Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of St. John of the Ladder, by Priest Paul 7533/2025. Glory to God! (Above) Orthodox icon of St. Alfred the Great.

Why are we here in our Church today? There are perhaps many reasons but most basically in hope of salvation, to worship God in Orthodox Christian Tradition, and to help spread His Gospel in Orthodoxy to our neighbors. A secondary historical reason in the life of the Church is because Christianity came to the British Isles and baptized the English language, which, brought to these shores, enables us to bring the Orthodox Gospel to our English-speaking neighbors in Appalachian America today.

One important figure in that, unknown to me in my childhood, is St. Alfred the Great of England. I became dimly aware of him as an historical figure, a king, because my birth name was Alfred, which had been off and on in my family for generations. But I was not aware growing up that he was a saint and a figure most important for his Christian leadership of what became England. In fact, he is regarded as the father of the English nation, kind of like an ancient George Washington, who, however, was an Orthodox Christian.

He was a scholar, a warrior, and a pious Christian, who believed strongly in the need to translate holy books into English and to teach people to read to be able to learn from them and to conduct services. But he faced great odds and troubles. His kingdom was reduced almost to nothing by the fierce attacks of the pagan Vikings. At one low point, hiding in marshes when waging guerilla warfare, he was staying at a peasant’s house where the woman left him to watch the cakes she was baking. He was so engrossed in his challenges, likely praying, that he let the cakes burn. She bawled him out, not realizing until later that he was the king. But he bore it humbly.

However, ultimately he triumphed over the pagan Viking horde, made his kingdom of Wessex into the basis of what became England, founded what became Oxford University, and firmly established Orthodoxy in England for several generations, with a legacy of holiness that modern Orthodox Christians in English-speaking countries can draw on.  He wrote the following prayer, in Old English, I’ll read the first part in Old English, and then the full translation.

Dryhten, ælmihtiga God, Wyrhta and Weald-end ealra gesceafta, ic bidde ðé for ðínra miclan mildheortnesse, and for ðǽre hálgan róde tácne, and for Sanctæ Marian mægð-háde, and for Sancti Michaeles gehíersumness, and for ealra ðín-ra hálgena lufan and hiera earnungum, ðæt ðú mé gewissie bet ðonne ic áworhte tó ðé.

Lord, Almighty God, Maker and Ruler of all creation, I pray Thee by Thy great mercy, and by the sign of the Holy Cross, and by Saint Mary’s maidenhood, and by Saint Michael’s obedience, and by the love of all Thy Saints and their merits, that Thou guide me better than I have wrought unto Thee; and guide me to Thy will, and to my soul’s good, better than I myself may know; and establish my mind in Thy will and to my soul’s good; and strengthen me against the Devil’s temptations; and remove from me foul lusts and all unrighteousness; and shield me against mine adversaries, seen and unseen; and teach me Thy will to work; that I may love Thee fervently above all things, with clean mind and with clean body. For Thou art my Creator, and my Redeemer, my Helper, my Comfort, my Trust, and my Hope. To Thee be praise and glory now and forever and ever, unto world without any end. Amen.

After my conversion in 1999 I learned of Alfred the Orthodox saint. Yet that connection had always been unknown in my earlier life. So in large part was the legacy of Orthodox Christianity in ancient Western Europe and thus in the roots of Christian America. Whether we are Russian or English or Native American or African or German or Irish in background, we all share in that Orthodox legacy. And, this is important, we are all descended from and related together through the Righteous Noah and our Forefather Adam and Foremother Eve, and grafted into the family tree of Israel fulfilled in the Church of Jesus Christ, in Whose image we are made and to whose likeness we can aspire through God’s grace.

The prayer and fasting of St. Alfred when encountered by the pagan armies was answered. The Viking foes themselves would become not long after in large numbers Orthodox Christians, even founding what became Russia, then known as Rus, a Viking name, and fostering also Russian Orthodoxy then. So there is a close link between Anglo-Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodoxy, between America, which also was discovered so to speak by Orthodox Vikings, and Russia.

The Gospel today says that like St. Alfred we must dive deep into prayer and fasting to heal ourselves and others of the brokenness of human sin and suffering. It is the Gospel for the Sunday in Lent when we commemorate the great guide to such struggle, St John Climacus’ The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Yet the second Gospel reading also reminds us of how Jesus Christ gave us His Beatitudes to fulfill the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments in positive terms. Thou shalt not, became in effect, Thou shalt, in Christ. For example, “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” provides a full answer to the commandment about not committing adultery. We purify and illumine ourselves in God’s uncreated energies so that we may see Him, and in the process He gives us a heart that is full of His glory, which does not seek to objectify or idolize ourselves or others against His law of pure love.

Before He gave his followers the Beatitudes, in the Gospel accounts He overcame the temptations by Satan in the wilderness, trying to tempt him in his human nature with worldly comfort, pride, and power. This Sunday is to remind us of all that—the overcoming of temptations and the spiritual medicine of the Beatitudes. St. John Climacus’s book is from around the year 600, written at St. Cattherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai,  and provides us with a ladder of 30 steps. These steps are to remind us of our ascetic struggle, for us to keep moving up spiritually in our lives by His grace, rather than look down and fall off the ladder. It is better and more complete than any 12 step program, because it is full of the grace of God.

One of the 30 steps on the Ladder is overcoming anger. We can only imagine how this was one of the steps that St. Alfred had to overcome. The Christian realms of Anglo-Saxon England had all but been wiped out by the pagan Vikings. He was hiding in marshes and being scolded for letting the cakes burn. But he did not let anger overcome him. He was humble in asking forgiveness and while according to the tale the householder was shocked to find out he was the king she met with no problems.

As The Ladder of Divine Ascent puts it, “If the Holy Spirit is peace of soul, as He is said to be and is in reality, and if anger is disturbance of the heart, as it actually is and as it is said to be, then nothing so prevents His presence in us as anger.” St. Alfred worked with God to overcome that as with other steps on the ladder, and filled with the Holy Spirit established a Christian nation.

Another Western saint we commemorate today, Saint Patrick of Ireland, illustrates the next step in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, that of overcoming remembrance of wrongs. He had been enslaved in Ireland by pirates as a young man who stole him from his home in the Celtic Christian area of Britain. He was there in captivity for several years before God answered his prayers and guided him home. Then, heeding a spiritual call to help evangelize Ireland, he returned to give his captors the gift of salvation. He had to overcome the evil memories from which God delivers us when we ask Him this in prayer and struggle to leave evil memories behind.

One last example of a Western saint on The Ladder of Divine Ascent is St. Melangell of Wales, a Christian virgin of the eighth century. Her icon is over the book table. She fled from an arranged marriage that was to have been forced on her, and went to live in the forest as a virgin dedicated to God. There she also became known as a friend to animals, as many saints are. She was especially known for how a hare sought refuge with her from a hunter. The hares in her area became known as Melangell’s lambs and for centuries the local people would not kill hares. She in effect opposed carnivority in all aspects of life with chastity and purity, another step on The Ladder of Divine Ascent. “Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature,” the book says, “fully acknowledging your own helplessness, and you will imperceptibly receive the gift of chastity.”

Chastity is purity, and also integrity, holiness, in oneness with the divine energies of God. This reminds us of the ultimate model for the ladder, and that is Jacob’s Ladder, the old Testament vision of the Patriarch Jacob or Israel. He saw angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven. The Ladder is identitfied in the Church with the Mother of God, who in accepting the Annunciation, which we will soon be commemorating, became a bridge for us, a ladder in effect, between men and God. As we God willing climb the ladder, let us not look down brothers and sisstes, like Lot’s wife looking behind. Let us not look down to fall. But let us keep going with God’s help upward, remembering that Lent means spring time, and is provided for us as the springtime of our soul, growing toward the Resurrection time of Pascha. God helps.

Glory to God for all things!