From - ETERNAL MYSTERIES BEYOND THE GRAVE by Archimandrite Panteleimon 1

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ETERNAL MYSTERIES BEYOND THE GRAVE 1

by Archimandrite Panteleimon

Human beings who approach perfection and have achieved purity of heart, they who have “acquired the Spirit of God” [from St Seraphim’s conversation with Motovilov] even while they are still in this world, have the daring to enter the place of the Creator, and to join angels and the spirits of the saints. While they are still in their earthly bodies, they well know that they will reign with Christ; for already here on earth they have come to know the sweetness of divine illumination and the effect of God’s power. The supernatural gifts of communion with God, which the soul can receive when it is still in the body, are only an indication of those heavenly rewards which cannot even be told to man, since we possess no images or words fit for their description. Once they had risen to the heights of spiritual elevation while still in this life, these holy men experienced a blessedness and joy which resemble the eternal heavenly joy of the life to come. Hence these men were already angels and healed all kinds of illnesses, both mental and physical. When they were praying they were transfigured and shone with the light with which the Savior shone on Mt Tabor. The forces of nature obeyed them; men and beasts, plants, water, and air did their will. Their thoughts, their visions and contemplations have been left for us in their works, and these works, illumined from above, contain accounts of the future life, that life which begins beyond the grave. Some of these accounts are included in this book. Their teachings on immortality can briefly be summarized in a single paragraph: Man is a being destined to immortality. Thus he cannot help having a concept and an expectation of it. In some individuals, however, this feeling is strong, while in others it is so weak that it hardly shows itself. Why is this so? The reason is that man in his present condition contains two parts. One of these is immortal and will not disappear with death; the other one is mortal and lives only until death. Each of these parts produces in man a disposition related to it. Both are so tightly knit that they form one whole. Therefore, the feeling of immortality together with the feeling of mortality merge into one indefinite and vague feeling. When a man lives relying chiefly on that which in him is truly immortal, that is, his spirit and his conscience, then the feeling of immortality grows stronger. If, on the other hand, he gives himself over to that which in him is temporal and dead, namely, his flesh and blood, the feeling of mortality grows. Our soul avidly desires heavenly light and cannot therefore be satisfied with earthly goods. This is why many people who apparently possess all that is necessary for earthly happiness still often experience great sorrow of soul. Blessed Augustine, after he had tasted all the joys and beauties that the earth offers, exclaimed to God, “You have created us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You.”

ARCHIMANDRITE PANTELEIMON AND HOLY TRINITY MONASTERY

Archimandrite Panteleimon (Nizhnik) – “My Son, do not Lose God!”

Archimandrite Panteleimon, the founder, and builder of Holy Trinity Monastery was born into a simple peasant family in the village or Rechitsa, in the Province of Grodno in Belarus, on January 16, 1895. His family was large, and to feed it, the father of the young Peter (Fr. Panteleimon’s secular name) had to work hard. Peter himself, from his earliest years, was accustomed to the hard work of the farmer.

His mother, a pious woman, imparted to her son a simple faith and was sincerely grieved when she learned that the eighteen-year-old Peter intended to travel to faraway America in order to make money to send home for the support of the family. She knew that many had returned from America having lost their faith, and she wept much over this. Unable to hear the sight of his mother’s tears, Peter asked why she wept so uncontrollably. Through her tears, his mother replied: “My son, do not lose God!” “These words of my mother remained in my heart and my memory all my life”. Fr. Panteleimon was to say in later life.

After his arrival in America, Peter worked first in a sugar factory near Chicago. He had to work on Sundays and feast days, and this weighed heavily upon the conscience of the young man. He thus began to consider how he might escape this, and addressing God, he asked Him: ” Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk O Lord!”. The year 1917 arrived, with all the bloody horrors which inundated the Russian land. Peter’s native village was put to the torch, and his family scattered all over Russia. Peter’s mind and heart inclined towards monasticism and in the year 1918, the twenty-three-year-old man entered the Monastery of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk in Pennsylvania. In 1920 Peter received the monastic tonsure, being given the name Panteleimon, and was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon; and in 1921 he was ordained a hieromonk.

He served often, laboured greatly for the good of the community, and diligently read the works of the holy Fathers. His personal piety, and the grace of God, which always “fulfills that which is lacking”, helped him to lead an ascetic life within the monastery. But soon, within ten years of his arrival at the Monastery of St. Tikhon, Fr. Panteleimon reached the conclusion that he could no longer live in a monastery where spiritual decay reigned without endangering his own soul. Many monks who had been ordained to the priesthood went out to service parishes, but Fr. Panteleimon did not consider this a legitimate solution to the situation; he still longed for a strict monastic life. He began to seek out a solitary place for himself, somewhere in a forest, near a spring, where he could “build a chapel in which to pray and live independently, far from the vanity and tumult of the world”.
A place was found – in size slightly more than three hundred acres, in New York State, near the town of Herkimer. In order to pay off even as little as half of the cost of the land, he had to work first for two years in Igor Sikorsky’s aeronautics factory. In the spring of 1930, after Pascha, as Fr. Panteleimon relates, “I arrived alone on my own land. Everything was in a state of neglect. There was tranquillity all around. Not a soul. I climbed a hill several times in the forest, delighting in the surrounding peace, and was able to see my own farm from there. There was a little old two-room cabin, without any windows, and a well nearby. On other portions of the farm, there were four wells. That was all there was. All around there was the forest and silence – a real wilderness. My first purchase for the farm was, I remember, a little metal tea kettle. I used to leave the house and go out to the farmyard, kindle a fire between three stones, and set the kettle, filled with water, over it; then I would go to the store in Jordanville for supplies. By the time I would return, the kettle would have boiled and breakfast would be ready”.

HOLY TRINITY MONASTERY JORDANVILLE NY
Gradually, brethren began to gather around him. His cell in the wilderness began to develop into a skete. In 1935, after Vladyka Vitaly (Maximenko) arrived in America, the consecration of the new church was to take place. On the feast of the Holy Spirit, the divine services were celebrated with great solemnity, presided over by Vladyka Vitaly, culminating in the consecration of the church. All went well, until suddenly, at the end of the liturgy, someone noticed that a fire had broken out on the second floor. The wind soon fanned the blaze, and within a few hours, the new church had burnt to the ground before its founder’s very eyes. It was difficult to bear this loss. But the brethren did not despair. They continued to labour, never losing hope that a church would be erected. In 1945, a new foundation was laid for the future Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The following year, the brotherhood was augmented by monks originally from the Monastery of St. Job of Pochaev in Ladomirova, Czechoslovakia. The monastery began to grow, and Fr. Panteleimon contributed much to this growth by his own labours. He could be seen working at every phase of its construction. He cleared forested areas by himself, excavated ponds and lakes with a bulldozer, worked at typesetting. He managed to publish many books himself, including a twelve-volume set of the Lives of the Saints in Russian, a book on the lives of the ascetics of the 19th century, a handbook for the study of sacred history, and many others.

Fr. Panteleimon passed away on the 14/27 December 1984. May his memory be eternal!