An Excerpt from Apostle to Zaire: The Life and Legacy of Blessed Father Cosmas of Grigoriou

Introduction

In every generation there are those few exceptional souls who rise out of the conventionality of social life to become pathfinders to the catholicity and otherworldliness of Christianity. Heroic and uncompromising, they imitate Abraham and become exiles and martyrs for Christ, following Him with loving exactness and mountain-moving faith. They “hate their life in this world” in order to keep it – and that of their neighbor’s – for eternity; and to successive generations they become models to imitate, witnessing, long after their departure, to the honour the Father bestows on those who serve Him.

Such a one was blessed Father Cosmas of Grigoriou, enlightener of Zaire.

A Model of Mission Work in this Age of Antichrist

From as early as eighteen years of age he received from God the call to work in His mission field. Possessed of a dynamic personality that “was inspired by a burning love for Christ, he did not want to live a conventional Christian life nor to be limited to some usual ecclesiastical career and service. He longed to offer himself entirely to God and his fellow man.” He sought not honors, for “his chief concern was with the salvation of men and the upbuilding of Orthodoxy in Zaire.” The beloved Cosmas was, in the words of the former Metropolitan Avgoustinos of Florina, “the trailblazer of a beautiful journey for our race.” He made Christ’s departing directive to “teach all nations” his point of departure from a life of compromise and port of entry for Orthodoxy in the sub-Saharan and the hearts of countless souls. Unlike the missionaries of heterodox confessions, he laid stress on both the first and second part of the Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” His success, or rather faithfulness, in carrying out the first half of the Great Commission, was a direct result of his faithfulness and resolute determination to observe the second half, that is, to be exact in teaching them “to observe all things” that Christ has commanded us.

It could not be otherwise, for the African is neither as the contemporary European, worn out by centuries of dizzying ideologies and spent on a myriad of humanistic philosophies, nor as the typical American, quick to compromise and moderate things in order to achieve outward success. His noble, humble soul still inclines toward the other world and his simple, intuitive mind still has a healthy disposition for the noetic realm. A few months before his departure from this life, Father Cosmas visited the monastery of his repentance and spoke to the pilgrims there of this African nobility and their desire for authentic, ascetic Orthodoxy. Bishop Athanasios Yievtich, a close disciple of the great contemporary Church Father, Archimandrite Justin Popovich, was present and relates what Fr. Cosmas had to say:

“They are people with a sensitivity and awareness of the inner world. Europeans usually underestimate them, but they are very mistaken. The soul of the African inclines toward mysticism and for this reason Orthodoxy has something to say to them and something to offer, but only authentic Orthodoxy – monastic, hagiorite Orthodoxy. For among the brethren of Africa, witchcraft and magic holds great sway, a real demonocracy. In Africa, I saw how true the Gospel of Christ is! Everything that He said about the possession of men by the demons, I saw first hand. However, the Living and True God is more powerful than Satan and all his servants. Let it be understood, however, that true missionary-apostolic work cannot be carried out in Africa if one does not decide to leave his bones there.”

And so in teaching the native Africans the entire Gospel of Christ and revealing to them the undistorted Image of the God-man and His Church, it was only to be expected that his self-offering would likewise be complete and unqualified. In his “unique, genuine and very useful” study on mission work, entitled Thoughts about Missionary Work from Experience, he lays out the cornerstone principle for all who would follow his example:

“The missionary’s beginning is significant, however it is not the sum of the matter . . . The outset might be blessed or might become blessed at the end. What’s important is that the giving be true and total, without holding back, with a disposition to self-sacrifice and self-denial, and with the aim of leaving our bones among the natives . . .”

Long before one leaves his bones on the mission field, however, he must have discarded his pride and vainglory first, if he wants the final offering to be fruitful. Thus, for Fr. Cosmas the true missionary, in order to attain the blessed end, must leave no room for jealousy or vainglory, but rather must understand all to be shared: “common the struggle, common the pain, and common the glory of the Church.” He must “offer an open heart, love and communicate with others, concern himself with his own problems without adding more, being attentive to what others are doing, without turning to the devil and causing division.” And carrying out his duty in humility, “the true missionary does not seek recognition for his work, neither from the natives nor from those abroad, for the testimony of his sound conscience and the witness of his spiritual father and co-workers is sufficient for him.”

An Ascetic First

Father Cosmas left no room to doubt that he followed his principles, his words were based on experience and his beginning and end were blessed. And all of this is based on the fact that he “was first of all an ascetic and afterwards a missionary,” as Archimandrite Ioanikios has written elsewhere in this book. He knew from experience what asceticism, spiritual warfare, fasting, vigil and prayer mean for the Church. “We thank the Lord,” writes his Abbot George, “for, even if he was a man like us, he nevertheless disdained the earthly, the fleshly comforts, the human pleasures, all for the love of Christ, and chose a road that was harsh, combative, extremely tiring and humanly punishing. He did all of this for the love of God, his brothers and fellow men.”

Elder George further certifies all this with a story from Father Cosmas’ early days at the monastery: “I once passed by Fr. Cosmas’ little cell and saw his bed: wooden boards and on top of the boards, a little thin sheet. He didn’t even have a blanket. Having seen that, and other things, I thought that the brother had the grace of God and ought to become a monk.”

His asceticism, however, was not reserved to sleeping on wooden boards or even to fasting, vigil and prayer. Father Cosmas was above all unrelenting in his work of building up the Church in Zaire. Father Michael Christodoulidis of Cyprus writes of his visit to the Kolwezi mission and Father Cosmas’ asceticism in work:

“That which distinguished him most was his industry and diligence in work, his method and organization of labor, his intelligence, speed and facility in confronting difficulties, his ingenuity, and his unshakeable faith, spirit of love and sacrifice . . . Untiring in work, he would labor long hours in every kind of task. We didn’t know what midday was and what lunch means. The table of the Mission center is set from noon until late in the evening. Work ‘from the morning watch until night’ on roads that are non-existent, with vehicles and machines that were always breaking down, with bloody sacrifices, ‘in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in wounds . . . in labors, in vigils’ (2 Cor. 6: 4-5).”

The above description not only finds repeated confirmation in a number of similar testimonies, but from the words of Father Cosmas himself, who at the same time points us to another aspect of his giving of priority to asceticism. He writes the following:

“It is well known that we all work here on a twenty four hour basis, under poor conditions, with the consequence being bodily strain and spiritual slackening. Consequently, toward the realization of spiritual and bodily replenishment, the existence of two monasteries, one men’s and one women’s, at some distance from the mission base, is deemed most appropriate . . . The monastery would work strictly as a monastery or, with the blessing of the local Metropolitan, as a metochian of Mount Athos, without any entangling with the mission.”

It was because Father Cosmas believed that a local Church could not stand without monasticism that he gave priority to the founding of a monastery and towards the end of his life he finally saw the realization of his plans with the establishment of the holy women’s Monastery of St. Nektarios.

Exactness in Orthodoxy

Shortly after Fr. Cosmas’ repose, upon seeing the spiritual labor he had accomplished, his successor Father Meletios said: “Father Cosmas’ work in Africa is quite extensive. I found the whole Athonite typikon in place in Zaire. The Christians with prayer ropes in their hands. In church they chant all together lead by the choir of boys. No one communes without first having confessed. They keep strictly the fasts of Wednesday and Friday. They celebrate daily the Divine Services of Matins, Vespers and Small Compline. And on Sundays the congregation exceeds four hundred.”

Many have commented: “How is it that the Africans, being only recently baptized, can maintain such an intensity and exactness in their Orthodoxy, while many of us in parishes in Greece, America and elsewhere are much more lax?” The answer, I believe, lies partly in that Father Cosmas, their father, guide, and example was himself strict and precise in his living and imparting of Orthodoxy. He was a monk in the long tradition of Athonite monasticism, and he hailed from the city of Ss. Cyril and Methodios, Thessaloniki, known for its rich ecclesiastical tradition. He kept with exactness, as well as discernment, the canons and standards of the Church, not out of some kind of reactionary conservatism or unfeeling zeal, but out of humility and because they provide what is best for man’s soul, derived as they are from the experience and wisdom of the Saints and Fathers of the Church.

One such issue in which he consciously chose the blessing of God’s Saints over the transient benefits of our ecumenical age was baptism. “When baptizing,” he says, “I implement the Athonite order of things. We’ve done 250 baptisms, and not only with idol worshippers, but also with Catholics who become Orthodox, we baptize them in deep rivers. My actions will have consequences when news reaches the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which holds that the Protestants are only in need of chrism. Until then, however, we will only do baptisms so as to have St. Nicodemos’ blessing.”

Father Cosmas, as is clear further down, was not one to fly in the face of ecclesiastical authority. His decision to baptize those coming from heterodox confessions was done purely out of love for their souls and their eternal salvation, as well as love for God and His Saints, not suffering his conscience to disobey their sacred teachings. He acted not only out of respect for the Saints of ages past, but out of obedience and humility before the wise counsels of living saints: “I remember the words of Father Paisios, who told me that most of the time the baptism that the heretics perform only passes over their skin.” Having this in mind, his love for the catechumens dictated that he provide them with the complete and saving initiation into the eternal life of the Church. This had consequences, of course, but not only for his relationship with the Patriarchate. Primarily it had consequences for the establishment of a spiritually healthy, powerful and faithful Orthodox Church, before which the Orthodox world now stands in admiration.

Similarly, Father Cosmas’ success in establishing a strong, stable and healthy Orthodox way of life among the natives is also due to his refusal to adopt non-Orthodox methods and style. Father Cosmas writes: “It is wrong to have recourse to the means and methods of the heterodox. Let us leave to Orthodoxy her own color, in faith, in teaching, and in her arts. Let it not fade in the mission field.” This should be applied not only to clear-cut mission fields, of course, but also to Orthodoxy in the Diaspora, as today many Orthodox often assimilate aspects of foreign cultures indiscriminately. For, if Father Cosmas’ words hold true, then we must not expect the kind of results we see in Kolwezi in our part of the world if we are busy appropriating “the means and methods” of the heterodox. One may have to work very hard to avoid this compromise, yet we have Father Cosmas and the Church in Zaire as testimony that the struggler will have his reward.

Father Cosmas did not stop at simply avoiding the influence of heterodox culture within Zaire. He extended this principle to protect those young souls he sent abroad to study and be formed in the Orthodox way. He writes: “It is almost assured that the young native is destroyed when sent to study in Europe, returning as a theologian only in terms of his diploma, not his heart . . . In Kolwezi, we send the pious young man to the monastery of our repentance . . . where he learns the Greek language, theological matters, dogmatics, ethics, worship, the typikon, iconography, and Byzantine music both in practice and theory. He studies Orthodoxy in the “university of the desert,” keeping company with sanctified elders and spiritually-gifted fathers and learning from them the ‘according to likeness.’ Purified and forming Christ within him, the young candidate becomes a good co-worker and our ideal successor.”

Father Cosmas’ care for the young native soul sent to study abroad arose out of his deep pastoral sensitivity and not out of any alleged ecclesiastical chauvinism. It was this sensitivity and a blessed single-mindedness and constant focus on bringing his disciples to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and not any misguided idealism, that made it hard for him to countenance disregard of the canons. With respect to the canons governing ordination, this was particularly difficult because suitable candidates were few and the observance of the canons demanded much faith and patience. But, Father Cosmas, together with his Bishop, observed the canons, for they knew that there was a spiritual law at work and a punishment that the violators of the canons cannot escape. He writes: “The canons of the Church, of course, must be observed with respect to ordinations. Otherwise, the canons will avenge themselves and we will pay for our concessions (1 Tim. 3: 2-13).” And elsewhere he writes: “In areas where excessive tolerance is shown, the situation continually deteriorates and I am very concerned that at one point it will become incurable.”

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