walls and made use of its material benefits. When the real threat arose that these benefits might be lost, they revealed their true face – where, alas, there is no place for the image of Christ.
