You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The other day I came across one of those memes (you know the ones) — an icon or photo of a beloved saint or ascetic with a quote beneath it. We’ll ignore for now how often those quotes are misattributed (and how much that grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard).
In this case, however, the words were correctly attributed to Nun Gavrilia (I know because I pored over her writings to check for it before I started writing this).
From my copy of The Ascetic of Love, page 290, from “The Sayings”. Saying 13, to be precise:
Man wants his freedom. Why? So that he may be a slave to his own passions.
I’ve been turning this idea over in my mind for years — probably since the first time I read The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides around 2016 or 2017. That’s when the Orthodox faith really began to seep into my bones.
Charismatic preachers often shout about “the upside-down kingdom,” but in all my years among them, no one ever showed me what that kingdom actually looked like. I didn’t find it until much later (like, 30 years later), in the saints and ascetics of the Orthodox Church — and in Fr. Maximos, speaking to Kyriacos Markides in The Mountain of Silence:
Kyriacos: For ordinary people, freedom is often equated with the ability to satisfy one’s desires and yearnings: to own property, to hold good jobs, to consume material goods, to succeed, to engage in sexual acts with other consenting adults, to travel, to democratically participate in decision that affect their lives, and do on. In general it means to pursue happiness as one imagines it for oneself. Your [Fr. Maximos] notion of freedom, it seems to me, is radically different. It is to go bound all these very desires.
Fr. Maximos: Exactly. It is these desires that keep us enslaved to this world of transience. So, what ordinary people consider freedom may be in reality a form of slavery, but unrecognized as such. (emphasis mine)
The Mountain of Silence (p171-172, published December 2002)
Here’s one facet of the paradox of the “upside-down kingdom”:
Freedom, as the world defines it, is the worst bondage. Slavery to Christ is the truest freedom.
Nun Gavrilia says it plainly elsewhere (The Ascetic of Love, p.175–176):
When you feel that you are not free but a slave, it means that you are slave to a passion. Some people say: “I am free. I take account of no one;. I earn all by myself and I spend all by myself.” In essence however, dear friend, you are in great bondage.
It doesn’t surprise me that those far from Christ are enslaved to their passions. But what does surprise me and gives me great sorrow is how many people I see, even in the Orthodox Faith, who are slaves to the world’s idea of freedom. “Freedom” to say whatever you want without consequence. “Freedom” to own and parade around firearms. “Freedom” to condemn and judge others for not living in whatever way you believe is acceptable (irony will be the topic of some other post), “Freedom” to condemn the poor, homeless and substance-addicted as worthless.
I’m regularly accused of trying to connect dots or ideas that don’t seem connected, but I’m going to try anyway. On October 26th in the Orthodox Church we commemorate St. Demetrios and on October 27th, his disciple St. Nestor.
After reading about Nestor this year, one thought would not leave me: “Was anyone in the world ever so free as St. Nestor?”
From The Prologue from Ochrid:
In the time of the suffering of St. Demetrius the Myrrh-gusher, there was a young man of Thessalonica, Nestor, who learned the Christian Faith from St. Demetrius himself. At that time Christ’s enemy, Emperor Maximian, organized various games and amusements for the people. The emperor’s favorite in these games was a Vandal by the name of Lyaeus, a man of Goliath-like size and strength. As the emperor’s gladiator, Lyaeus challenged men every day to single combat and slew them. Thus, the bloodthirsty Lyaeus amused the bloodthirsty, idolatrous Maximian. The emperor built a special stage for Lyaeus’s battles, similar to a threshing floor on pillars. Spears, points upward, were planted beneath this platform. When Lyaeus defeated someone in wrestling, he would throw him from the platform onto the forest of spears. The emperor and his pagan subjects cheered as some poor wretch writhed in torment on the spears until he died. Among Lyaeus’s innocent victims were many Christians: when no one volunteered to duel with Lyaeus, by the emperor’s orders Christians were arrested and forced to duel with him.
But here’s the important part:
Seeing this horrifying amusement of the pagan world, Nestor’s heart was torn with pain…
His heart was “torn with pain”. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t spiteful. It wasn’t vengeful. It wasn’t prideful. It wasn’t spewing hatred. Instead it was torn with pain, born of the love he had for his Lord.
… and he decided to come forward for a duel with the gigantic Lyaeus. But first, he went to prison to see St. Demetrius and sought a blessing from him to do this. St. Demetrius blessed him, signed him with the sign of the Cross on the forehead and on the chest and prophesied to him: “You will defeat Lyaeus, but you will suffer for Christ.” Thus, young Nestor went to duel with Lyaeus. Maximian was present with a multitude of people; everyone felt pity for the young Nestor, who would surely die, and tried to dissuade him from dueling with Lyaeus. Nestor crossed himself and said: “O God of Demetrius, help me!” and with God’s help, he overcame Lyaeus, knocked him down, and threw him onto the sharp spears, where the heavy giant soon found death. Then all the people cried out: “Great is the God of Demetrius!” But the emperor, shamed before the people and sorrowing for his favorite Lyaeus, was greatly angered at Nestor and Demetrius, and commanded that Nestor be beheaded and Demetrius run through with lances. Thus, the Christian hero Nestor ended his earthly life and took up his habitation in the Kingdom of his Lord in the year 306 A.D.
(The Prologue from Ochrid, October 27th)
The point of this story is not the earthly ‘victory’ of Nestor over Lyaeus – in some sense we could call the victory over Lyaeus no victory at all, as it resulted in the death of one made in God’s image.
The point of this story is freedom. Has anyone ever been more free than Nestor? Has anyone ever been more free than any of the thousands of martyrs, hieromartyrs and ascetics who, free from their pride and the desires of this world, laid down their life for Christ - with no hate on their lips or in their hearts?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
— Romans 6:17-18 (RSV)
I think that what often fails to be understood is that you can not be a ‘slave to righteousness’ while also:
- demanding your ‘freedom’ and your ‘rights’
- demanding your ‘freedom’ to own firearms
- demanding your ‘freedom’ of speech
- demanding your freedom to judge others
None of these things bring freedom. Only bondage.
If I desire to be truly free, I must become a slave to the Lord Jesus.
As the Apostle Paul writes:
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” — Philippians 1:21 (RSV)