Nikolaj Velimirović

“ To-day, as always, the most difficult Christian mission is that among the rich.
Our real value we never reveal through the using of our rights but through our capacity for service and sacrifice.
Easier is it for a man to get his own rights than to lose his pride.
Sacrifice without murmuring makes of our stormy life a calm holy day. We fill all our days with the talk of the people who are loth to sacrifice and of those who dare to sacrifice. Disgust and admiration are two baths in which our hearts bathe from sunrise to sunset. ”

“ Go to the bottom of all those clever advocacies for unity of Church and State, and you will meet, as their primus motor, the worm of comfort and human inertia.
All Churches and Christian institutions of the present time, however wonderful they may be, are only a dim prophecy of the coming Christian worship in truth and spirit. Through them we look now to the future as through a glass.
Christianity is neither monarchical nor republican. It does not care about institutions but about the spirit living in them. That institution is the best which is fullest of the Christian spirit. ”

“ Europe has been materialistic, heroic, scientific, imperialistic, technical, secular. At last she has to be holy. Whatever she has been, she has been unhappy and restless, and brutal and criminal, unjust and gluttonous. Soldiers and traders, despots and robbers, popes and kings, gluttons and harlots, have ruled Europe, but not yet the saints, the holy wizards. The Church's duty has been to provide Europe with such holy wizards. She has failed because she has been obscured by Europe, as a fine soul often is obscured by a heavy and greedy body. ”

“ Our worship is bare of every thing but the poor human tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of God than men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the Church, but now we see that the episcopal system is a golden midway between the papal and our extremes. ”

“ Her inner poverty was seen by India, China, Japan, and partly by Russia. What an amazing poverty! She gained the whole world, and when she looked inside herself she could not find her soul. Where has fled Europe's soul? The present war will give the answer. It is not a war to destroy the world but to show Europe's poverty and to bring back her soul. It will last—this war—as long as Europe remains soulless, Godless, Christless. It will stop when Europe gets the vision of her soul, her only God, her only wealth. ”

“ HOLY CHURCH IN HOLY EUROPE Europe has been eclipsed because her Church—her soul—has been eclipsed; the Church has been eclipsed because her principal ideal has been eclipsed. The principal ideal of the Church is saintliness. This ideal, plunged down into darkness like a sun into ashes, must come out again to illuminate the Church and Europe. Europe has tried all the ways but the way of the Church, the European Church has tried all the ways but the way of Christ. Well, then, Europe must try the only way left, which is saintliness. The Church must give an example to Europe. ”

“ All of us, small or great nations, are now looking to you with respect, not only for the victory over a revived anachronical Paganism in Central Europe, but also for a formulation of the new ideal, of saving power for all men.
Great is our expectation indeed, but it is justified by your gifts, given to you by Providence. Therefore let your hearts be larger than your Empire and your national Church, and the respect of mankind towards you will be warmed by love. Surely there can not be built a greater Empire than yours, humanly speaking. ”

“ So might say to-day all the worldly institutions about the Christian Church in this valley of slavery: "She is one of ourselves." She is destined to quicken the world end, and she is postponing it. One millennium is past, another is near by, yet the Church does not think of the world end: she loves this world; that is her curse. The world still exists because of the Church's hesitation and fear. Were she not hesitating and fearing she had been dramatically struggling and suffering, and a new heaven and a new earth should be in sight. Why has the Church stopped being a drama? ”

“ Yet the fact stood in history as big as a mountain that the Church always failed when making concessions of her spirit to any temporary power, and when not making concessions as to the visible forms and transitory shapes of human societies.
Neither Ritualism nor Liberalism helps anything without the true Christian spirit. The modern Ritualism and Liberalism are absolutely equally worthless from the Christian point of view, being so hostile to each other as they are, filled with the unclean spirit of hatred, unforgiveness, despising and even persecuting each other. ”

“ As every hair on our head and every line on the palm of our hand has a certain significance, so these dedications of the Church have doubtless certain significance. And this significance is typical of the religion of the East and the West. Western Christianity, grown upon the soil of a youthful individualism, preferred this or that apostle's personality and dedicated their best temples to him. The aged East, tired of individualistic ambitions, tired of great men, flagellated by the phantom of human greatness, was thirsty for something higher and more solid than any human personality. ”

“ Your Church history too is full of a moving and dramatic struggle for light in all these problems, from the day when the first Roman missionaries brought the new Gospel to your country up to our days.
The Church, inclusive in wisdom, has had the most dramatic history in the world. Struggling against Patriotism, she pleaded for humanity; and struggling against Imperialism, she pleaded for spirituality. And again: struggling against heretics, she pleaded for unity, and struggling against worldly philosophers, she pleaded for a sacred and pragmatic wisdom. ”

“ Let the world know that the Church's mission on earth is not to accumulate wealth, or to gain political power or knowledge, or to cling to this institution or to that, but to cleanse mankind from its unclean, evil spirits, and to fill it with the spirit of saintliness. Let the Church first change her spirit and then urge the whole of mankind to change theirs. ”

“ That Christianity is not a precious stone preserved in a box called the Church of England, or the Church of the East, or Rome, but that it is the common good of mankind, destined for all continents and all races;
That there is no constituent of the present European civilisation, but the Christian religion, which could stop the brutal struggle among men, in one form or another, and guarantee a Godlike peace profitable for the whole of mankind. ”

“ Rome, politically ruling the world, was longing for a sacred King, for a Prince of Peace, who should come from the East and bring to the people some higher and truer happiness than that deceiving chimera of political bigness. Well, Christ should be this universal, sacred King, this Prince of Peace, and Messenger of a durable happiness. ”

“ It was an illusion to speak about Europe's mission in the wide world without Christ. Well, but only a Christlike people can be a missionary of Christ. How could an unholy Europe preach the Holy One?
Do you think that the Arabs, who gave Europe knowledge, are expecting from Europe knowledge? No, they expect Europe's goodwill.
Or do you think that India, whose history is a history of saints, is anxious to accept German materialistic science, individual philosophy, and a destructive and shallow theology? ”

“ The Church's craving for comfort is indeed her craving for death. Like a noble knight who descends into a prison to liberate the enchained slaves, to whom the prison is painful and liberation still more painful, so is the Church's position in this world. ”

“ As you cannot imagine Arabic civilisation in Spain without Islam, or India's civilisation without Hinduism, or Rome without the Roman Pantheon, so you cannot imagine Europe's civilisation without Christ. ”

“ All non-Christian systems and schemes mean, my own interest first and then thine, or first I and my nation and my race, and then thou and thy nation and thy race, or, my happiness and, along with it, thy happiness. The Christian idea hidden in the Church is a revolutionary one, the most revolutionary idea in the world. The Christian idea is, thou and thy nation and thy race first, and then me and my nation and my race; or, thy happiness first and in thy happiness my happiness. Saintliness above everything, the true saintliness including goodness and sacrifice. ”

“ Only a man or a nation educated for willing service to their neighbours is a really free man or free nation. All other theories of freedom are illusions. Freedom asking for rights and not for willing service means an endless quarrel crowning with unhappiness all its champions. Neither Pericles' republic nor Octavian's monarchy were the States of happiness, but St Paul's pan-human state, with a single Magna Charta of willing service, will be a State of Universal Happiness. ”

“ The European race now needs this self-criticism more than any other race, and the Christian Church needs it more than any other religion in the world, for before this War the European race set itself up as the critic of the defects and insufficiencies of all other races, and the Christian Church exalted herself over all other religions "as high as the heaven is exalted over the earth." The other races and religions thought that behind this proud criticism of Christian Europe there must be at least a well-possessed security for the world-peace. ”

“ It is wicked to use pagan architecture for the Church, and incense and fire, and music, or dance, or bowing, or kneeling, or signs and symbols, in Christian worship, because it is pagan." Yes, all this is pagan indeed, but it is Christian too if we wish it to be. The Latin language was pagan, but now it is Christian too. The English language was a vehicle of Paganism as well, now it is a vehicle of Christianity. The human body was itself pagan too, but the Eternal Christ, God's Holy Wisdom, entered it and filled it with a new spirit, and it ceased to be pagan. ”

“ Of course an exalted Patriotism in a frame of hatred all around excludes the Christian religion and is its most dangerous enemy. St Paul, who remained a true patriot till the end of his life, thought, as we all shall think, that Christianity never can damage the just cause of a country, but, on the contrary, it gives to a patriotic cause a universal nimbus and importance, putting it direct before the Eternal Judge, and liberating it from small anxieties, little faith and unworthy actions. ”

“ The whole of mankind must become the mystical body of Christ before any one of us is saved. If ninety nine of us think we are saved, still we must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one lost sheep is found and brought in; the door of Heaven does not open for one person only. And speaking in larger circles we may say: If ninety-nine Churches think they are saved, still they must wait in the corridor of Heaven until the one retrograde Church has become the member of the mystical body of Christ. The door of Heaven is open for Christ only and for nobody else. ”

“ It is of no use to change Churches and go from one Church to another seeking salvation: salvation is in every Church as long as a Church thinks and cares in sisterly love for all other Churches, looking upon them as parts of the same body, or there is salvation in no Church so long as a Church thinks and cares only for herself, contemptuously denying the rights, beauty, truth and merits of all other Churches. It is a great thing to love one's Church, as it is a great thing to love one's country, but it is much better to love other Churches and other countries too. ”

“ By nothing is the disgust towards a man more excited than by hearing: "He is incapable of sacrifice." When this sentence is directed to ourselves, we feel as if we had lost the whole battle of life.
The value of metaphysical systems is more for the scientific than for the moral progress of mankind. Upon Hegel you could build a new science, but upon St Paul only could you build a new social life and a new world politics. Did you ever think that St Paul is the greatest prophet of a new and desirable statesmanship? ”

“ On no continent was the peace of mankind more endangered than in Europe, the very metropolis of Christianity and Christian civilisation. And it has been so not only during the last few years, it has been the case during the last thousand years, that Europe has represented a greater contrast to peace than any other continent. During the last thousand years history can report more wars, more bloodshed, and more criminal unrest in Christian Europe than in the heathen countries of the Far East—China, Japan, and India. ”

“ The soul obeyed the body and became the body itself. All the secular watchwords entered the Church and the Church watchwords were eclipsed. Liberalism, conservatism, ceremonialism, right, nationalism, imperialism, law, democracy, autocracy, republicanism, socialism, scientific criticism, and similar things have filled the Christian theology, Christian service, Christian pulpits as the Christian Gospel. In reality the Christian gospel has been as different from all these worldly ideas and temporal forms as heaven is different from earth. ”

“ Patriotism is a provincial truth, but Christianity is a pan-human truth. Patriotism means love of one's country or one's generation, Christianity means love of all countries and all generations. Christianity includes a sound and true Patriotism, but excludes untrue and exaggerated Patriotism as it excludes every untrue thought and feeling. ”