St Philaret of Moscow

Today, we commemorate St Philaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan of Moscow.

Two centuries on, he is mainly remembered outside Russia for the morning prayer that has been ascribed to him:

O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace, help me in all things to rely upon your holy will.
In every hour of the day reveal your will to me.
Bless my dealings with all who surround me.
Teach me to treat all that comes to throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that your will governs all.
In all my deeds and words, guide my thoughts and feelings.
In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by you.
Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.
Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring.
Direct my will, teach me to pray.
And you, yourself, pray in me.
Amen.

In fact, this prayer originally came from a French Catholic spiritual writer, François Fénelon (1651–1715). However, Philaret popularized its use within the Orthodox Church.

As Metropolitan of Moscow, he played an important role in the revival of Russian Orthodoxy in the nineteenth century. He was a staunch defender of the Elders of Optina against widespread criticism. It was under his leadership that a modern translation of the Bible into Russian came into being (another initiative that was widely criticized by conservative forces). He pushed for reform of the Church’s subordination to the Russian state and as a result made a number of influential enemies (not least Tsar Nicholas I who had him confined to his diocese for several years). In addition, he was a prolific author and his Catechism is still in use today.

Troparion

Having acquired the grace of the Holy Spirit
O divinely wise and holy hierarch Philaret,
you preached truth and righteousness to the people with enlightened understanding;
with a contrite heart you showed peace and mercy to the suffering;
and as a teacher and tireless guardian of the Faith 
with the staff of uprightness you preserved the Russian flock.
Therefore, as you have boldness before Christ our God,
pray that He preserve the Church, and grant salvation to the people, and to our souls.

Kontakion

As a true imitator of the venerable Sergius;
you loved virtue from childhood, O divinely blessed Philaret.
As a righteous pastor and blameless confessor, you were subject to mockery and abuse by the ungodly after your holy repose,
but God has glorified you with signs and miracles
and shown you to be the helper of our Church.

Beth Taylor at Glasgow Art Club

I spent lunch-time yesterday at the Glasgow Art Club attending a really superb concert organized by Westbourne Music. The soloist was the Glaswegian mezzo Beth Taylor, and she was performing a programme of songs by female composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

There was a lot to like in the programme, including three songs by Clara Schumann (which left me thinking that Brahms had learned a lot from her), five songs by Alma Mahler, plus pieces by Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Ethel Smyth, Hedwige Chrétien, Germaine Tailleferre, and Augusta Holmès. I think my favourites were the pieces by Tailleferre, Holmès, and Nadia Boulanger.

All the music was very strong, but what made the concert stand out for me was Beth’s performance. She throws herself into the music with absolute confidence and communicates it as much by her gestures and expressions as by her amazing voice.

Prayer ropes and neurodivergence

The traditional Orthodox prayer rope is a loop of coarse black wool woven into knots (often 33 or 100) and closed with a cruciform tassel. It is most commonly used to count the number of times you have recited the Jesus Prayer (or similar alternative).

However, for some neurodivergent people those knots can become instruments of torture. If you are hypersensitive to textures, counting off those knots can feel like rubbing your fingers along a sheet of sandpaper. In addition to finding the sensation of the knots very uncomfortable, I find that it masks my awareness of the distinction between one knot and the next. So counting with a traditional wool prayer rope is virtually impossible.

Fortunately, I have found a Russian Orthodox alternative – the lestovka. Instead of wool knots, it consists of strips of leather wound round a core (usually small pieces twig wrapped in scrolls with the Jesus Prayer) to form ‘rungs’. The smooth leather rungs give a very different (much more pleasant) tactile experience and are not so tightly packed as the knots, making it much easier to use for counting. It occurs to me that, in addition to its use for prayer, the lestovka is an easily pocketable and discreet stimming aid.

The lestovka has come to be associated with the Russian Old Believers and Eastern Catholics. But their use was once much more widespread in Russian Orthodoxy (see e.g. some icons of St Sergius of Radonezh or St Seraphim of Sarov) and they are once more becoming more popular.

They can be found (sometimes at ridiculously high prices) on sites like Etsy. I got my fairly simply 50-rung lestovka from the Convent of St Elisabeth the New Martyr, Minsk.

Misunderstanding autism

I wish I could celebrate the fact that earlier this year the Ukrainian Orthodox Church published a molieben for autistic children. Unfortunately the language of those prayers reveals an appalling ignorance of autism on the part of their author(s). Some examples:

Moleben for Children Suffering from the Affliction of Autism . . .

. . . these suffering children . . .

. . . the innocent suffering children . . . afflicted with the illness of autism . . .

. . . who innocently suffer from the illness of autism

Let’s be clear. Autism is not an illness. It is a family of neurodevelopmental differences which means that the brains of autistic people are wired rather differently than those of the majority of the population. What autistic people need is not healing but acceptance of such differences as make the majority uncomfortable. And perhaps the Orthodox Church should take a fresh look at the men and women it venerates as fools-for-Christ in light of the diagnostic criteria for autism.

The Overlapping Skills and Strengths of Neurodiversity by Nancy Doyle,
based on work by Mary Colley