Faith and Scholarship—Meeting Father Gabriel
September 26th, 2011
Sunday morning we met Father Gabriel at the Metochi tou Kykkou, a large monastic complex in Nicosia belonging to the Kykkos Monastery (an ancient and venerable monastery in the Troodos Mtns). His followers call him a national, spiritual treasure. At age 90, he is a bit frail, but his mind seems quite alert, and he has an air of peace and warmth about him.
Father Gabriel painting an icon.
A man we met last Sunday at the concert in Peristerona arranged for the meeting. He called on Saturday to ask, “Are you interested in meeting Father Gabriel?” Of course, I was. So he called a friend named Alex, who is a spiritual son of Gabriel’s. Again, I get opportunities because of the connections of people in Cyprus.
We met Alex and his wife at the Metochi Sunday morning. They took us to meet Gabriel, and placed a chair beside the man for me. I felt awkward but privileged. People came to receive his blessing, leaning past me to kiss his hand, or holding babies out for him to touch their heads. Gabriel asked why I came to Cyprus. Alex translated. Gabriel was pleased to learn that I came all the way from America to learn about Barnabas. He is the abbot of the Monastery of St. Barnabas in Salamis, which is under Turkish occupation.
Lynne sat on a couch nearby and had great conversations with several women who fled the north of Cyprus in 1974 to escape Turkish soldiers. One lived in Canada until recently. She told Lynne that she left her family in Canada, because her husband wanted to return to Cyprus. She feels like she has been displaced twice.
Meanwhile, I learned that Gabriel will arrange a trip on Thursday to take Lynne and me to Salamis to see the Church and Monastery of Barnabas. I can ask my questions along the way, and his driver (Styliana) will translate.
Thursday will be busy. We have an audience at noon with the archbishop at his office in the Archbishopric in Nicosia. Styliana gets off work at 3:00, so she plans to pick us up at CAARI around 3:30 for the drive to Salamis.
Gabriel gave to me a book about Barnabas, written by one of his spiritual children who was paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Later, I will recount the story of how he received a vision from Barnabas and how he was healed when he went to the tomb of Barnabas. Gabriel graciously signed the book “With love and warm wishes” and gave it to me. The book itself represents hagiography, writings that glorify saints by recounting miraculous events in their lives. Hagiographers care little for historical analysis of the stories they present. The goal is to honor saints.
PROBLEM: My historical and cultural research is blended with the personal stories that I hear from Cypriots. How will I sort out all of the stories I hear and do justice to the Cypriots, who are going out of their way to help me? I do not know.
Father Gabriel told me that he is mostly concerned with personal faith (esoteric, spiritual experience), not scholarship. How do I maintain my integrity as a scholar, dealing with the many nuances of history and the sometimes awkward disconnects between what people tell me and what I read in ancient texts? I must be honest in my analysis of data. I must not offend my new friends who so unselfishly give of themselves to help my research. I honestly seek to honor Barnabas, because I believe that his leadership example provides a much-needed approach to modern, religious and political problem solving. Pray that I will be able to present the data in a way that honors both the sincere, life-changing Orthodox faith of my friends, as well as my own analysis of historical events.
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September 27th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
And, of course, you WILL do exactly what you seek to do. I know because I know you! After all, isn’t much of our faith a matter of juggling our intellectual and faith-based understanding.
The wonderful thing, Michael, is that you are having life changing experiences with the people of the land, and those experiences will prevent your writing from being dull and pedantic! When you are finished, it will be alive, influenced by the flesh and blood people who have given so much of themselves to you. Your understanding of the Body of Christ grows as you welcome and are welcomed by those who love the same Lord but think and express themselves differently than you do.
In some ways, isn’t that what Scripture does? Doesn’t it take a lot of facts and put them together with real people so that the Word becomes a Living Word! I often tell students in classes to stop thinking of Peter as some spiritual giant. Think of him as Rock Johnson! That really helps me relate to him as a weak and trembling human who became a spiritual giant. If he can be so changed, why can’t we?
Living where you are for these four months will change many things in you. And that’s a good thing. Just as the Africans, the Chinese, the Colombians, the Haitians added something of themselves to me that I treasure, so will the faces and words of your Cypriot friends be ever in your memory!