In English

If we’re to feel  pride in the magnitude of our love, let us leave here to go home in the same good order as befits those who have assembled to honour such a martyr. Because, unless we do, then not only have we not benefitted from the occasion, but we’ve actually crushed a great danger to our bosoms. I know that you are clear of such notions, but that’s not enough in your defence; we have to bring our erring bothers and sisters back to full order and a fitting life-style. Have you honoured the martyr with your presence? Honour her also by correcting your own members. If you see laughter, a strutting gait, and improper appearance, go up to these ...

According to Fr. Alexander Schmemann , the sanctity of the saints is no more than the discovery and implementation of the holiness which each of us received on the day of our baptism and which we’ve all been called upon to increase. The vision and aim of every Christian who loves God should be to achieve sanctity. This was the goal, the desire, which gave meaning to the life of the first Christians, who had a different outlook from our own. Nowadays, to justify any failing on our part we say: ‘Well, I’m no saint!’ and probably mean that we don’t much care, either. But Scripture calls upon us to be precisely that: ‘Become holy as I am holy’ (I Pet. ...

The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender The first commandment which was given to Adam and Eve is the original indication of the role of divine law in human life. “God gave them the commandment in order for them to be perfected gradually and, with time, to attain to immortality and theosis.” Theosis is the condition in which man is a partaker of the Grace of God through his cooperation with God’s Will and is completed in absolute freedom. Theosis is the aim of Christian life and sin interrupts its way. Detail from The Baptism of Jesus fresco, by hand of John Popa, Romania Throughout patristic theology and the canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church, sin is addressed ...

When a person’s at death’s door, the devil unleashes a great assault, in order to cast them into despair, in other words, to stop them from believing they’ll be saved through God’s mercy.

Every year after Pascha, the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox clergy of the Greater Toronto Area have an annual meeting at the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada). The day begins with an Eastern Orthodox Paschal service attended by all clergy, followed by a keynote address. A discussion about the keynote address follows, along with a luncheon, and a final discussion on various topics. This year's keynote speaker was Fr. Maximus Rizkalla of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Fr. Rizkalla spoke on, "Helping our Orthodox youth deal with marijuana legalization and sex." The introduction of Fr. Maximus was excellent. He presented all the dangers that Orthodox youth face regarding these two items, especially sex education in schools, which begins in Grade 1 and does not ...

USS John C Stennis next to USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor There were two deaths in my world this week, one a beautiful elderly man who attended my church, the other a beautiful young woman who was the friend of my godbrother. During the homily this morning, our priest talked about how often in modern American culture, people shrink from death or try to make it smaller by disrespecting it. Many people, he said, replace the traditional funeral with a life celebration or some other form of memorial that feels more like a reunion and less like the commemoration of an actual, permanent death. This month in Navy Times, I read an article about the remains of a soldier who died in ...

Just think what a great thing it would have been for the judge to be sitting on his bench, the executioners at the ready, the torture chambers prepared, the crowd gathered, the soldiers waiting and all of them drunk with pleasure in the hope of seeing the prey. And then, the soldiers who’d gone to arrest her returning shamefacedly and relating the drama that had occurred. What shame and how much pain and mockery they naturally had inflicted on them by the unbelievers. How natural it was that they should leave with their heads bowed in shame, having learned through experience that their war was not against other people but against God. And of course, Joseph, when he was being ...

Really free people are true images of God, since they’re a moral image of Him. Their will is identical with that of God, which is written in their heart as the moral law and placed there as a desire for absolute good. They always think about what’s good, what’s pleasing to God and what’s perfect. Their desires are holy and their yearnings pure. Their heart loves God and their soul longs and yearns for Him.

Daniel and Nebouchodonosor “Then Nebouchodonosor was filled with anger, and the appearance of his face was distorted against Sedrach, Misah and Abdenago. And he said that the furnace should be stoked up sevenfold until it would be heated completely and told men, strong in strength, after they had bound Sedrach, Misah and Abdenago, to throw them in the fire... And they were walking around in the middle of the flames, singing hymns to God and blessing the Lord… But the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace… and shook the flame of the fire out of the furnace and made the inside of the furnace as though a moist breeze were whistling through. And the fire did not ...

Blessed be our God: because women, too, now mock death, and maidens laugh at it, as do virgins, and, indeed, very young girls who have not known marriage dance on the barbs of Hell without suffering in the least. All these good things have been granted to us because of Christ, Who was born of a Virgin. Because after those blessed, unbearable pangs and most frightful birth, the sinews of death were undone, the power of the devil was paralyzed, and not only among men any more, but even to women it became contemptible. And not only among women, but among maidens, too. Just as if an excellent shepherd who has caught a lion which was terrifying the sheep and ...

The great problem, the deep problem is the spiritual one. You see on the Internet, where everybody surfs and, unfortunately, people today spend so much time, so many hours surfing. And we see that they go and kill time with this ‘drug’. They don’t care about the reason why they’ve been created. What is this? I repeat and emphasize: it’s our glorification.

Grigorios Daravanoglou sings 'The Angel cried aloud ' in tone 1. %audio%

All-Merciful Saviour Monastery - Vashon Island, Washington “There is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting thereto.” William James 0 Ever since entering architecture school I have had a vague sense of dissatisfaction with most of modern architecture and modern art. Very little of it had or has any real coherence or continuity let alone harmony or innate beauty. Traditional or classical architecture and art were appealing, but have been dismissed as archaic and beneath the dignity of our modern industrial and hi-tech age of new materials, engineering advances, and technology. In time I learned to accept much of it, but the undefined dissatisfaction never entirely departed. Not until making a mature profession of faith did I even begin ...

The relationship is expressed in Christ’s words: ‘I do not seek my own will…’ (Jn. 5, 30). Herein also lies, in actual fact, the meaning behind why we follow the Holy Fathers: it is precisely the humble entrusting of ‘ourselves and others an all our life to Christ our God’. Because, just as God the Father doesn’t and cannot exist without the Son and the Holy Spirit, so we, as people, can’t exist without other people, the living without the dead, one generation without another, parents without children. The holy fathers who bear God and bear Christ manifest this universal ‘ontology’ of the Church in the best way possible and at the same time draw us into it: they awaken ...

The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender Although Christian marriage places spirituality at its center, the social dimension of matrimony was kept in the Byzantine era and Christians were under the civil law in all aspects of family life. Issues of betrothal were regulated by the civil courts as were issues of adultery. For a better understanding of the canons of the Church on marriage, one must not ignore the fact that the authority of ecclesiastical law on the issue of marriage never superseded civil law. The Church did not legislate on behalf of the state; instead, her role was to protect the ethical dimensions of the legislation of society and safeguard Christian teachings in their practical ...

Given the time and place where Christ spoke these words to her, Saint Mary Magdalene might be viewed as a symbol of those ‘Church’ people who, on a spiritual level, have enjoyed many heart-warming and fruitful encounters with the Lord in His Church, but who, in the course of their relations with Him, at some time lose both contact (Christ having been crucified and buried) and the religious interaction. They then see that they’ve gained nothing. As a result, they stumble between hope and desolation, though at the same time retaining, after a fashion, all the feelings of worship and devotion to Him Who is no longer to be seen. They continue to go to church, just as Mary Magdalene ...

And he said to them: ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here…’ (Mark 16,6). When Christ was born, the first to hear of it weren’t the great, the powerful and the rich, but the humble and poor shepherds abiding in the fields with their flocks in Bethlehem. Similarly, when Christ rose, having first destroyed the gates of Hell, the first to hear of it weren’t the distinguished, the officials and powerful, nor even the Lord’s own disciples. The message of the Lord’s Resurrection was first heard by women, those who had brought myrrh to His tomb. But why was this the case? Why should the Lord’s first appearance have been ...

Ignoring God is apostasy and separation from Him. And when people are separated from God, they’re separated from the love which is God. So they die. People really live ‘now and for ever and unto the ages of ages’ only when they’re united with God.

Before my conversion to Orthodoxy, if I thought of monasteries at all, my thoughts were dark, a little horrified by images from western history, badly researched movies, and general ignorance. As I began to study Orthodox theology, I struggled with my pragmatic, former-Swedenborgian sense that no human being has worth unless he or she is directly useful to the rest of us. A fascinated voyage through Kyriacos Markides’ The Mountain of Silence (Doubleday, 2001) fundamentally changed my understanding of monasteries. If I learned nothing else, I learned that Eastern and Western monasticism are not the same, and I learned that Orthodox monastics serve the world without living in its daily entanglements. But I remained a little wary of the whole idea. ...

According to the Jewish custom which was observed at the time of Christ, a dead body was to be anointed with precious myrrh, so that it would be prepared to be given over to the decay of death. Christ’s body was no exception to this practice, so a group of women, taking myrrh with them, visited the tomb to perform the duty of every devout Jew to a dead person. Normally, these honours were paid at the time of the burial and the tomb was then sealed. In the Lord’s case, the anointing didn’t occur at the burial, because any time to do so had already passed, because of the strict observance of the Sabbath, which had begun at the time ...