This year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the blessed repose of Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky; +1976) of Washington & Florida, the Eastern American Diocesan Media Office will be sharing more materials from this life of this eminent archpastor of the Russian Church Abroad, presented in the original old orthography, along with translations into the English, available for the first time. A collection of earlier translations is available here.
This sermon from 1975, "Prayer and Fasting," was dedicated to the 10th Sunday after Pentecost (Matthew 17:14-23). However, as it touches on the same incident in the Gospels as the 4th Sunday of Great Lent (Mark 9:17-31) – namely, the healing of the possessed youth – it is fitting to share it now.
"This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."
– Matthew 17:21
Thus did the Lord explain to His disciples why they were unable to heal the demon-possessed youth. "Because of your unbelief," said the Lord. And then He added: "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." By the words "this kind," one must evidently understand diabolical temptations and man’s earthly attachments, which hinder him from ascending to the Heavenly heights.
The Lord spoke not only of the importance of prayer, but also set a personal example of the ascetic struggle of prayer. Thus, before choosing the 12 apostles, the Lord "continued all night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand with five loaves of bread, the Lord "went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there alone" (Matt. 14:23). He also prayed there throughout the night; only at dawn did He walk upon the water to His disciples. Likewise, at His Transfiguration, "He went up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering…" (Luke 9:28-29). He prayed on Mount Tabor throughout the entire night, for He had ascended the mountain, in all likelihood, late in the evening, and descended from it the following morning.
Why, then, was prayer necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ – the Almighty God; what need did He have for prayer, and for what did He pray? He had a great need and a great care: for the salvation of the human race and for His Church on earth. The difficulty of the ascetic struggle undertaken by the Lord Jesus Christ lay in the fact that His preaching was addressed to the free will of the people. The Lord prayed for His disciples, whom He had patiently nurtured, guiding them toward a knowledge of His Kingdom, and prayed for His future Church (that is, for all of us), asking that, by our own free will, we might stand firm in His truth. He prayed as the incarnate man, drawing us up into His Divine Kingdom.
The Lord offered yet another special prayer in Gethsemane, prior to the Crucifixion He was destined to endure for our salvation. At that time, His soul was sorrowful, even unto death. "And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). We must understand, as the His Beatitude, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), explains, that in this prayer, the Lord, as the omniscient God and as our personal Savior, embraced every human being, praying for each one of us in His compassionate love.
By teaching us the art of prayer through His own personal example, the Lord also pointed us toward teachers of prayer – among them, the Canaanite woman, who instructs us in the virtues of persistence in prayer and profound humility.
Fasting holds a significance just as powerful as that of prayer. The Lord likewise demonstrated the importance of fasting through His own personal example, specifically through His 40-day fast prior to embarking on His public ministry, triumphing over the temptations of the devil.
In our own time, the practice of fasting, particularly among the intelligentsia, has fallen into deep neglect and oblivion; consequently, the restoration of fasting is as an urgent necessity of our spiritual life.
