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| Source: orthodoxwitness.org |
The passage below is from Fr, Roman Braga. Presvytera and I knew him fairly well through the years. He led a retreat here in our parish in the early 1990's. I served at his funeral, and I was convinced that I participated in the burial of a saint. In fact, his glorification/canonization is now being studied by a committee appointed for that purpose, and the sense is that he will eventually be added to the list of saints venerated by the Church. May it be so!
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"Orthodoxy is to find Christ in ourselves. You became Orthodox. You didn't find Orthodoxy individually. If you think that you came just by yourself to Orthodoxy, you are still Protestant. Orthodoxy is the experience of persons in God, not of individuals.
First of all, you came back to Church, and don't think that you're saved without thinking about others. In an organism, as St. Paul says, if you cut off your little finger, the whole organism is suffering. The same thing, salvation is communal; it's not individual.
And you come to the Orthodox Church in America, not to become Syrians, not to become Romanians, not to become Russians or Bulgarians. Be yourself, American. Otherwise, God doesn't accept your experience, because you have a tradition, you have a background that is given by God. God made me to be born in the Carpathian Mountains; I cannot be other. For me, Orthodoxy is the experience of the Romanian peoples in the Church. We come into the church, not as isolated individuals; we come with our families, with our nation, with our culture. Sanctify and transfigure your culture. There are many good things in this country. Be good patriots."
-- Blessed Father Roman Braga, transcribed excerpt from Fr. Roman Braga speaking in 1995 at St. Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Church, Franklin, TN
