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Orthodox Observer - March 1999
REMARKS OF HIS EMINENCE ARCHBISHOP SPYRIDON
at the Archon Banquet in Honor of Professor Elie Wiesel
Beloved Friends and Brothers and Sisters,
How fortunate indeed we are as
the Psalmist says, how blessed,
to have before us tonight, such
a man as Elie Wiesel. Honored
are we, who have but this material token
of esteem to give a man who has given us
so much. Prof. Wiesel has accomplished
something very few people can ever hope
to achieve - he has brought back from the
fires of hell, a vision for humanity. He has
faced the darkest demons of night, and
shined the light of truth and hope upon a
ravaged planet, upon a suffering people.
Who are these suffering people? They are
us. They are the victims and victimizers.
They are the wretched human souls consumed by evil and hatred. They are the innocent living icons of God who perish in
the flames of depravity and destruction.
How extraordinary is the man who can
cause us to look into the darkest night and
find the light of truth, of goodness, of love.
"Blessed is the man who walks not in
the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in
the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers." Elie Wiesel is truly blessed, for
he has survived the bitterest darkness and
become himself a light, a beacon by which
we can find our way back to the true happiness of life, the "delight in the law of the
Lord." He has reminded us what the law of
the Lord means, having faced the most lawless chaos and human destruction. And we
can see, I can see, that upon the mystery
of relationship between God and man,
upon the mystery of God's law, upon God's
plan, "he meditates day and night."
We who call ourselves children of
Abraham as well, children by adoption through one whom we call savior, must acknowledge the mother of our tradition. We
are both of Athens and Jerusalem, and we
must bear the burden of our own failures
in the history of our culture, for we, too,
are a portion of the culture that failed the
true test of faith. So many who might have
spoken the words of their own redemption,
so many who might have spoken up to
defend the faith that they had up until that
moment claimed, those who said nothing
as their neighbors were taken away remained silent. And their silence reminds
us today that silence is a rending of the fabric of the veil of our human temple, a time
when we failed most of all, neither ourselves, nor our cultures, nor our tradition,
nor our faith, but most of all, we failed our
Lord. In the aftermath of failure, in the gaping hole of horror and failure that rent the
century from which we now depart, stands
a man such as Elie Wiesel. "He is like a
tree planted by streams of water, that yields
its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not
wither."
I am proud that I have been given this
opportunity, not merely to meet Prof.
Wiesel, but to hear his voice next to me,
reminding me and all of us, that there is
honor in love only when there is respect
for one another. Out of the darkness he
has lived, he has brought us a way to find
the true richness of heart. "In all that he
does, he prospers," and so he causes us to
prosper.
"The wicked are not so, but are like
chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous; For the Lord knows the way
of the righteous." Professor Wiesel has
given us the wind, the breath of the meaning of life to drive away the evil that persists in our society today. His constant vigilance in speaking out on behalf of the oppressed, the weak and the persecuted,
gives all of us the courage and moral direction to find within ourselves the Truth that
resides in the heart of our faith. Whether
Jew or Christian, Prof. Wiesel does not
chastise the faith, but advocates for the
quality of our commitment to follow our
beliefs. The truth that resides in our hearts,
in our faith, is the Lord's presence in our
mind and our hearts, and our presence of
mind to act in righteousness from our heart
and with our heart.
There are those who did obey the
higher call of the Lord, those good people
who helped save our friend, my friend
Yolanda Avram Willis, the Metropolitan of
Zakynthos, Chrysostomos, and the Archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos to name a
few notable examples.
Prof. Wiesel emboldens us to seek justice for all who suffer at the hands of evil.
He does not claim to know every evil, every need for justice, but asks us to discern
for ourselves the way to truth on behalf of
good, on behalf of mercy, on behalf of justice. He calls us not to turn our faces away
from the difficult vision of evil. He calls us
to avoid the opposite of love that is indifference.
"But the way of the wicked will perish." The wicked will perish when we have
defeated the darkness that resides in all
who would ignore the Lord's call to justice, the Lord's call to truth, the Lord's call
to embrace all human beings as being created in the image and likeness of God. As
Orthodox Christians, we understand
personhood as being based upon the image of God placed within each human being. And all of us, bearing the image of God
are given the Spirit, and where the Spirit
is, there is freedom. Our freedom is to
choose between good and evil, between
conforming our will to the will of the Lord,
or acting as individuals outside of the order of the author of all life, the sustainer of
existence itself.
Elie Wiesel is a guide, a conscience, a
"daskalos;" he is a rabbi. From him we have
learned of a terrible evil, and we come to
know it through him, that we might also
learn from him of the redemption there is
in the simple act of respect. In the whisper
of a little girl comforting her brother in the
shadow of death, in the wave of a daughter's
goodbye to her father, Prof. Wiesel has allowed us to glimpse a glimmer of life, of
hope, of honor for the noble dead destroyed
so ignobly. He has allowed us to feel, though
never to understand, the promise of our own
redemption through the blood of those
martyrs upon whom God Himself has surely
visited the crown of victory over evil in His
Kingdom. Blessed indeed, is the man who
delights in the law of the Lord, and blessed
is this man, for helping us to find the Lord
again after the most terrible of nights.
Blessed is Prof. Elie Wiesel.
[ Orthodox Observer, Vol. 64 - No. 1157, March 1999, p. 6 ]
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