Clarification: that was my sarcastic take on their attitude vis-a-vis Fr. Matta vs. the OO in general (like HH...except I guess when SVS is publishing one of his works?), not anything they actually said in those words. I don't even think they would say that their republishing HH's work makes him Orthodox, since as you've probably surmised through your interaction with whoever it is you are talking about, there are a subset of EO for whom the formal boundaries between their communion and others' seem to matter a lot more than the more positive interpretations of their saying about "We know where the Church is, not where she is not" might imply.
Anyway, so as to not make a throwaway line into a continuing complain-a-thon about something not ultimately related to the man himself, here's a long interview with him that I transcribed and posted on their subforum a while ago:
From Coptologia vol. III (Fall 1982)
Conducted and translated by Fayek M. Ishak
Interview with His Reverence Fr. Matta Al-Maskin, the Spiritual Father of the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great by Fayek M. Ishak, Lakehead University (p. 19-37; introductory and epilogue material omitted.)
The interview took place in the Guest House of the monastery and it lasted for more than five hours with very few intermissions. The date is July 25th, 1980, and the time is Friday afternoon at 5:00 p.m.
(The interviewer is referred to here with the letter ‘F’ and the interviewed father with the letter ‘M’.)
F: What made your Reverence give up city life and go to the desert?
M: In point of truth this question is intimately related to my inner self as it concerns the inner recesses and depths of my life. I may be able to answer in a few words. It is a matter of stirking a responsive chord which I inwardly felt in my heart since my childhood. This response was the outcome of an inter-balance between spirituality in a general sense as related to Holy Scripture, chastity, purity of adulthood and the close approximation (taqarrab) to the Almighty on one side and the youthful life of play and freedom on the other side.
My early life was a continuous process of knowing particularly in relation to vicious and philanthropic deeds and thoughts. It was a matter of development by knowing the ‘mentality’ of those living in the world and so certain views evolved particularly in relation to manhood and the possibility of gaining money, securing a good future and getting married.
This inter-balance was inwardly active in a permanent and very quiet manner. The scale of spirituality and the inner feeling of God’s Presence used to outbalance the other scale. My zeal and earnestness never waned. Their star was ever in the ascendency (fi as-so’ōd) most particularly after I completed my university education and worked as a pharmacist.
I was quite successful in my work and my income was very high and so were my profits. But all this never changed my views towards the world. Even my duties and my family attachments did not stand as obstacles against the possibility of ‘seeing’ beyond the immediate screens of the near future. I realized that my life with God will be altogether complete.
The last step in this way of progression was my growing earnestness towards God and the continuity of perceiving God’s Divine Love in the inward recesses of my heart as something far superior to anything in this world. This perception was associated with an inner call, which was still vague, towards Eternity. I gathered later that it was a real call and that is to me the essence of Truth.
This perception that Eternity has its presence and its complete entity was always attractive to me in spite of the too many relationships with the world. God has drawn me towards Him though nobody in my family was ever before a monk or related to the monastic life in one way or another.
My departure to the monastery was the first ‘call’ in my family. Thence I gathered that I would never come back to the world as soon as I entered the monastery. I gradually realized that my life with God is a lot more truthful and greatly deeper than what I previously discerned beyond the ‘screens’.
F: Are there grades or stages to monastic life in your view?
M: There are no grades in monastic life and this applies too to the life of the novice and the ermetic. [sic] We make then ask: Is there any difference between the secular and the monastic life? Considering the Holy Bible and the preparation for salvation and eternal life, I would not look at monastic life as a superior type of Christian life nor even a better way of living. Life with our Lord Jesus Christ has no shapes, no stages and no steps. It is life in depth and integrity. Christ sends His endowments to people without distinction between one way of life and another. The Holy Spirit does not discriminate between the bachelors and the married folks as God’s saints are among both.
Monastic life is an individual attempt to live in such a way as suited special temperaments so as to satisfy certain spiritual potentials and to be filled with Biblical knowability (al-ma’rifa al-Injiliya). Should the monk be lax in attaining this end, he is certainly a loser.
It has been proven by experience beyond any doubt that those who have plunged into the depths of spirituality in their monastic life are close to these depths than those who are living in the secular world.
Granted that there are no stages in monastic life, it is pertinent to state that there is only the revelation of the Divine Reality and the manifestation of salvation and atonement and the inner apprehension of the meaning of Divine Love and Eternal and Celestial Life. All these cannot be attained through man’s own will but through the sincerity of his attachment to the Word of God and his true love to our Lord. Hence his perception will be elevated and the manifestation of Divine Truth becomes a reality.
F: I gather many university graduates are following your example. How can this monastic revival benefit the Church?
M: In matter of truth I do not hold myself responsible in any way for the influx of these graduates. I am a monk who is quite obliged to be the spiritual father of monks. Dutiful obligation has made it mandatory for me to receive confessions. At the same time I felt that part of my duty is to transmit to the monks all my monastic experiences.
I have never thought of this question at all. However, I consider this ‘work’ effective in Egypt and abroad in so far as we found out that we have already attained a Biblical experience and a knowability of the Way to God and the way to monastic asceticism. The former has shed a sort of genuineness on the latter.
I gathered that the truthfulness of this tradition has already deepened the monks’ understanding of spiritual studies. It has categorically elevated spiritual apprehension among the monks. There are here approximately sixy books dealing with such views and these have changed the spiritual awareness of our generation whether in relation to our youth or to the people abroad. And this is one of the major benefits of this tradition. The experiences of our monks here have their counterparts in other lands where others are following or even applying the same principles after visiting frequently this monastery.
As for my hopes, these are far-reaching and far-extending aspirations which are not realized yet! I have high hopes of forming a group of monks who are of such distinction as to be culturally well versed in many languages. In this sense they would be able to transmit other spiritual experiences written in German, Greek or Hebrew into Arabic and vice versa. Such experiences would be beneficial to immigrants and foreigners who are concerned with spiritual development.
Still I earnestly entreat God to open the gates leading to this way. The monks here are studying old Greek and German and the latter is instructed by a professor from Gothenburg.
F: Apart from your whole-hearted devotion to religious studies, are there scholarly activities in other monasteries too?
M: Nothing at all; there is no scholarly activity in any other monastery (in Egypt).
F: In what way do you consider yourself the periods of silence and night vigils essential for spiritual development as far as your Tasbihah al-Yawmieh wa Mazamur as-Sawa’ii (“Daily Praise and Hourly Psalmody”) is concerned?
M: The periods of silence and night vigils are not everything in spiritual life. They compose part of the work of such life which springs from the inner depths of spirituality. It is its fruition. As such I cannot compel any monk to spend a sleepless night or be silent. But the monk who experiences silence and night vigil normally wishes to have more. These experiences are the outcome of spiritual maturity. The spirit in such cases desires earnestly to go through periods of silence and vigil and this gives the monk an opportunity to apprehend the true meaning of Divine Love.
What I should care to say to that effect is that there are no human factors that would support a person or improve his spiritual life, not even one step towards grace.
This is the logic of the spiritual life. Physicalities never lead nor improve spiritualities. To that effect the daily praise or hourly psalmody is the language used by the lover to address the Beloved. Many Fathers of the Church used to cry throughout the periods of praise and psalmody. They felt as if they were air-borne as they communed with saints and angels.
(Intermission)
