“Prayer Is Something That We ARE” – Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia

Yesterday we ventured over to the Emerald City and the Seattle Pacific University Campus to hear a talk on the Orthodox Christian view of “prayer.” The speaker was the most Rev. Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, the man probably most responsible for explaining Orthodox beliefs to the western world. He was the featured guest in the school's annual Palmer lecture series.

Born Timothy Ware in England, he was raised an Anglican but converted to the Orthodox Church in his mid-20’s. After a long and distinguished career as a priest and educator (at Oxford) he was consecrated Bishop of Diokleia (part of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain) in 1982. Since his retirement in 2001, he continues to lecture around the world, and in 2007 he was elevated to Metropolitan.

“We should think of prayer as something we are” (in contrast to thinking of prayer as something we do), offered Kallistos. He underlined the thought with a fourth-century quote from Gregory the Theologian, “Remember God more often than you breathe.”

He was expanding on Jesus’ charge to “Pray without ceasing”. As we learn, he said, the Holy Spirit works in our heart to allow us to listen to God’s leading. He admonished that too often we “listen” by asking God for something, when, instead, we should “be quiet and just listen.”

These concepts are developed further in his books The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way (required reading in most universities), both of which have been widely read in the western world. His most recent writing is titled The Inner Kingdom, if you’re interested.