Diversity and Freedom

Fr Seraphim Aldea

There’s something about the Saints of the Isles that reminds me how wonderfully diverse and free and mad in Christ Orthodoxy really is.

I need a reminder of this again and again because we today are increasingly overcome by fear, and fear comes with rules and formality, and rules and formality kill that which is alive in us.

The Wind rages in the caves of our hearts, and we expect it to make sense, to follow rules, to be civilized and formal. The Spirit tells us about the Truth of the Kingdom, and we expect it to fit the truths of this world.

The Saints of the Isles were so free, so courageous and daring in their faith, whereas today we took this big scissors of fear (which comes from lack of faith really) and we’ve amputated ourselves, we’ve suffocated our freedom and our beauty.

There is a direct connection between the painful ways in which we deform our spiritual selves and the tragic, disastrous way we massacre the created world around us. There is a mirror here, a reflection on the outside of the extermination that goes on inside.

And the journey out of it can only start from acknowledging this and repenting of it - where to repent means to change.

A few days ago we celebrated the BEAUTIFUL St Oran of Iona. We had close to zero internet at the monastery, so could not post anything on the Feast. But we celebrated and we prayed.

I pray St Oran showers you in his love, the way he has welcomed me into it.

Fr Seraphim Aldea is the Abbot of the Mull Monastery in Scotland.