In English

I’ve left the husband to last because he shoulders more of the burdens and is called upon to serve the family. But even in this sense, he’s considered, in our tradition, to be the head of the wife. The responsibilities of the husband as father are incomparably greater for another important reason: the image which children have of their father is projected onto their spiritual father and in the end onto God himself. Any hostility or negative feelings created between children and their father in their childhood years can have disastrous consequences for their Christian life. In rejecting their father, they also reject God the Father. So the man, as husband and father, has greater responsibilities and obligations towards his wife, ...

The verb ‘to labor’ means to tire yourself out, to suffer. So ‘for those who labor’, means we pray for people who’re suffering. Not from serious illness, because we’ve already mentioned the sick. This was at the time when people labored hard in mines and quarries and so on. That’s who the Church is praying for: people who work extremely hard.

1.3. Late Antiquity A very different philosophical position on the origin of the soul was held by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) and his adherents, who believed in transplantation. For the materialist Epicurus, the newly-born child was merely a transplant of the soul of its parents, that is simply the fruit of their union, not a creation of God. Death, then, dissolves the soul, which is no more than a collection of molecules, and eradicates all human feeling. With this reasoning, we shouldn’t fear death, because we won’t feel it. Instead, we should enjoy the pleasures of life while we can. Epicurean philosophy is considered to be the foundation for later materialist and atheist approaches. Another typical current of thought in the philosophy of ...

It’s not people who tell the truth to your face, nor those who publish it abroad who are sincere and straightforward, but those who have love and real life and who speak with discretion when they need to and say the right thing at the right time.

In George Alexander’s “The Orthodox Dilemma” the reader is given a highly accessible overview of the history, current situation, and possible future of Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. Through personal vignettes and historical illustrations, the writer, himself Oriental Orthodox, seeks to explain and address how the Orthodox Churches have found themselves in their present circumstances. To those with a relatively undeveloped knowledge of Eastern Christianity, many examples that Alexander cites regarding these churches in both Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox expression may seem esoteric and obscure, but his central reason for writing the book is plain—to issue a plea for greater Pan-Orthodox unity of witness on a global platform. He begins by asserting that before any sort of coordinated form of Orthodox ...

You mustn’t treat lapses with indifference. Every time, after an outburst of passion, you should grieve, repent and confess to God what’s happened.

The times in which we live are distinguished by a rebellion, unprecedented in history, against any kind of authority or ‘guardianship’. All authority, religious or moral, social or familial is being called into question and is being shaken by a profound crisis. This general crisis also involves education, its values and its aims. Here, too, everything is being doubted, according to the well-known educator Paul Lagran, who said that one has the impression that humanity has severed its bonds and has embarked on an enormous adventure, though we can discern neither the ground on which it’s unfolding nor the aims it’s pursuing. Authority is a symbol of violence and coercion. ‘What’s an authority? What’s a God? Both are an image ...

Always, in the midst of difficulties, I find Christ more easily and my prayer is more fervent. You say you lose Him. I honestly don’t understand you. I must be a different kind of person.

I. Introduction: Understanding the Evil of Abortion Abortion is a kind of murder practiced throughout the world, usually without a sense of guilt. It has become a widely-accepted medical practice supported by numerous governments and non-governmental organizations. The number of unborn children killed in their mother’s womb across the world is more than the entire population of Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Canada, Romania, Poland, or Spain. It may even be equivalent to killing the entire population of France annually. Abortion has become particularly widespread in Eastern Europe, where the previous atheist-communist regimes brutally disrupted and dismantled Orthodox Christian culture and institutions. In Eastern Europe in the late 1990’s, there were close to 75 abortions per 1000 women in the age range from 15 ...

When the priest has laid the Precious Gifts on the altar, he, or the deacon, offers the Litany of Completion. The people reply ‘Grant this, Lord’, after each petition. He then says, in a low voice the Prayer of the Offertory, after which he goes out through the royal doors and says aloud: ‘Peace be with you all’. The peace of God is a gift from Him to those of us who have a pure life and who forgive other people. This peace cannot be taken away. Nothing can trouble it. And it’s a necessary before we can say ‘Let us love one another’, in peace and unity, all Christians, and can ‘confess the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity ...

Holy Scripture revives and refreshes souls which are despairing and fretting because of sorrows and worries.

My name’s Garyfallia and I was born with spina bifida, a rare deformity of the spinal membrane which almost always causes paralysis of the legs and/or arms and even learning problems, depending on how high up the spine the deformity is. Thank God I don’t have any paralysis, but from time to time it gives me pain in my waist, and I’ve had surgery. The doctors were always noncommittal about my future and about my becoming pregnant. A few months ago, I did, indeed, become pregnant and when a family friend who visits your monastery heard about it, he brought me back a ribbon and a some oil from the Holy Girdle. I wore the ribbon throughout my pregnancy, experienced ...

People exist, then, only to die. Despite this, the soul leaves the human body after death and is reincarnated in order to be punished for its sins. Only purified souls manage to escape to boundless and eternal bliss. The beliefs of other peoples in antiquity, such as the Babylonians and Egyptians were closer to the Homeric ideas. Babylonian civilization in particular believed that the dead remained completely motionless in the deep darkness of Hades, the only exceptions being the heroes who were in the ‘land of the blessed’. Similarly, the Egyptians believed that, after death, the soul didn’t return to the world but followed the body. This is why they built enormous tombs, the pyramids, and why they embalmed dead bodies: ...

Blessed are they who have the axle of Christ in their hearts and joyfully revolve around His holy name, praying continually, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me’.

Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople towards the middle of the ninth century, wrote a life of Saint Nicholas in which he declares that "up to the present the life of the distinguished shepherd has been unknown to the majority of the faithful." Nearly five hundred years had passed since the death of the good St. Nicholas, and Methodius' account, therefore, had to be based more on legend than actual fact. He is one of the greatest Church Fathers, a saint honored by both the Greeks and the Latins on the 6th of December. Nicholas was born in Asia Minor Asia near the city of Myra. The date of his birth is not known. Pious and inclined to silence, he was educated in ...

He had been extremely wealthy, but something went terribly wrong. After the collapse of his business, there remained not even enough to feed his family of three daughters. In his desperation—who can imagine such desperation?—he figured that his only recourse for grocery money was to sell the girls into prostitution. No where to turn. Nothing to eat. No option. Most of us could hardly imagine such desperation. Most reading this article have never involuntarily gone without a meal, much less a week’s worth. Many of us have never ‘needed’ anything. It is equally true that most of us have never met someone in these circumstances, or even know someone who knows someone who was. Indeed, most of us have never helped someone ...

When we have a good thought, it means that, within us there’s a good and supreme initial cause which is bringing our soul to sanctification. It’s clear from this that every good thing is, in a sense, hidden within us and that it’s a waste of time to try and put it into our hearts, since it’s already there.

Members of the OCN Board of Directors came together in the Fall of 2016 to tour the construction site of St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 destroyed St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, and affected the entire world. The St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center welcomes everyone, and will be a House of Prayer for all people. Filmmaker Mark Brodie, of MIB Mediaworks, an Emmy-winning news and documentary filmmaker who filmed Pistevo – I Believe , created this brief video of the tour for OCN to capture the moment. The OCN Board and staff would like to thank the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America for providing us this tour and ...