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It seems as if every other year there is a new manifesto about how to be a better parent: tiger mothers, helicopter fathers and Facebook parents have all hit the shelves.  There is a constant race to do more with less. Enter the New Caledonian crow. When it comes to tool use, the crows inventiveness, complexity and sophistication stands well above the other tool using animals such as the bottle nose dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants and even the many armed octopi.  Using more than sticks, stones and shells, crows seem to have no issue with compound tools with laboratory videos displaying birds doing things which initially appear artificial.  The most famous example is a bird named Betty at Oxford University who selects a ...

Your attitude lights a fire within me. It’s as if you’re heaping coals on what’s within me.

One of the most wonderful stories in the Lavsaïko describes the life of a monk who abandoned his monastery and went to the port of Alexandria to work as a dock labourer. Given the fact that it was a port, there was no shortage of prostitutes. The ‘monk’ worked all day, and in the evening he spent all he’d earned, buying the company of a harlot for the whole night. He was the shame of all the Christians in the city and a scandal for the whole Church. Years passed and despite appeals and advice, he continued with his sinful way of life. Then death came, as it does to all of us, and released him, as if it were ...

The great teachers of the Church and of the Greek nation, Makarios Notaras, Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and Athanasios of Paros, who lived and worked in the 18th and early 19th centuries, form a new trinity of shining lights of the Church, like the three Fathers of the Church in the past, relatively speaking of course and bearing in mind the historical circumstances they lived through with their similarities and differences. To these three must be added Neophytos of Kafsokalyvia, who started the movement, although he was not as important or active as the other three would later become, thus earning their place in the Communion of Saints. They were nicknamed Kollyvades by their opponents on the Holy Mountain ...

One of the Elders said: Don’t judge any adulterer if you’re chaste. Then you’ll be breaking the law as he does. Because He who said: ‘Don’t commit adultery (Matth. 5, 27), also said: ‘Don’t judge’ (Matth. 7, 1).

The purpose of the Orthodox Artist in the world is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, whereby thousands around us will find salvation, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov said. Her mission is to turn water into wine. To take what seems ordinary, what seems plain, colorless and flavorless and by the grace of the Holy Spirit transform it into something bursting with flavor, beauty, richness and depth. It is the artist’s vocation to permeate the world with the fragrance of humility and mercy. After all St. Paul says that we are the fragrance of Christ. “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:15) The purpose ...

The evil one whispers to us not to believe. But not the least thing that the Lord said will fail to come to pass. There’s heaven and there’s hell. And we, the faithful, will be judged more severely.

A young shoot, wherever you put it, will turn the same way. A new receptacle will give off a sweet smell or will stink depending on whether you put something fragrant in it or filth.

Collected Writings on Orthodox Christianity: Various Aspects of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, George Alexander, OCP Publications: Kerala, India (Second Edition, June 2016). In this second edition of Collected Writings on Orthodox Christianity, editor and author George Alexander provides new content as good as the first. This compendium provides a panoply of approaches in contemporary Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox jurisdictions regarding church structure and pastoral life. The writers discuss topics as varied as Orthodoxy in Israel, Ethiopia, India, Armenia, Egypt, Syria, Kenya and the challenges that they face in the modern world. We are introduced to the ministry work of Orthodox missionaries in the far off regions of Asia and Africa as well as the “domestic mission fronts” of Great Britain ...

Since I’ve shared my journey as a young artist and glimpsed the beauty of encountering the Orthodox Faith, we can now approach “The Mystery Of Art”. This book was born out of the synergy of my artistic journey and my love for the Ancient Faith. God is the ultimate Artist and Poet. Being fashioned in His image means that we are also artists and poets, regardless of our vocation in life. We are artists in the way we love. We are poets in the way we pray. Everyone is an artist. We are cosmically bound to one another through a divine tapestry stretching across the ages. Each one of us has a unique part to play in the symphony of God’s ...

Almost thirty years ago Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered an address atHarvardUniversitythat still ranks as one of the most trenchant and inspired critiques of Western culture ever given. Although some of the political references are dated, two observations remain as true today as when they were first spoken. The first is that the philosophical materialism that shaped communism and led to the Gulags now operates in the Western world. The second is that mankind stands at an anthropological threshold. What is philosophical materialism? To use Solzhenitsyn’s definition, it is the belief that man has no touchstone other than himself: To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging and evaluating everything on earth . . . we have lost the concept of ...

The monastery’s like Noah’s ark.

Christ transforms death into sleep, into dormition. When people die, the soul is temporarily separated from the body. The body is given over to decay and returns to the dust of the earth from which it was created. From there, God will re-form and resurrect our bodies at the Second Coming and they’ll be united in harmony with the souls, of which they’ll be the eternal temple. After death, the soul lives in expectation of the final judgment of God concerning eternal rest or eternal hell. People, as persons, don’t just disappear, but, freed from the problems of mortal, earthly life, live real life, as a foretaste of their final condition. In the Orthodox faith, death is spiritual, not bodily. It’s ...

Propaganda Poster Recently I began what I hope will become a dialogue with a fundamentalist.  That is, I asked on-line for a free copy of the Quran, and in due time it arrived in the mail.  After a decent delay, the people who kindly supplied it to me emailed me to ask what I thought of it.  It was, of course, not so much an interested query as an attempt at conversion, but that was fair enough, and politely asked, and completely expected. In a similar spirit of brotherly conversation between two men of good will, I replied that I had read the Quran in its entirety, and had a couple of questions.  One was how in the surah “The Story” ...

Learn to suffer courageously the trials the Lord may allow to visit you. Don’t seek comfort from people in your sorrows, but take your comfort from God.

As I was growing up, I was living in a world that neither my mother nor father had a complete understanding or control of, particularly my mother who was an immigrant. Of course, my parents allowed me to participate in many of the same “American” luxuries that the other children in my school took pleasure in, such as skiing and camping. They let me sleep over friends' houses and have sleep overs. But every weekend, I was asked to leave my “American” world behind and enter into the world of my extended family and Romanian Orthodox community. Every Sunday, while my friends were often enjoying hiking excursions or visits to amusement parks, I was expected to attend church school and ...

I would like to briefly express what the Orthodox Church means to me, as one who has entered into it later in life. This of course, is impossible to articulate with words, because it is a mystery, but I will speak, like a child in awe. I am in awe at the Orthodox Church. It’s beauty, its grace. The mystical silence and stillness, which abides here. I am in awe at the purity of the Church’s teachings. The Lives of the Saints and Martyrs, the prayers and hymns of the Church, the Protection of the Panagia. The humility and sanctity of the Holy Mountain. The Icons and writings of the Fathers of the Church. The mercy of the Sacraments, the Christ-like ...

The purer and more powerful are the means that unite us to God, that is prayer and repentance, the more cunning and destructive the actions of the evil one become against these means.

The earliest title of the main Sunday service of the Christian Church is “the Eucharist”, from the Greek word eucharisteo, meaning, “to give thanks.” As early as about the middle of the second century, Justin the Philosopher (later known as “Justin Martyr”) wrote that the bread and wine which the Christians received sacramentally was “called among us ‘the Eucharist’, of which no one is allowed to partake but the ones who believe that the things which we teach are true” (Apology, chapter 66). The ritual service would also later be called “the Divine Liturgy,” and “the Mass.” The Lord Jesus commanded His disciples to perform this ritual on the night on which He was betrayed. Before noon the next day, He would ...