I say that fasting is of benefit to both soul and body. You have to keep the fasts, insofar as you can, with the permission of the doctor and the instructions of your spiritual guide. Everything should be done with discrimination and prayer. But especially, pray; fight the good fight. Because the devil goes about like a roaring lion.
“If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold new things have come.” We come to the Holy Gospel at last and to the Christian way of life! The fullness of time has come and God has sent forth His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. How everything has changed! No aspect of human life remains as it was before Christ came. Everything has died with Him, and everything has been raised and transfigured in Him. All for us has been redeemed, transformed, deified, elevated, and, in a word, made Christian. When Jesus came to earth He found us with lame limbs, weak and failing, and He perfected our bodies and restored them ...
Whosoever is a devout lover of God, let him enjoy this beautiful bright Festival. And whosoever is a grateful servant, let him joyously enter into the joy of his Lord. And if any be weary with fasting, let him now receive his reward. If any has toiled from the first hour, let him receive his just debt. If any came after the third, let him gratefully celebrate. If any arrived after the sixth, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. If any have delayed to the ninth, let him come without hesitation. If any arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay; for the Master is gracious and ...
Repentance is never-ending. By the grace of God we can perfect all the virtues. But no-one can perfect repentance, because we need it to our last breath, since we sin ‘in the blink of an eye’. So repentance remains unconquered.
The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender In order to evaluate Saint Basil’s contribution to the canonical tradition and spiritual conscience of the Orthodox Church, we have to consider the following presuppositions: First, the canonical writings of Saint Basil are pastoral works that deal primarily with transgressions and aim at restoring the fallen Christian into communion with the body of the Church. The ultimate goal of the legislator is the salvation of the persons committing the transgression and their discipline in such a way as to lead them to repentance while preventing others from entering similar situations. The penances were warning lessons for the whole Christian community and for society in general. The way that we ought ...
The death of Jesus was no mere appearance; he really died. His soul and body were truly rent asunder. “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice,” wrote Matthew, “and yielded up his spirit” (28:50). It is proper to say, moreover, that Jesus’ body and his soul went in different directions. Indeed, the Church marvels in this mystery. In a Troparion appointed during Bright Week we address the Savior: “In the tomb with the body, in Hades with the soul, in Paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, wast Thou, O boundless Christ filling all things.” The soul of Jesus departs, leaving his body—in Mark’s language—a “cadaver,” ptoma. Although Jesus’ soul is no longer present in his ...
Wise people seek calm, inactivity and leisure in order to steep themselves in quietude and think of God.
The years between 1976-1985 were declared by the United Nations to be the “Decade of the Rights of Women”. Within the framework of the related activities which were undertaken at the time, it was claimed, among other things, that religions bore the responsibility for the suppression of women’s rights. In response to this challenge, the Christian world, through the World Council of Churches, (WCC) promoted its own, world-wide decade of “Churches in Solidarity with Women” (1988-1998). But even before then, in its General Conferences and its various distinct activities, the WCC had involved itself with this particular problem. Indeed, between the years 1978-81 a programme of study was arranged, entitled “The Community of Women and Men in the Church”. The ...
Science and faith so often are pitted against one another. The polarization does not come from one direction or the other alone, but rather often from both sides. Many scientists claim that faith is simply a blind exercise in futility in which the "believer" seeks to impose some unintended meaning on his life, or to console herself with unprovable prayer. Most of these folks fail to recognize that science can never quantify or prove "love," for example. On the other hand, numbers of "faithful" claim that science is a sham, especially with regard to the heated debates about creation. Most of these folks fail to understand, for example, that Genesis 1-11 is neither textbook science nor textbook history, and therefore have very little, ...
Forty days of Great Lent having been completed, along with Holy Week, and the Great Feast of Feasts, Pascha, having been marked in the Church, it is very easy to take a deep breath and say, “Now, that’s done!” And with the exhalation we take our leave of a liturgical feast and return to our daily routine and schedule. Just as the modern world has little understanding of the meaning of fasting, so, too, does it fail to understand the meaning of liturgy. Liturgy is not a means of marking time on a calendar – liturgy is a means (and mode) of existence. Through baptism and chrismation we have entered into a new mode of existence. It is an existence of ...
In Abbas Dorotheos, Ascetic Works, Teaching XVI is An Interpretation of certain sayings of Saint Gregory sung in hymns at Easter. These hymns are no longer sung at Easter, since they have been superseded by the famous canon by Saint John the Damascene, though he may have used them for inspiration. Abbas Dorotheos seems to be basing his remarks on a tropario which was, indeed, sung at Easter when he was alive and elements of which are to be found in a homily preached by Saint Gregory on Easter day, 383 A.D. (S.C. vol. 92, p. 458). The tropario was published by S. Petrides in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 1904, 421-3). (WJL). 166. I’m very happy to say a few words to you ...
The most important thing is for you yourself to struggle, rather than prepare other people as to how to deal with disasters. It’s hard for people who would be hard put to turn to evil to guess at what it’s like.
We shall try here to point out the main features of the Orthodox icon which is entitled “The Descent into Hell”. The first thing to note is that it is entirely different from the Western-style depiction, which shows Christ emerging triumphantly from the tomb, holding a little flag. The astonished guards have fallen to the ground. The Western-style icon presents a scene that no-one ever saw. The moment of the Resurrection is a concealed secret. The Orthodox approach is entirely different. It depicts the results of the event of the Resurrection for people and for the world. Christ, in the centre, is wearing shining white garments and is within a mandorla. He is holding the hands of Adam and Eve and raising ...
a) The Cross leads to the Resurrection, Great Friday bears fruit on the bright Sunday of Easter. Sorrow, listlessness and despair make way for the joy and peace of the Resurrection. Without the Cross, the Resurrection is inconceivable and without the Resurrection the Cross has no point. It might be better to say that the Resurrection is concealed within the Cross. This is why orthodox Easter is both the Cross and the Resurrection. And we all take part, body and soul, in the great feast of faith and the encounter with the Risen Lord. Proceeding beside Him and being crucified with Him makes us participants in the divine light and brings us into real communion ...
In the Orthodox Church, the Resurrection is not merely the ‘feast of feasts’, but the all-embracing feast, which is the soul of all the others and is always present in them. In it we find all the divine and theanthropic powers of the Saviour, which crush every sin, every death, every devil. Unceasing Resurrection, that is continuous Resurrection, is precisely what the life of all Orthodox Christians in the Church of the Saviour is: it is my life, your life and that of each of us. What is the Orthodox Church? It is the risen Christ Who lives forever. So we who live in it continually overcome sin, death and the devil through the Risen Lord. In this way, we ...
“Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry aloud; neither shall any one hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles hope” (Matthew 12: 18-21) This prophecy summarizes the life of this “servant” whom God “chose” and in whom His “soul is well pleased.” He is the chosen vessel of His “Spirit,” His Word “to the nations” revealing His love and His will, the Icon per excellence of faithfulness to the ...
After our fall, we’ve become ill. And our sickness is in direct relationship to our sinfulness. And this sick person,, this sinful person, with so many mistakes, is the one whom Christ comes to take, to complete and to glorify.
This is an iconographical type , which represents Christ as a young child, recumbent on a cradle or cot, and symbolizes the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy in verses 9-12 of chapter 49 of the book of Genesis. In these, the patriarch Jacob pronounces the prophecy which has to do with the tribe of Judah, from which will come the Messiah, and in this way foretells His advent, passion and resurrection. Christ Anapeson. Fresco by Emmanuel Panselinos, 14th Century, Mount Athos According to this narrative, as Jacob was nearing the end of his life, in Egypt, where he had gone to find his lost son, Joseph, (Gen. 46, 28-34), he sensed that death was at hand and so he called his ...
There can hardly be any Christian believer who doesn’t know that an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the stone from the entry to the tomb where the Creator of life lay dead, without breath. Very few, however really know why the stone was rolled away. Most people confuse two things which are independent of each other: the Lord’s exit from the tomb and the rolling away of the stone. In other words, they think that the angel came down and rolled away the stone so that the Lord could emerge, that when He did so there was an earthquake which terrified the guards to such an extent that they ‘became as if dead’. This is not only what ...
Supporters of rough justice often quote Mosaic Law, which is concerned with retaliation, with ‘an eye for an eye’ (Ex. 21, 23-25; Levit. 24, 20-21; Deut. 19, 18-21). But what is the meaning of these particular ordinances? Do they really impose retaliation and revenge? To answer this question we need to examine the judicial system and the social environment at the time when these rules were formulated. The law of retaliation, (Jus talionis), which was well-known in antiquity, can be found in any number of the ordinances in the code of Hammurabi, such as the following: ‘If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his ...
