2nd Sunday after Pentecost; All Saints of America, All Saints of Russia

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week, the first Sunday after the leave-taking of Pentecost, we celebrated the Feast of All Saints. Like everything else in this life, but especially in church, this was not by chance, as it is the presence of God in the church, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which makes holiness a possibility for us. And now as we begin to embark on the Apostles' Fast, the Church gives us the example of local saints. Today we celebrate All Saints of Russia: men and women who, as we heard in today's epistle, through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness were made strong, and who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they may obtain a better resurrection.

And so, in light of the Apostles' Fast and the celebration of local saints, we are invited not only to remember those men and women who labored to spread the gospel, and through whose faith subdued kingdoms, but also to consider what it means to discover faith, and what it means to be a follower of Christ. What are its conditions?

Every human heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness undergoes a period of searching for what is true and what is beautiful. We might recall today the story of how Prince Vladimir set out to discover the truth on behalf of his own kingdom. As tradition tells us, he first sent for dignitaries from among the Islamic tribes, the Bulgarians, who when they arrived told the prince, "You, O Prince, are wise and thoughtful, but you do not have true religion. Believe in the law and worship as Mohammed." The prince then asked, "What is the nature of your religion?" Hearing their explanation, he was pleased by the certain prospect of heavenly pleasure, as the Prince had many wives. But he did not approve of circumcision and the prohibition of pork, and especially of alcohol, to which he sent them away and famously said, "Drink is the joy of the Russian."

After this arrived Latin Christians from the Germanic lands, and they told him, "Our God is the God of light who made heaven and earth. Yours is but wood and silver, the works of men's hands." The prince too asked, "What is the nature of your commandments?" Although the church was still officially one, at this time differences had already started to take shape between the Christian East and what we now call Roman Catholicism in the West. Having received their explanation, he sent them away, saying, "Our fathers never accepted any of this."

Then came the Jews from the Khazar region of the South. As they explained their faith, the prince was intrigued. But then he asked the simple and yet painful question, "Where is your homeland?" And when they had told him that they had not only lost the land of their forefathers as divine punishment but were also denied the ability to serve God in their only temple, he told them, "And do you now also wish to call down God's punishment upon our kingdom?" And so he sent them away.

Finally, a preacher and philosopher from Byzantium arrived, who after accusing his rivals, spoke of the torments of those who do not believe in the right way. And then he recited sacred history from Adam all the way to Christ and the apostles whose teachings the Greeks had received. The prince was impressed by his preaching and by the image presented to him of the last judgment. But when the preacher asked if he would receive baptism, he replied, "Not yet."

Still undecided, he received a wise suggestion from one of his advisors. "No messenger will ever speak badly of his own ruler. Rather, your majesty should send his own men to their temples that they may see how they worship."

When his dignitaries returned from the mosque, they sadly reported, "There is no joy among them. And when they pray, they gaze around as men who are possessed." And when the others returned from the Germanic Latin lands, who were under the Pope of Rome, they said, "Their worship is without beauty." And finally came those who returned from the great Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. And when the prince inquired of them what they had seen, they gave him the famous report: "We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. We cannot describe their worship to you. But this we know, that God dwells there among men. We cannot forget that beauty, since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not taste of something bitter afterwards. So too, we can no longer remain any more in paganism."

The story of Rus's conversion is our story. In many ways, it is the story of our own conversion. How many of us have come to the faith having perhaps read or heard something that brought us here? But in the end, we are won by the beauty of the Church's worship that brings the Gospel to life in a way which we had never before known and cannot describe with words.

Of course, it is one thing to discover the truth, and it is another to become united to it. Just as it is one thing to experience the joy of discovering faith in Jesus Christ, and it is another to follow Him. In today's Gospel, we come to that scene that is so familiar to us, when the Lord, walking along the coast of Galilee, spots two fishermen, the future disciples Peter and Andrew, casting their nets into the sea. And he tells them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." However familiar we may be with these words, we often forget the words that come next: "And they immediately left their nets and followed him."

In order for us to follow the Lord, to become fishers of men, it is necessary for each of us to leave behind the idleness of our previous life, to make an exodus out of our own Egypt that we may struggle for the virtues of the Gospel in the desert of this life, hoping for the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, a heart that can receive the Holy Spirit.

In recent times, among those in Russia who attack the Church, it has become common to hear that Rus' was baptized with fire and the sword, that the baptism of Kiev was brought about by a massive terror campaign by the authorities. There are no records of this. It is true, there are not many records at all, but what do we know? In addition to ordaining priests, building cathedrals, importing relics and icons, and holding mass baptisms, every time Prince Vladimir and his court feasted, the food was distributed to the poor and to the sick. When he adopted the Byzantine code of law, he did not copy it, but rather he further Christianized it by abolishing the death penalty, torture, and mutilation, which were common even in Christian Byzantium. Prince Vladimir's care for the poor and his radical rejection of cruelty take on new meaning when we consider that before his conversion to Orthodoxy, Prince Vladimir was the ruler of a pagan society that worshiped the cult of violence and war. Likewise, we might consider St. Theodosius, who welcomes us every time we enter into our temple. His life of voluntary poverty, of working in the fields with slaves as a child and wearing coarse clothes, becomes more meaningful when we recall that he was a noble by birth. We come to see what they have left behind.

There is that very well-known adage, "Preach the gospel at all times and use words only when necessary." It is a life of transformation that is our preaching. As the Apostle Paul tells us in today's Epistle, "For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of the Lord, but the doers of the law will be justified, who show the work of the law written in their hearts... God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."

The kingdom of the heart is conquered and subdued by beauty, but it must be built up and established upon the foundation and defense of the virtues, the commandments of the gospel. May each and every one of us, as we seek to grow in faith and understanding to become true followers of Christ, do what we can so that our hearts may continually be conquered by the beauty and sweetness of our faith, and that we may leave behind the bitterness of sin, so that our light may so shine before men and our Father who is in heaven may be glorified. Amen.