{"id":11,"date":"2018-12-11T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T10:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.smallpage.online\/2018\/12\/11\/archimandrite-andrew-konanos-on-his\/"},"modified":"2019-02-19T06:47:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T06:47:32","slug":"archimandrite-andrew-konanos-on-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/archimandrite-andrew-konanos-on-his","title":{"rendered":"Archimandrite Andrew (Konanos) on His Meeting with Elder Paisius and the Elder\u2019s Life-Changing Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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And Father Paisius replied with a question, \u201cThat\u2019s what I tell you, my child\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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We have our own opinions about everything. It seems like we talk about holy ideas but think about other stuff. That\u2019s the core of it.<\/div>\n
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I visited Elder Paisius on Mt. Athos in 1990. Today, he is already canonized. I was fond of catechizing, talking with children and explaining the tenets of our faith to them; having conversations about God, people, and our Church; speaking of what we should do and what we shouldn\u2019t do, what\u2019s a sin and what is not. However, I was wondering if it was good or not. So I asked him, \u201cGeronda, what do you think? Should I continue doing religious instruction or not?\u201d Father Paisius responded with a question, \u201cThat\u2019s what I tell you, my child. Have you ever been to America?\u201d \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t.\u201d \u201cOf course, you haven\u2019t. Do you know how to get to the nearest bakery?\u201d \u201cYes, I do. I go there every day.\u201d \u201cDo you know how to get to your local school? Will you be able to explain the way to a child, if he asks you?\u201d \u201cYes, Father, I know the road to the school because I go past it every day.\u201d \u201cWhat if the child asks you how to get to America, do you know what to tell him?\u201d \u201cNo, Father, I don\u2019t know because I\u2019ve never been to America.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what you should do in your life. That\u2019s what you should teach in your Sunday School. Tell them how to get to the bakery or to the school, that is, talk about the things that you know and that you\u2019ve experienced. Don\u2019t tell them about America that you don\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
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I\u2019m not sure that the elder\u2019s words about America were foreknowing. At that time, I had nothing in common with the US and I didn\u2019t even think of going there. I\u2019ve visited the States many times since 2007 but at that point, I had never been to that country.<\/div>\n
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The elder\u2019s message was that I had to do my best to avoid being a man of sciolistic conversations about faith and theology. I had to talk about the marrow of what I\u2019ve learned from my own personal experience.<\/div>\n
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\u201cTalk about the bakery! Tell them how to buy bread in the bakery and how to get to the nearest school.\u201d The saint\u2019s words seem too unsophisticated but in fact they are very meaningful and fundamental. They call us to authentic and sincere living. We go to Church to get to know God. Some of us later become fake. We pretend to know everything already. We talk about everything so easily. We hurry to resolve the problems of other people.<\/div>\n
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We have our own opinions about all things. We like pointing at others\u2019 failures. In reality, things are not what they seem. Even when we talk about holy ideas, we have other thoughts in mind. Words of Saint Paisius are hard to overestimate, \u201cTalk about God with your life.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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From the book “Marriage and Its Problems” <\/em><\/div>\n
by Archimandrite Andrew (Konanos)<\/em><\/div>\n
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Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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And Father Paisius replied with a question, \u201cThat\u2019s what I tell you, my child\u2026\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 We have our own opinions about everything. It seems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orthodox-wisdom","tag-life-and-guidance-of-the-holy-fathers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5-3.jpg","views":{"total":206,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768434515},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17961,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/17961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}