Monasteries are supposed to accept the church authority.

Here's the English translation of the letter to God, preserving the three-page structure and the original tone.

My Lord and God,

Before I begin writing these lines, I feel the need to kneel before You – not out of religious obligation, but out of a deep thirst to understand something that has long troubled me. It is about the difference between religiosity and holiness. I feel it in my bones, yet I rarely hear it spoken aloud. And You, the source of both, have placed in my mind a strange but clear comparison: this difference is similar to the one between autarky and autocephaly.

At first glance, Lord, these words seem dry – like something from a canon law book or a political treatise. But You know that great truth often hides behind seemingly heavy terms. As St. Isaac the Syrian says, “God is not just in the way of men, but He is loving toward mankind.” And it is precisely this love that makes all the difference between a religious person and a holy person.

Religiosity is autarky. Forgive me, Lord, if I am wrong, but here is what I see in the world – and, alas, too often in my own heart. Autarky means self-sufficiency, a closing in on oneself, an attempt to have everything under control, to depend on no one. The religious person sometimes becomes autarkic: he builds his own system of rules, his own safe corner. He fasts, but boasts of his fasting; he prays, but counts his prostrations; he gives alms, but engraves his name on stone. He turns the Law into a defensive wall, not a bridge to You. This is the person who says in his heart: “I honor God, but I need a safe distance. I calculate my piety, I administer it like a fortune. I do not want to be consumed by fire, only warmed to a comfortable temperature.”

Religious autarky is, in fact, a subtle form of idolatry. The idol is no longer an image of wood or stone, but one’s own organized, respectable self, with a well-regulated piety. It is as if I were trying to become holy by my own strength, without letting Your grace penetrate me. It is a holy siege – a state of spiritual lockdown in which the gates of the soul are closed to the noise of the world, but, unfortunately, closed to You as well. For God does not like to enter where He is not invited with the heart, not just with the lips.

Holiness, on the contrary, is autocephaly. How beautifully this word sounds to my ear! Autocephaly, in Your Church, does not mean division, but full responsibility within communion. The head of a local church is not an autarkic dictator, but a brother who receives grace from You and shares it, knowing that he does not live for himself but for the body of Christ. Autocephaly is the freedom to move, to decide, to grow, but within the framework of canonical love, not isolation.

Similarly, Lord, the holy person is not an autark but a living autocephaly. He has an inner freedom that no Pharisee can understand. The saint breaks religious rules when love demands it – as when St. Silouan the Athonite prayed for his enemies unto tears, or when St. Seraphim of Sarov embraced everyone who came to him with “Christ is risen!” even during Great Lent. This is the autocephaly of holiness: you have the power to decide from within, because Christ lives in you. You are no longer a slave to the letter, but a spiritual guide of the Spirit.

The holy person is like an autocephalous Church: complete in itself, but not separate. His communion with You is so intense that he no longer needs to prove anything. He fasts because he loves, not because he must. He forgives not from fear of hell, but from the joy of being forgiven. Autarky says: “I can manage on my own, even with God.” Autocephaly says: “I am not alone; I am in communion with all of heaven and earth, but I answer personally before God.”

And here, Lord, is where we arrive: the difference between religiosity and holiness is the same as between a fortress and a gardener. The fortress is built from bricks of rules, has ramparts of bigotry and moats of prejudice. The gardener, however, sows seeds, waters them with patience, lets them grow under Your sun. He knows he cannot force a rose to bloom faster, but neither does he neglect it. Holiness is life, and life is always autocephalous – it has one head, Christ, but manifests itself through thousands of different flowers. Religiosity is a dried plant, beautifully dried and framed, but without roots in the living spring.

How often, Lord, have I been autarkic! When I look at my neighbor and judge him for not lighting a candle or for not making the sign of the cross “correctly,” I was only religious, not holy. When I boast before people that I have fasted or given alms, I was autarkic – I was boasting of my own strength. But when, in the dark night of doubt, I cried out to You not out of habit but from the depths of the abyss, then I felt a glimpse of autocephaly – the freedom to be Your child, not Your slave.

And here is the paradox, Master: perfect autocephaly is, in fact, total dependence on You. The freer a saint is, the more he is bound to Your will. The more he is the “head of himself” – that is, master of his passions – the more he is subject to the Holy Spirit. Whereas religious autarky is a veiled slavery: the slavery of pride, fear, and habit.

Search the Scriptures, Lord, and see that You say through the prophets: “I hate your feasts, I cannot stand your solemn assemblies” (Amos 5:21). Not because You dislike singing, but because it was only religious autarky – beautiful music, but without a heart. Yet what do You say about the saints? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Purity of heart is autocephaly – there is no mediator between the soul and You except the living Christ.

And now, Lord, I ask myself fearfully: has my Church, my community, too often confused religiosity with holiness? Have we praised the one who grits his teeth during the fast, but ignored the one who weeps with those who weep? Have we elevated autarky to the rank of virtue – “Look what a strong Christian, he doesn’t waver!” – instead of cultivating the autocephaly of gentleness, which dances before You like David, disregarding the gossip of the religious?

Teach me, Lord, to be autocephalous, not autarkic. Give me the courage to abandon the illusion of control, the fortress of my own rules. Lead me into the desert of humility, where I have no other adornment than the tear of repentance and no other power than Your cross. And if I ever come to be called a “saint” (though I know I am not worthy), may my holiness not resemble a frozen statue of regulations, but a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season – and whose leaves will never wither, because its root is in You, the Fountain of Life.

I end these three pages, Lord, not as a treatise, but as a confession. I know I have wearied You with analogies, but be indulgent with Your child. For too often I have wanted to be religious – because it is safer, more soothing, easier to justify before the judgment of men. But today, in this mystery of prayer, I choose to strive for holiness – for that loving autocephaly in which the law is no longer written on stone, but on my heart of flesh, and my freedom is no longer a precipice’s edge, but a wide-open world in Your Kingdom.

Amen.

A soul that seeks not certainties, but the truth that sets free.