http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/sampson3.htm ...1) ELDERSHIP
In order to understand the function of Eldership in Orthodox societies, we first have to understand the function of the Church in Orthodox theology. It is expressed beneath the photograph of Elder Sampson behind me, in his words: �Learn to walk in the presence of God�. These words sum up the sense of holiness, the sense of the sacred, which is of the essence of Orthodox Christianity. This has again been encapsulated in recent times by St Nicholas of Zhicha, the great Serbian theologian, canonized in Serbia only last year. Writing some sixty years ago in his essay, �The Mystery of the Touch�, he said, speaking of twentieth-century Western materialistic values:
"Peace and plenty" - this may be the watchword of secular authorities, but not of Christian clergy. For without holiness God will give us neither peace nor plenty. We mean: the holiness of personal life.
"Organization, organization!" Many shout nowadays. Yes, organization is a good thing, but the holy organization, which is the Church of God, is much better. Any organization without the holiness of personal life, will be like Nebuchadnezzar�s image of metal and clay, broken to pieces by the Rock, Which is Christ.
Elsewhere St Nicholas also wrote:
�A faith without miracles is no more than a philosophical system; and a Church without miracles is no more than a welfare organization like the Red Cross�.
Another recent Orthodox saint, St John the Wonderworker, of whom many miracles are recorded in all the cities in which he served as diocesan bishop, from Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s, to London and Paris in the 1950s, and to San Francisco in the 1960s, wrote the following:
�Holiness is not simply righteousness, for which the righteous merit the enjoyment of blessedness in the Kingdom of God, but rather such a height of righteousness that men are filled with the grace of God to the extent that it flows from them upon those who associate with them. Great is their blessedness; it proceeds from personal experience of the Glory of God. Being filled also with love for men. Which proceeds from the love of God, they are responsive to men�s needs, and upon their supplication they appear also as intercessors and defenders for them before God�...
