Homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Christian Mission Church in Winfield, PA, today for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 8, 7533 (6/22/25 on the civil calendar), by Priest Paul Siewers.
This Second Sunday after Pentecost, following the Sunday of All Saints, is a time when the Orthodox Church that is universal and apostolic also commemorates the local saints of each Church. In our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, this is the Russian Saints, but here in Northern Appalachia it is also the Saints of North America. On top of this, today is also the Feast Day of St. Columba of Iona, the pre-eminent Scots-Irish saint on the Orthodox calendar, a reminder also of how local saints can be in the areas of ancestry and cultural interests of particular regions, since the Scots-Irish are a foundational people to Appalachia, and America, too. (Sometimes the commemoration of local saints is also extended to the following third Sunday after Pentecost in various Orthodox Churches. This is a practice in many ROCOR churches in America. So we will be following that in observing All the Saints of America next week.)
But between the Saints of Russia and of America and the Scots-Irish Saint Columba on today’s local saints feast, there is an important Venn diagram. The Orthodox Church emerged in America under the aegis of the Russian Church, originating from the mission to Alaska and California, and then the sponsorship of Church building in Pennsylvania and elsewhere by Tsar-Matyr Nicholas II. We are reminded of this Russian Orthodox influence on American Orthodoxy by the glorification this past week of Matushka Olga of Alaska as a Saint. A Native Alaskan, she bore a Russian saint’s name, attended Russian Orthodox churches, and is patron saint of our parish sisterhood. Meanwhile, half of U.S. Presidents had Scots-Irish backgrounds, the fighting Scots-Irish were known for settling Appalachia, and Columba can be considered the patron saint of the Scots-Irish.
In Orthodoxy, the unity of the saints and the faith is illustrated by how the Irish Saints and the Russian Saints, and yes also the American saints, took the idea of the desert and applied it to their situations, in ways that we as Orthodox can understand well across cultures. The desert was a region of Egypt and Arabia, Palestine and Syria, where early Orthodox Christians went in great numbers to found the monastic movement. During that time, which came to a head first in the 300s, as many looked for a deeper experience of faith and ascetic martyrdom as persecution of the Church ended in the Roman Empire, one saint’s life described how the desert became a city. Many gave up their possessions to live a simpler life in prayer, to struggle with God’s help against demons in the wilderness, and to seek the wisdom of holy elders who in our Christian era fulfilled the earlier role of prophets in the Old Testament.
In Russia, a forest wilderness with a monastery became known as a pustyn, meaning desert.. Meanwhile, in Ireland and Scotland, a wilderness ocean area with islands for monastic life became known as a desertum, meaning desert.
There was no sand around, but there was an opportunity to simplify, get away, battle demons, and seek God’s grace, in new communities separate from the brutalities of regular society, or at least that was the hope with God’s help. As with the Middle Eastern deserts, monasteries grew into communities that often became like little cities.
In Russia, St. Sergius of Radonezh sought spiritual refuge in the large forests, and founded what became today the large Church-centered city of Sergius Posad, headquarters of Russia’s Church.
Iin America, St. Herman sought refuge on Spruce Island in Alaska, Father Seraphim Rose of Blessed Memory in the forest of northern California more recently, and St. Columba more than a thousand years ago on the windswept island of Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland. All became pilgrimage centers.
Brothers and sisters, what are our own personal deserts waiting to bloom, in which we may join in spirit with the local saints ,whose help we can invoke, as they are a cloud of witnesses around us for our faithm spiritually?
This past week, I encountered four different people, Orthodox Christians or interested in Orthodox Christianity, who spoke of how some great struggle or trial in their life had led them away from the comforts and distractions of worldly life, and focused them on faith, preparation for death through faith, and a more active love for others in Christ.
This was certainly true in my case. I found desert experiences on the streets of Chicago. We find them still in our daily lives, whether out in the natural world or in the city or in our homes.
Some holy elders have referred to our homes as little churches, and they can be little monasteries in effect too. Of course we are in the world and not monks or nuns. But at the same time, both marriage and faithful participation in parish life require ascetism in which we must empty ourselves in Christ, and not assert ourselves. We learn to love in Truth, in Christ, often in the school of life, of hard knocks. And in Christ we learn to follow His New Commandment and to love our neighbor more than we love ourself.
If the Irish saints found a desert in the sea, and the Russian saints a desert in the forest, so too we may find a desert in modern American life, as an opportunity for spiritual growth. For as the Apostle Paul said, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That is not dependent on any particular ecosystem or social scene.
St. Columba’s experiences in the desert sea are instructive. Here is a brief slection from the Life of St. Columba by Adomnan, written after the saint’s death around the year 700 in civil reckoning, more than a millennium and a third ago.
“On a certain day, when the venerable man [Columba] was living on the isle of Iona, a certain Brother, Berach by name, proposing to sail to the Ethican island [Tiree], coming to the Saint in the morning asks to be blessed by him. And the Saint, looking at him, says : ” O son, take very great care to-day not to attempt to cross over the broad ocean in a direct course for the Ethican land, but, rather, going round about, sail by the smaller islands, for the reason that, terrified by some marvellous monster, thou mayest narrowly escape thence.” And he having received the Saint’s blessing, departed, and, going into the ship, set off as though little heeding the Saint’s word. And then, crossing the wider reaches of the Ethican sea, he and the sailors who were there with him look, and behold ! a whale of wondrous and immense size, lifting itself up like a mountain, floating on the surface, opened wide its mouth all bristling with teeth. Thereupon, the sail having been lowered, the rowers greatly terrified, turned back, and could hardly escape from the commotion of the waves arising from the movement of the monster ; and, remembering the Saint’s prophetic word, they marvelled.
“On the same day also, Baithene, being about to take ship for the afore-mentioned island, the Saint intimated to him in the morning- concerning that same whale, saying : ” Last night at midnight a great whale raised itself from the depth of the sea, and it will lift itself to the surface of the ocean to- day between the Iouan and Ethican islands.” And Baithene, answering him, said, ” I and that beast are under the power of God.” ” Go in peace,” says the Saint, “thy faith in Christ shall defend thee from this danger.” Then Baithene, having received the Saint’s benediction, sails out from the harbour, and, no narrow stretches of the sea having been passed over, he and his companions behold the whale, and when all were greatly alarmed, he alone, undaunted, with both hands upraised, blesses the waters and the whale. And in the same moment the vast monster plunging beneath the waves, no- where appeared to them again.”
Brothers and sisters, let us ask the local saints of Russia, of the British Isles, and of America, who overlap here in our local Church in Appalachia, to pray to God for us, that we may have wisdom and discernment in whatever desert we dwell—that God may direct our path, that we may discern any monsters in our way, and that we may like those who have gone before us may further the missionary work of Orthodox Christianity to our nation in peace, and, with God’s grace, help to save lives for Christ in His Church before the end of the age.
God the Bible tells us made the nations, and each have their angel and also their saints, so that they as communities may be saved in the Church. Joined in the holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church, we see a beautiful underlying powerful spiritual unity despite wars and rumors of wars around us now. Truly, the Eucharist is infinitely more powerful than any worldly weapons of war or financial interests or artificial intelligence, any human or demonic will to power. May Jesus Christ give victory to the faithful over the rulers of the darkness of this world, over the spiritual wickedness in high places, against which we really struggle.
We are Russian Orthodox Christians not because we are Russian, but because we worship in a tradition derived from Byzantium and the Christianity of the ancient Holy Land of the Apostles, adopted into the Byzantine zone of the Slavs and ultimately Russia to America. That is true also of ancient Celtic saints. The Irish Sea Christian region was a derivative of the old Christianity of apostolic times that transformed the remnants of the Roman Empire. As Americans we are beneficiaries of all these great local legacies. St. Olga of Alaska, a Native Alaskan who was just glorified, is both an American saint and a Russian Orthodox saint by legacy. So, too, is St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, as his name suggests. St. John also led the revival of Orthodox recognition of ancient saints of the West such as St. Columba of the Scots-Irish. And we are St. John’s beneficiaries here today, with his patronage for our rural mission in Appalachia. All are our local saints. May they pray for our missionary work for the salvation of many and ourselves. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us!
Please join us for our feast day services and talk, commemorating our Russian and American patron, St. John the Wonderworker of America, July 1-2. For details, please see https://bucknellorthodoxchristians.blogs.bucknell.edu/2025/06/20/church-opening/