The Mystery of Christian Love - Eulogy for the Funeral of Schema-Archimandrite Panteleimon

Christ is risen!

It seems to me that, at least in certain ways, fathers are always mysteries to their sons. And certainly I think that this was true in the case of Fr. Panteleimon (known to most of us during life as Fr. Seraphim). From the very first moment I met him nearly twenty years ago, there was always something profoundly mysterious about him. Not “mysterious” in the sense that I was curious to learn more information about him, or his life before he became a monk, but rather “mysterious” in the sense we call the sacraments the Holy Mysteries: nothing that we could ever possibly know (or think we know) about them can even come close to explaining or encompassing or expressing what it is that they truly are.

With Fr. Panteleimon, there was always something otherworldly about him — even though (as he himself would be the first to tell you) he was at the same time in many ways a perfectly ordinary man, “subject to like passions as we are” (Jas. 5:17). Those of us who lived with him every day for many years can certainly attest to this ordinariness — and, sadly and sinfully, perhaps all too often we allowed this ordinariness to distract us from “the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16) which was always at work in him.

But as St. Isaac the Syrian says: “The Cross is the door to mysteries. Through this door the intellect makes entrance into the knowledge of heavenly mysteries. The knowledge of the cross is concealed in the sufferings of the cross.” So it was that in the final cross of Fr. Panteleimon’s earthly life — the cancer which took him from us, almost in the blink of an eye — the mystery of his entire life was clearly and unmistakably laid bare for all to see.

And this mystery, quite simply, was the mystery of Christian love. Our Lord said in the Gospel (just before ascending His own Cross): “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Truly, I can think of no verse from Holy Scripture which is a better icon of the man that Fr. Panteleimon became in Christ. He once told me that immediately after he was ordained as a priest by the ever-memorable Metropolitan Laurus, our former abbot and spiritual father Vladyka George came up to him and whispered in his ear: “Now your life is no longer your own.” Fr. Panteleimon did not put it to me in these words, but it is abundantly clear to me that he took those words from his spiritual father as a holy obedience — perhaps the greatest holy obedience of his life. And there is absolutely no question that he fulfilled that holy obedience to the end.

Fr. Panteleimon taught us, his sinful monks, the mystery of Christian love by constant words and exhortations. He taught us the unparalleled importance of monastic hospitality, frequently repeating the commandment of his first patron, St. Benedict of Nursia, to receive every visitor to the monastery as we would receive Christ Himself. Because of this teaching, Holy Cross Monastery grew into what it has now become: a place of pilgrimage and prayer for hundreds and even thousands of people, from all across America and even all throughout the world. Fr. Panteleimon likewise made Christian love the very heart of all his teaching to us on Orthodox monasticism, constantly reminding us that our most important asceticism is not in our fastings or vigils or prostrations, but rather in our love toward one another, in bearing with one another, and in sacrificing ourselves for one another.

Most importantly of all, Fr. Panteleimon did not teach us such sacrifice merely by his words, but by his whole life too. For many years he did not even have a cell of his own, but simply slept in a recliner in his office, so that the monastery could have one more room to give to a novice to begin his monastic life. It was only when his monks continued to insist on building him a place of his own that he relented — and when that cell was finally built, he almost never had even a moment in it to himself. It was constantly — constantly — full of people, monks and laypersons alike, all hungering and thirsting to hear a word of salvation from their spiritual father. Actually (may God forgive us), we were really quite merciless towards him. Sometimes he would be so exhausted that he would have his cell attendant put a “do not disturb” sign on the door of his cell. I would always ignore it. Everyone would always ignore it. And never once did he complain, never once did he chastise us for it. Always he received us with nothing but love, nothing but compassion, and nothing but mercy. Always he was obedient to the words of his spiritual father: “your life is no longer your own.”

In these final days of Fr. Panteleimon’s earthly pilgrimage — even as the cancer was draining the very life out of him — he held fast to this obedience, and to the mystery of Christian love. When the doctors told him that he was dying of an incurable brain tumor, he immediately said that he did not care at all about trying to find a way to live for even one day longer — he only wanted to remain as mentally alert as possible during the time that he had left, so that he could spend it ministering to others. These were not merely pious words: we all watched, day in and day out, as Fr. Panteleimon spent hour after hour pouring himself out, spending every ounce of strength left in him and more, striving to his final breath to impart every last word of his spiritual testament to all the many people who came to him — everyone alike, monks, and laypeople, and even the hospice nurse when she called for a simple medical consult. His love for Christ, for His Mother and His saints became so overwhelming and overpowering that he no longer had any desires left except to share that love with absolutely everyone around him.

The Lord says to us in Holy Scripture: “Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction” (Is. 48:10). In his final illness, Fr. Panteleimon was purified to the uttermost of all worldly loves; only Christ remained. This purity of heart made him worthy of the Great and Angelic Schema (although he himself continued to feel utterly unworthy of it). This purity of heart was already opening the heavenly realm to him during his final days on earth. He told us when he returned home from the hospital to die that until that visit to the hospital, he had never really known who our patron — the Holy Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon — really was, that he had never really loved him or venerated him as he should have done. I was completely astonished when I heard this, because in my entire life I had never known anyone who loved any saint like Fr. Seraphim loved St. Panteleimon. But I should not have been surprised. It is as St. Paul said: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away…. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:9-10, 12-13).

We are standing now in the church that Fr. Panteleimon spent the final years of his life laboring tirelessly to bring into existence. He said recently that he considered this church his legacy, to his monks and to the countless pilgrims of the monastery to which he dedicated his whole life. And of course in an outward sense this is perfectly true. But in an inward sense, in a spiritual sense, in the truest sense, Fr. Panteleimon’s legacy to all of us is simply his love. His spiritual testament to us is the same as that which Christ gave to His disciples before He Himself went to His voluntary and life-giving death: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Truly, on this commandment hangs not only “all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22: 40), but also all asceticism, all monasticism, and all Christianity.

May we never forget this spiritual testament from our beloved father in Christ. May we never lose sight of the transcendent beauty of the mystery of Christian love which God made manifest in him. May we never cease from striving to obey this commandment of divine love, which Fr. Panteleimon spent his life — and ended his life — teaching us to fulfill. Amen.

Christ is risen!