Dearest Nektarios,
First I want to say that I didn't realize that you are about the same age as my daughter. I know how confusing and frightening the teenage years can be. I congratulate you, that as a teenager, you have decided to take Christianity seriously. That is ALOT more than most teenagers in our society today. May God bless you.
I noticed that you said that you do not want to be called by your birth name. (Although Daniel is a perfectly Christian name, and was given to you in love)...In any case, that is your perogative ofcourse, and you have taken the name of a great saint of modern times in Orthodoxy.
St. Nektarios is someone I know a great deal about, as I spent three years translating and editing the MOST comprehensive book about his life: 'St. Nektarios, A Saint for our Times', by Sotos Hondropoulos (of blessed memory).
When we take the names of holy people, especially at an age of reason and choice as you are, (for instance: I did not choose my patron, my godparents did it for me as an infant), we must do our best to emulate that holy saint.
St. Nektarios was a very humble, quiet and LOVING person. He never spoke a cross word to anyone, even when he was mistreated, slandered, and persecuted. St. Nektarios was also a very learned man, being the Dean of the Rizarios Theological School in Athens. Such was his piety, that when incidents occured where students were not getting along with each other and complaining about misdeeds perpetrated on each other, rather than punish them, he punished
himself by refusing to eat until they made up....the students, ofcourse, could not believe this approach, and such was their respect and love for him doing this, that they, ofcourse made up and lived together in love.
Getting back to how learned the saint was, he had discourse in French with Roman Catholic theologians. He wrote to them in their language,
respectfully and with great love what he thought their errors were, and discussed the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. He bore no anomosity towards his seperated brethren, but rather wished for an eventual reunion, (and remember, this was a time before the anathemas were lifted) of Christ's church. He never wrote to them with any sense of triumphalism, knowing that the humility of seeing 'the other' as holier and as an image of God in which he/her is created, is the key to living a Christian life.
Saint Nektarios is a very miraculous saint today. He was canonized because of the great many miracles attributed to him, relatively soon after his death...(remember, sometimes these things can take a century or more). He has worked a few miracles, infact, for my family throughout my life. His miracles are so widespread across continents, that he is becoming known even outside the Orthodox community. He has even worked miracles for Roman Catholics, and presently, many are praying to him for little Nicholas Kristoff (an Evangelical boy) who was on the brink of death from e-coli. The boy is miraculously getting better from the prayer of various ethnic Orthodox, Evangelical, and Catholics for him, from across the nation. So, it seems that perhaps, there is something to the statement, 'there is no schism in heaven'.
God is pure love, a love we CANNOT comprehend, and his saints who are with him in that love cannot but work miracles and intercede for all Christians of true faith in the ONE and ONLY TRUTH, which is Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Saviour.
Please, dear young man, think about these things...you have SO much to offer the world, and have been chosen by God to follow Him at a much younger age than others...channel your Orthodoxy into something loving and embrace Orthodoxy as a beautiful path to your salvation, rather than embracing it as a means to refute and hate where you came from and where others are.
TO do such a thing, (and I am not saying that you are necessarily doing this, but there are others who do) makes MY faith, the beautiful tradition shared by St. Nektarios and countless other saints, look like a mind controlling, hate mongering, cult. THAT is not what I want non-Orthodox to see my faith as. Yes, we have doctrinal and sacramental truths which some of our Protestant brethren may not have, but if we sweep love and tolerance under the rug, then they will possess more of the real truth (LOVE) than us, and there will be no reason for them to look at Orthodoxy!
Look at the gesture of Orthodox across the nation, (including my priest praying for him at Proskomide) for little Nicholas Kristoff, and rejoice, for THAT is the Orthodoxy which you have embraced.
With much love,
and may God bless your journey with enlightenment and good role models,
Alice
