Saint Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus as Shepherd and Teacher of Shepherding

Contents Introduction. The importance and benefits of studying pastoral life Service of St. Church in the position of diocesan missionary, encouraged me to fight the enemies of St. truth in the same ways that church dissenters resort to: publishing conversations and leaflets in accessible language and distributing them free of charge among the people. This desire prompted me to found my own small book publishing house called “On Guard of Orthodoxy.” Up to 300 titles were published in his name, amounting to over 10,000,000 copies. The widespread free distribution of this literature and the provision of it to soldiers in the active army was the reason that, unfortunately, many of the titles were not preserved even by the author. An attempt to collect into one whole the brochures and articles printed and written at different times, and conversations delivered, and teachings is represented by this publication, consisting of six volumes. The first is Church conversations. The second is the Thoughts and Contemplations of an Orthodox missionary, presented in relation to the church readings of the year. Third - In the fight for sobriety. Thirty conversations against drunkenness. Fourth – Pastoral covenants to valiant Russian soldiers. Fifth – St. Gregory the Theologian, as a shepherd and teacher of shepherding Sixth - On the issue of improving the parish mission: notes of readings with light paintings, programs of national missionary courses, model statutes of parish missionary institutions. Five volumes appear simultaneously. The sixth is being prepared for publication. With a collection of scattered articles and notes, the author wishes to bring all possible benefit to rural Orthodox priests, often alone and helpless in the fight against sectarianism, unbelief, drunkenness and in the improvement of parish life, and to the children of St. Churches seeking spiritual food. The author's participation in the Second Great Patriotic War as a military chaplain was the reason for the publication of the fourth issue, which is entirely dedicated to the valiant Russian soldiers bearing the burdens of an unprecedented war with the enemy. Absolutely making no claims to either the richness and originality of thought, or the variety of content, and also not pursuing any other goals other than the feasible pastoral service of St. Church, I humbly apologize in advance for the shortcomings that are found in the publication: troubled wartime, difficulties in printing and a lot of urgent matters in servicing the military, hospitals and military units of the Moscow garrison deprived me of the opportunity to closely monitor even the proofreading. Introduction. The importance and benefits of studying pastoral life The importance and benefit of studying the pastoral life of the great Fathers of the Church in general and St. Gregory the Theologian, as a shepherd and teacher of shepherding, in particular. What does it mean to study the activities of a shepherd? The inextricable connection in the pastoral ministry of life with teaching. Work plan. Nature and method of presentation. “It is useful not to leave in oblivion those names that inspire virtue” 1. “Everything decays, even the beautiful decays over time; the remainder is either nothing or very little. Where the earth has been washed away by the rapid flow of heavy rains, only small stones remain. Therefore, it is not at all surprising if I also say about ordinary people. The terrible ravine, dug by abysses, is us, that is, ours, who have forgotten our rank, class (I say this with tears); it is we who have not ascended to high thrones for good; we are the leaders of the people, teachers of beauty; we, to whom it is given to feed souls with divine food, but who ourselves are fading away with hunger; we, doctors of infirmities and at the same time dead men, constantly infected with new and new ailments; we, guides along paths, perhaps steep ones, along which we have never led anyone, have not even walked ourselves....; we, who are not to follow, are the shortest rule, and together the lesson that most directly leads to salvation is we, whom this sublimity denounces of bad morals, and this lattice separates from others not by life, but by arrogance” 2. In these words St. Gregory pours out his grief over the shortcomings he encountered in modern pastoral ministry. Indeed, the building of the pastorate is wonderful. The Founder made it beautiful. But just as the rapid flow of time, storms and bad weather destroy everything over time, erode rocks and stones, so the centuries-old life struggle of the Church with the enemies of salvation could not have passed without harm to its leading leaders-shepherds, if the Lord had not been pleased from time to time to raise up men who would awaken the Church, especially its ministers, who are often inclined under the pressure of evil forces to inertia and relaxation, who would stimulate them to a good life with their word and example, and with the voice of God Himself would not remind the dormant shepherd of their high and sacred duties and the importance of their calling. The majestic image of these men, for those who perform their pastoral duties not according to an inner calling, not from heartfelt motives, but because of shameful benefits, not as examples to the flock, but because of dominion over the people, is a mirror in which they can clearly see both the ugliness of their thoughts and actions, and the captivating beauty of the shepherd-loving apostles and God-inspired teachers of the Church 3 . That is why “it is useful,” in the words of St. father, “not to leave in oblivion those names that excite us to virtue,” showing us through his example examples of the real embodiment in life and work of the ideals of pastoral service. Here, in specific examples, excellent guiding principles of pastoral service and ways of acting as a shepherd in many different everyday situations are given; they are given not only in their theoretical presentation, which always leaves a significant portion for their subjective illumination, but in their actual implementation. This also opens up the irreplaceable practical benefit of recalling great examples of shepherding. By studying them, the pastor will increase his spiritual experience, acquire and refine his art of pastoral counseling; in living examples he will find a source of reinforcement of his spiritual and moral strength for the fruitful and tireless passage of the pastoral field set before him; with them the shepherd will strengthen “sagging hands and weak knees”; they will inspire him to cheerfully walk in his personal pastoral experience along the path that was first trodden by “Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith,” followed by the preachers of the Word of God, “so that, looking at the end of their lives, we might imitate their faith” 4 “Happy is the man whom God grants to be the salt and light of the World” 5. Among such lucky ones, undoubtedly, is the Ecumenical Teacher of the Church, St. Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzen, who was not only a necessary person for his time, setting an example of a zealous and persistent shepherd-ascetic and fighter for everything that is beautiful and good in humanity, but also bequeathed to his descendants the precious practical and theoretical principles of pastoral ministry. His personal view on pastoral ministry; his pastoral loving spirit; his personal fulfillment of pastoral duty, his example of educational pastoral influence on his flock and private counseling; his vigilant concern for preserving the purity of faith in Christians; his attitude towards the enemies of the Gospel truth and the Church of Christ, both internal and external; his touching concerns about the organization of not only the religious and moral, but also the everyday life of spiritual children; his selfless and submissive bearing of the many different calamities and troubles of life, brought upon him by human envy; finally, his eschatological aspirations, which gave him courage and poured life-giving energy into his senile forces for the resigned bearing of the heavy cross of life: all these aspects of his personal and public character will forever remain a monument to both his glorious life and his glorious teaching. And not only will the example of Gregory’s pastoral activity be a monument or mirror for those wishing to compare their practical pastoral experience with the example of faith and morality, but also a beacon that attracts the gaze of a traveler on a yearless night, and a source of inspiration and encouragement, calling every shepherd to a fruitful, albeit difficult, pastoral service. But it seems impossible to study the pastoral activity of any authority in abstraction from his personal life. This happens for the reason that in pastoral ministry the person is inseparable from the work. Pastoring is not a profession along with others, which expose only the service, casual side of a person’s life to public attention and judgment. An official or public figure is evaluated insofar as we come into contact with his official activities; outside of official relations, he belongs to himself, and what he is essentially, how he lives, how he behaves - all this is outside the sphere of our judgment about him. It’s completely different in shepherding. This sacred position inextricably links the official official activity of its bearer with his private intimate life, with his personal character, behavior, and way of thinking. When judging a pastor, one takes into account not only how he fulfills his duties and what he is like in the service sphere, but also what he is like in himself, in his moral being; not only what he seems or wants to seem, but, mainly, what he really is. Here the predominant role is played not by words, but by deeds, not by teaching, but by the life of the shepherd. That is why in the matter of pastoral service even such seemingly indifferent things as clothing, body movements, and habits matter. Thus, the pastoral ministry of a person completely captures him, from all aspects of his inner and outer life. If what has been said is true in relation to shepherding in general, then in relation to St. It is especially true for Gregory the Theologian, for rarely has anyone shown the relationship between personal life and pastoral service so closely and so closely as this Ecumenical Teacher of Shepherding. Due to the above-mentioned close organic connection between the pastoral ministry of St. Gregory the Theologian with his personal life, it is possible to systematically present his pastoral activity only in inextricable relationship with a consistent presentation of the circumstances of his life, especially those in which he was predominantly a shepherd or a teacher of shepherding. Thus, the next natural cry of our inheritance is outlined. Since St. Gregory the Theologian was not only a practical embodiment of the ideals of shepherding, but also left theoretical views on it, then, referring to the first part of our work all the practical activities of St. father in connection with the course of his life, in the second part we will outline his teaching on shepherding. Then, since education and preparation for shepherding is an urgent condition for pastoral activity, which preparation for God’s chosen ones often began even before birth and continued throughout the entire preparatory period, then in the first chapter of the first part we have to outline the pre-pastoral, preparatory period, from birth until Gregory’s return to Nazianza at the end of his education; the second chapter will include the Nazian period of Gregory’s pastoral activity, his pastorate and archpastorship; in the third - the Constantinople period; the fourth will be occupied by the final period, covering the last six years of Gregory’s life. The detailed distribution of the content of the second part is determined by the very composition of the teaching on shepherding. Since the teaching of St. father on shepherding has a close connection with his soteriological theory, then, having outlined the latter, in the first chapter we will present the general teaching on shepherding, its divine institution, necessity, importance, difficulty, goals and objectives and responsibility; in the second - about the qualities of persons approaching shepherding; in the third - about the means of pastoral influence; in the fourth - about the participation of the pastor in public life, about the attitude towards external goods, education and social inequalities. In accordance with our task - to depict St. Gregory the Theologian, as a shepherd and teacher of shepherding, we tried to give our exposition the character that any exposition must have if it wants to be edifying: one can only learn from a concrete example and in a concrete, so to speak, application and presentation of those touches, often the smallest ones, that make up human life and its intercourse with people. The same tendency was the cause of another phenomenon in our work - the method of presentation and size of the work. Pursuing the goal of conveying as accurately and completely as possible the movement of thoughts in the speech of St. father, and often all its shades, we, of necessity, had to stay, perhaps, closer to the text and allow for excerpts, sometimes significant, increasing the volume of work. This was especially reflected in the analysis of Gregory’s preaching works, all of which we examined. But there is no other way to more accurately show the train of thought and shades of speech of St. We don’t see our father, always instructive. Without such detail, which may seem unnecessary, the movement of thoughts would lose its charm, and the presentation itself would be nothing more than a dry statement of well-known facts. The intention to keep the presentation as close as possible to the text was, then, the reason for the tautology that is sometimes noticed. This is explained by the property of the speech of St. father, according to which he has the habit of speaking about the same thing in the same words on different occasions. But what for another would be a sign of weakness, for St. Gregory the Theologian is evidence of a systematic mentality, once and for all putting his ideas into one or another verbal form and never changing them. Moreover, upon closer examination of such passages, it turns out that the tautological speech of St. father has peculiar shades that justify its necessity. St. Gregory the Theologian, works I, 219. G. Ullmann, "Greg. v. Naz" Gotha, 1866, 333.