Reflections on the murder of Hieromartyr Daniil Sysoyev

The website 'Orthodoxy and the World' has a reflection on the death of Fr Danill Sysoyev. In a few paragraphs the reflection notes the difference between zealotry and inspired faith. It is so worthy of our own reflection that I am reproducing it here complete. For the reflection from its original (English) source, click here.

If one believes the official reports, the murderer of Father Daniel called out, “Who here is Sysoyev?” In these words lies a challenge not only to Father Daniel, but also to everyone who has decided to devote their life to Orthodox witnessing. It seemed to us that the time of martyrdom and costly witness had long passed, but now we are proven wrong. Today, as always, confessing Christ attracts all the spite and hatred of this world.

Evil has a simple logic – if the man is gone, the problem is gone. Polemics is for those who have remained human, but when a person resorts to violence, he becomes dehumanized and unable to be what God called him to be.

It so happened that Father Daniel and I would sometimes disagree and argue. Despite these polemics, one thing was important to me - that we believed in the same God and were children of the same Church. Those disagreements were but trifles, which unfortunately are inevitable in everyday life: we were entirely at one when it came to the principles of our faith.

Death is a watershed that separates the important from the unimportant. Death gives the true measurement of a person, making it possible to put misunderstandings aside and see the person the way he or she is. So now Father Daniel is standing before us in all the simplicity of his smile, and how sad it is that we cannot accept a person as they are while they are still alive.

It is beyond doubt that Father Daniel lived in and for Christ. He and only He was the centre and meaning of his life. His daily confession of the faith and his sincere wish to bring people to the Truth was perceived by many as something foolish, not serious, something inappropriate for reputable people.

We talk a lot about the revival of Orthodoxy and, I hope, we work for it to a certain extent. But are there many among us who have no other interests, or rather, meanings in life but Christ and His Church? We can talk about it, but what do our lives say? Our everyday activities? What is the cornerstone of it all?

Almost all who comment on the terrible tragedy agree that Father Daniel was not indifferent - he was sincere and zealous. The Church Tradition has preserved the words of Christ, “As I find you, so shall I judge you.” Father Daniel became a martyr while performing his priestly service. He was trapped, but not taken unawares; he met his death vested in his priest’s stole and cuffs. We constantly pray at every service that the end of our earthly existence be painless, blameless and peaceful. However, we cannot know what, in fact, it will be; we can only pray and try to live a Christian life. That is how Father Daniel lived, just doing his work and relying on God in everything.

Evil thinks in the categories of earthly history, but we were created for eternity. What we will be in eternity depends on what we become on earth. Father Daniel was a priest of Christ and His Church. All his life was filled with this service, and his death is the confirmation of this. “Death is worth living for, and love is worth waiting for ….”

Please read also about Fr.Daniel:

Fr. Daniel's Autobiography and the Interview with Him on the Occasion of the Opening of the Missionary Centre

On the Murder of Father Daniil Sysoev

Father Daniil Has Gone from us to God as a Confessor

A postscript. We are all called to the Great Commission: The Lord said: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Mat 28.18-20) While the direct commission was given to the Apostles, and through them the Bishops and priests, every Christian has a role to play in "making disciples", beginning with themselves, and through their own witness bring others to Christ.

In the technologically rich and "civilized" twenty-first century, it is too easy to assume that we can simply sit at our computers blogging (like this present activity) and catechumens will wander across our paths like the Ethiopian eunuch to receive the Gospel at our hands. It is too often the case that our witness fall short through lack of prayer, lack of fasting, and lack of Grace-filled Love. There are thousands upon thousands of catechumens 'out there' - the great majority of them not even knowing that they are listening to hear the words of Faith and thus going about their lives like the eunuch, reading and not understanding.

We need to pray for catechumens daily, those we know and those who do not yet know the Church. We need to fast for our own sins and the sins of the world. We need to beg our Lord for the Gift of life-transforming Faith and the Grace of Divine Light. Only then, whether clergy or laity, will our efforts bear the fruits substantiating our claim to be Christian. And we must be prepared to accept that sometimes these godly efforts may require our blood to prove the Truth of our witness.

Words from Fr Daniil the Martyr

I found the following profound words by "Fr Daniil Sysoyev, rector of the parish of the Holy Apostle Thomas in Kantemirovskaya, Candidate of Theology (a Kandidat (Candidate) degree is equivalent to a PhD, somewhat more rigorous: editor’s note)" reported last year on the Voices from Russia Web Log. The context was a series of quotations by particpants at a Conference in Moscow.

I think that one of the most important problems facing the Orthodox Church in Russia, and even beyond its borders, is the ideological rigor mortis of the Church. The Church is considered as a kind of dead body, it is thought to be frozen. According to some, nothing should be changed in it. It is understandable that we should not change dogmatics and Church Tradition, no one argues with that. However, the problem is that people try to preserve superstitions and false ideology, and, what is worse, they try to hang on to bad remnants of the Soviet period. I have travelled throughout the canonical territory of the MP, and I see one and the same picture everywhere. People do not know God, they think that their salvation is complete; and all of their time is taken with completely-unimportant matters such as the minutiae of this-or-that rite, the details of this-or-that church policy, or one regional view or another.

In my opinion, it is an enormous misfortune that people have lost their consciousness of Christianity. People have forgotten about the fact that we are, first of all, Christians, the children of God the Father, and that we must go to Christ for holiness and salvation. As a part of this, one sees a controversy over the frequent reception of Holy Communion, which connects us with the Lord. Some people do not consider Communion to be as important as it is to act in such a way as to “earn” one’s salvation. However, they do not realise that this is the heresy of Pelagius, that one can earn one’s salvation by one’s own efforts.

In other words, the standard of church life that they expound is sinful, pure and simple; it is a distortion of the real Church Tradition. For instance, one hears that Russians, because they are Russian, are already Orthodox. In one article that I read, I saw the assertion that even atheists are truly Orthodox, if they are a part of the Russian culture. This is nothing less than the displacing of faith with culture. Orthodoxy is God’s revelation, preserved for us in all purity from the times of the Apostles. One now sees efforts by some to replace the New Testament with national myths, including old ones that the Church has always fought against. They propagate heathen fables about the “mothers of the black soil” instead of seeing Christ as the basis of all culture.

Paganism often disguises itself in the Church under the mask of Christianity, and it is hidden under a façade of pietism rather than in overt exterior manifestations. People forget that their goal is to reach sanctity. Some of them believe it is a sin even to think of such a possibility, that they could reach sanctity, even though it is the fulfilment of a direct commandment of the Lord. We should spare no effort to overcome this problem. To overcome this, we must issue a new call for the people to return to holiness. For this, it is necessary for us to revive catechesis throughout the entire Church. Even those who are already baptised should study the faith. People must know in Whom they believe, in what they should do in order to approach Him. People coming to church see it as an assembly-line of spiritual services. They are not offered any spiritual growth; therefore, they go to the sectarians.

People think, in error, that the sects are easier than the Orthodox. Recently, I had a chance to associate with Pentecostals. I learned that it is their practise to pray five hours during the day. What Orthodox Christian prays for five hours a day? Sectarianism is the consequence of the Church not informing people of the commandments of the Lord, commandments that our Lord Christ expects us to fulfil. The Gospel is seen as nothing but a collection of pious sayings; it is not seen as a means of real contact with God. We so fear being seduced by the world that we end by doing nothing. This is a terrible spiritual problem. If we do not overcome it, very many Christians shall be ruined. It is an ideology of rigor mortis. It is not conservatism; rather, it is the murder of the Church.

Voices of Russia also has a biography entry on the martyred priest.

Below is one of several You Tube videos of Batushka Daniil noted from the Moscow Times report of his death.





Here is the You Tube Channel with what is said to be Fr Daniil's final sermon.


May his memory be eternal.