Saint Siluan of Mount Athos - Three wonderful publications in Swahili, Kikuyu and Masai...

The book by Saint Sophrony on his Spiritual Father and Elder, Saint Siluan of Mount Athos

romfea.gr (in Greek)

Translation A. N.

For many decades, we have been making a humble attempt to put our sacred Services into circulation in the local African dialects.
And I believe that we have succeeded, with the help of the professors and the seminary students of our Patriarchal School "Archibishop of Cyprus Makarios III".
We have already published the Sacramental texts of our Church for the Holy Week of Easter, the Offices for the 40 days of Great Lent, the Pentecost, Orthodoxy Sunday, Theophany, the Akathist hymn, the supplications to the Holy Mother, the Easter Sunday Vespers of Love, the Liturgies of Saint John Chrysostom and of Saint Basil the Great, the Service of the Pre-sanctified Gifts, etc., in more than 30 dialects - not only of Kenya, but also Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia... even Catechisms in various dialects.
It can easily be named "Book of Blessings", since several of the aforementioned Services are included in a separate volume.
These publications of the specific volume were the fruits of the benefit that the seminary students had acquired, when they were so deeply impressed during the evening readings, that they themselves asked if they could translate them into Swahili, Kikuyu and Masai and for my benefit also, a debt and respect for the person of the Elder and my Spiritual Father - and now Saint - Sophrony.
The images on the front and the back cover were kindly prepared by the sisters of the Essex Monastery and the exact words of Saint Siluan were written in local dialects, entirely unexpectedly.
This year we began to read the texts of Great Lent in English, which is the common language of all the seminary students, followed by discussions.

Το βιβλίο του Αγίου Σωφρονίου για τον Άγιο Σιλουανό τον Αθωνίτη σε τρεις αφρικανικές γλώσσες

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romfea.gr

 

Για πολλές τώρα δεκαετίες κάνουμε μια ταπεινή προσπάθεια να κυκλοφορήσουμε στις τοπικές αφρικανικές διαλέκτους τις ιερές μας ακολουθίες.

Και πιστεύω ότι κάτι κάναμε με τη βοήθεια των καθηγητών και ιεροσπουδαστών της Πατριαρχικής μας Σχολής «Αρχιεπίσκοπος Κύπρου Μακάριος ο Γ΄».

Ήδη εκδώσαμε την Αγία Εβδομάδα τα μυστήρια της Εκκλησίας μας, τις ακολουθίες της Μεγάλης Τεσσαρακοστής, Πεντηκοστής, Ορθοδοξίας, Επιφανείων, Ακαθίστου Ύμνου, Παρακλήσεις στην Παναγία, Εσπερινό της Αγάπης, Λειτουργίες Ιωάννου Χρυσοστόμου, Μεγάλου Βασιλείου, Προηγιασμένων Δώρων κ.τ.λ. σε περισσότερες από τριάντα διαλέκτους όχι μόνο της Κένυας, αλλά Ζιμπάμπουε, Νιγηρίας, Ουγκάντας, Ζάμπιας … Ακόμα και Κατηχήσεις σε διάφορες διαλέκτους.

Μπορεί άνετα να ονομασθεί Ευχολόγιον, αφού σε ξεχωριστό τόμο περιλαμβάνονται αρκετές από τις προαναφερθείσες ακολουθίες.

Οι εκδόσεις αυτές του συγκεκριμένου τόμου ήταν καρπός της ωφέλειας που προσκόμισαν οι ιεροσπουδαστές, όταν στη βραδινή ανάγνωση εντυπωσιάστηκαν τόσο που ζήτησαν να το μεταφράσουν στα Σουαχίλι, Κικούγιου και Μασάι και για δική μου οφειλή, χρέος και σέβας προς το πρόσωπό του Γέροντα και Πνευματικού μου Πατέρα, τώρα Αγίου, Σωφρονίου.

Οι εικόνες του εξώφυλλου και οπισθόφυλλου φιλοξενήθηκαν από τις αδελφές της Μονής στο Έσσεξ και γράφτηκαν στις τοπικές διαλέκτους τα αυτούσια λόγια του Αγίου Σιλουανού σε ανύποπτο χρόνο.

Αρχίσαμε και φέτος με την έναρξη της Μ. Τεσσαρακόστης να διαβάζουμε στ’ Αγγλικά που είναι η κοινή γλώσσα όλων των ιεροσπουδαστών και στη συνέχεια γίνεται συζήτηση.

 

St Silouan of Mount Athos (from here)

Saint Silouan was born Simeon Ivanovich Antonov in 1866 to pious Orthodox parents in the Tambov region of Russia.  His youth was much like other village young people of his day and much like the lives of many youth today. While he was attracted at times to the spiritual life and seeking God, he was more attracted by the pleasures of village life.   He worked as a carpenter on the estate of a nearby noble and spent his free time drinking vodka with his friends, playing his concertina and socializing with the village girls.  It was said that he could drink three bottles of vodka without feeling any effects.  Young, strong and handsome he was popular with these girls and one evening fell into the sin of fornication.  On one occasion a young man who had too much to drink and wanting to show off for the girls, threatened Simeon and tried to take his concertina.  In Simeon’s own words:

 At first I thought of giving in to the fellow but then I was ashamed of how the girls would laugh at me, so I hit him a great blow to the chest.  His body shot away and he fell backwards with a heavy thud in the middle of the road.  Froth and blood trickled from his mouth.  All the onlookers were horrified.  So was I.  “I’ve killed him,” I thought, and stood rooted to thespot… It was over half an hour before he could rise to his feet.

One day, shortly before he began his required military service, he dozed off to a light sleep and dreamt that a snake crawled down his throat.  He woke up to hear a voice saying: “Just as you found it loathsome to swallow a snake in your dream, so I find your ways ugly to look upon”.  Simeon later reported he saw no one but was convinced that it was the beautiful voice of the Mother of God coming to rescue him from the evil pit his life had become.  This vision/dream would alter the rest of his life, he began to be ashamed of how he was living his life.  As an example of the change in him, one evening, while serving his military service, he and a few of his friends went to a tavern where there was much loud music, dancing and carousing.  Simeon sat quietly and hardly spoke which led his companions to inquire why he was so quiet.  Simeon said:

I’m thinking that here we sit in a tavern, eating, drinking vodka, listening to music and enjoying ourselves, while at this very hour on Mount Athos they are in

church for vespers and will be at prayer all night.  And I’m wondering which of us will put up the best defense before God’s Judgment Seat – them or us?

At the age of twenty-seven in 1892 he left his native Russia and came to Mount Athos, where he became a monk at the Monastery of St. Panteleimon and was given the name Silouan, the Russian version of the Biblical name Silvanus. He was given the obedience (work duty) at the monastery mill, sleeping little, fasting severely and praying continually.  He struggled against sinful memories from his past life and practiced the Jesus Prayer.  Though barely literate, he received the grace of unceasing prayer and saw Christ in a vision. After long years of spiritual trial, he acquired great humility and inner stillness. He prayed and wept for the whole world as for himself, and he put the highest value on love for enemies.

He was never ordained to the diaconate or priesthood but continued his ministry as a monk in which he devoted himself to praying for all people. A monk is a man who prays for the whole world….. I tell you that when we have no more men of prayer the world will come to an end and great disaster will befall – as, indeed, is happening already.
Having repented and received God’s mercy for his past life, Father Silouan felt great compassion for all people.  He wrote:  “But when a man sees in himself the light of deliverance from sin there awakens in his soul a mighty compassion for all who ‘fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23) and prayer for the ‘whole Adam’ fills his being.” 
After a period of time, Father Silouan was appointed one of the stewards of St. Panteleimon’s monastery, helping in the administration of a monastery with over 1,000 monks and overseeing 200 laymen who worked in the monastery’s many workshops.  After assigning the work tasks for the day, Father Silouan would return to his room to pray and weep for the men who had left their families in their villages to seek employment in far off Mount Athos.  He wrote:

He who has the Holy Spirit in him, however slight a degree, sorrows day and night for all mankind.  His heart is filled with pity for all God’s creatures, more especially for those who do not know God, or who resist Him, and therefore are bound for the fire of torment.  For them, more than for himself, he prays day and night, that all may repent and know the Lord. 

Father Silouan died in the monastery after an illness on September 24, 1938. He was glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1987 and his relics are enshrined in the St. Panteleimon’s Monastery on Mount Athos.  His writings were edited by his disciple and pupil, Archimandrite Sophrony who later established a monastery in England and became known as a staretz himself. 

Please, see also

 
Elder Sophrony Sakharov († July 11, 1993)



Stand with the Maasai (or: How people can live next to lions without killing them)

An unexpected death in the Maasai 

Patriarch of All Africa with Orthodox Maasai in Kenya

The Kikuyu tribe proclaimed the Metropolitan of Nairobi as their “Elder”
Hope for the Kikuyu (Kenya) / "The caves along the Tana River became the refuge for freedom fighters..." 
Orthodox Christian dialogue with Banyore culture
The Orthodox Church in Kenya & the Orthodox Patriarchal Ecclesiastical School of Makarios III
Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa (& the Decolonization of Africa)