Tag Archives: documentary

I am but earth and ash — two documentaries

The “Astonishment of Sisoes” (*)

At the recommendation of my spiritual father, I have been watching two exceptional documentaries on monastic life: Athos – Mount Athos Monks’ Republic Documentary and The Good Struggle: Life In A Secluded Orthodox Monastery. Interestingly enough, I found all their insights pertinent not only to monastics, but to laymen too. What truly struck a chord in my heart was their emphasis on the transience and ‘futility’ of our ‘ordinary’ lives, and a remarkable miracle entitled “Christ is Risen”, the first documentary records.

Athos, the first documentary is exceptional partly because for the first time, a filmmaker was given access to all forms of monastic life on the holy mountain (ie. cenobitic monasteries, sketes and monastic cells).

The Good Struggle, the second documentary, is about a monastic community thriving within the confines of a Greek Orthodox Christian monastery, high up in the mountains of Lebanon. The documentary offers rare insight to their almost silent way of life.

What I found most moving in both documentaries is the “school of philosophy” in the Gerondes’ own words: the insights into the monks’ burial place, their bones eventually stored in a separate charnel house, within the consecrated grounds of the cemetery (20:06–21:28 and 1:25:38—1:28:10 — first documentary), or under the church (23:35–24:36 –second documentary).

“So we can always pray for them and join them. This is due to the church’s belief that those who depart are not removed from us, but we are always connected through prayer. We don’t see them but they are connected to us through prayer. They pray for us and we pray for them. We always visit them to encourage ourselves that death is not a calamity but a meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ. We honour and greet them because they have done the good struggle and God has accepted them in His Kingdom.”

So moving and at the same time so sobering for “our [vain] affection for earthly things”! “And once again I looked with attention on the tombs, and I saw the bones therein which of flesh were naked; and I said, … Where is the pleasure in life which is unmixed with sorrow? … All things are weaker than shadow, all more illusive than dreams; comes one fell stroke, and Death in turn, prevails over all these vanities. … All is dust, all is ashes, all is shadow. … Like a blossom that wastes away, and like a dream that passes and is gone, so is every mortal into dust resolved… ” (St. John of Damascus, Orthodox Funeral Service Troparia)

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Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

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(*) “Sisoes, the great ascetic, before the tomb of Alexander, king of the Greeks, who was once covered in glory. Astonished, he mourns for the vicissitudes of Time and the transience of glory, and tearfully declaims thus: ‘The mere sight of your tomb, dismays me and causes my heart to shed tears, as I contemplate the debt we, all men, owe. How can I possibly stand it? Oh Death! Who can evade you?’


The Silent Angel

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Elder Dobri is the subject of a 2015 documentary, “The Silent Angel,” which features interviews with his family, relatives, and friends, and also with Bulgaria’s last King and former Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

An icon of charity, Dobri Dimitrov Dobrev,  was born on July 20, 1914 in the village of Bailovo. His father died in World War I and his mother raised the children. He married in 1940, when Bulgaria was participating in the Second World. A shell fell near him during one of the bombings in Sofia, depriving him of nearly all his hearing. He had four children with his wife, two of whom he outlived.

Over the years, the elder became more and more detached from the material aspects of life, devoting himself entirely to the spiritual life. Around the year 2000, he donated all of his belongings to the Orthodox Church and began living in a small and modest addition to the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in his native village. It is also about that time that he began to collect money towards the restoration of churches and monasteries throughout Bulgaria.

He came under the spotlight when it was revealed that for years he had walked more than 12.5 miles to reach Sofia from his home in the village of Bailovo to beg for money and then donate it for charity.

After spending years at the entrance of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, with a plastic cup in his hand, he collected about BGN 40,000 ($24,700 today) for the cathedral in Sofia, BGN 10,000 ($12,350 today) for the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in Bailovo, and BGN 25,000 ($31,000 today) for the restoration of the Eleshnishki Monastery of the Mother of God located to the east of Sofia, and the local church of the Gorno Kamartsi village.

His spirit of utter selflessness and sacrifice earned him the popular title “The Saint of Bailovo.”

Yesterday, Elder Dobri Dobrev (Grandpa Dobri), reposed in the Lord. He was 103 years old. He reposed at the Monastery of St. George in Kremikovtsi, to the northeast of Sofia.

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