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Elder Ephraim of Arizona The Divine Liturgy, what a splendor indeed! Man has been honored by God in such a way that He Himself comes down to earth with His Angelic Orders every time there is a Liturgy, in order to nurture man with His Most Holy Body and His Most Precious Blood! For He has given us everything. Is there anything physical or spiritual, perishable or everlasting, that has not been offered to us? None! Is there anything superior to His Most Holy Body and Blood, which is given to us on a daily basis? There is certainly not. God has enabled man, who is full of soil and dirt, to serve the Divine Liturgy. So priceless is the ...

Don’t let your mind be idle and you won’t learn evil. Don’t look at the shortcomings of others, because otherwise, without realizing it, you’ll become a collaborator of the devil and you’ll make no progress in doing good.  Don’t, in your ignorance, work alongside the enemy of your soul. The more you cover up for other people, out of love, the more Grace protects you and guards you from the slanders of other people.

St. Athanasios the Great “Hey I’m in school... or I am working 50 hours a week... or I’m too old.... I can’t really be expected to keep any kind of fast can I?  Heard any of those before?  Me too... So are those legitimate excuses?  Maybe...because in Orthodoxy, no one forces you to fast.  It is truly a matter of your own heart before the Lord and what you are hoping to do with your spiritual life. Some of you readers may not be familiar with the Orthodox Faith or with our practice of fasting.  Jesus established fasting as a normal part of the life of those who would follow Him as He said:  “When you fast…” (Matthew 6:16-18).  He didn’t ...

When God made us, He gave us life and breathed His Spirit into us. That Spirit is love! When love deserts us, we become lifeless bodies. We’re dead then.

The devil’s managed to make himself disappear and to get people to use other names for him. They don’t accept that it’s the devil who’s behind egotism in people and who fosters it.

The prime feature of God is His simplicity. If God is not simple, but composed of different parts, then these parts must have existed before Him. Such a God would not be the Cause and Creator of all things, would not be a real God, the fons et origo of all things. Given that He is the origin of all things, He cannot be complex but must be simple. Moreover He is not merely simple but the ‘simplicity of the simplified and the unity of the unified’. Thus, without ever departing from His unconfused simplicity, He is completely present ‘unconfused and undivided in all things and in each of the creatures’. Saint Gregory Palamas says that God is not some ...

After the Thrice-Holy Hymn, we have the Readings: the Epistle, that is a portion of some Apostolic text (from the Acts of the Apostles or an Epistle by an Apostle) and the Gospel, that is an extract from one of the four Gospels. We stand while the Gospel is being read. The readings contain concepts which are not always easy to understand, which is why they’re followed by a sermon, that is a few words from the priest or another qualified person which help us to understand the will of God, His Word, and how we should apply this in our lives. The Liturgy of the Catechumens ends with the Litany of Fervent Supplication, that is a prayer first for the ...

If I benefit those who do me harm, this brings me peace. Because, in the end, everybody makes stumbling-blocks for us. With a word, a look, the way they walk, their joy, their sorrow, they interfere with our own progress. This is why it requires fear and trembling so as not to react to these stumbling-blocks which disturb the peace of our mind and heart, in case they become the cause of us being separated from God.

St Gregory Palamas  was one of the greatest patristic figures of the Church. In his teaching on the divination of man and his real participation in the uncreated energies of God, he expressed the essence of Orthodox spirituality, in contrast with the secularised theology of his age (14th century), which had taken shape under the influence of the Scholasticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Saint Gregory Palamas, fresco from Vatopedi Monastery, 1371 St Gregory Palamas was born in 1296 in Constantinople of devout parents. His father, Constantine, was a senator and was held in such high esteem by the Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus that the latter entrusted to him the education of his grandson, the future Emperor Andronicus II. When his father ...

It should be noted here that the Niptic Fathers, among whom were Saint Gregory Palamas and Saint Nikodimos the Athonite, used this last passage in Saint Basil in order to establish and interpret the cyclical method of the prayer of the heart. 2) Saint Basil goes on to say that another requirement is study of the Holy Scriptures. “The study of inspired Scripture is the principal way of finding our duty, because in Scripture we find both instruction about proper conduct and the lives of blessed people, transmitted in writing, like breathing images of godly living, so that we may imitate their good works. Thus, in whatever aspect people feel deficient, they can devote themselves to this imitation, and find the ...

Even though we’re in the season of winter, we had a fine day yesterday, with lots of sunshine. We felt the weather had taken a turn for the better, and then today it changed again and we’ve got turbulence. We can’t get out to do our work. We have to dig in until this situation passes, since we all know it’s temporary. This phenomenon of variations in the weather also occurs in our spiritual life. Changes and variations are a postlapsarian  phenomenon. After the fall, people unfortunately lost their personality and are now subject to alterations. Before the fall, they had the Grace of the Holy Spirit living with them. They lived in accordance with nature, they lived without needs ...

The light of true knowledge is to be able to tell the difference, without error, between good and evil. Then the path of virtue, leading the intellect to God, the Sun of Righteousness, brings it into the infinite light of knowledge, so that it now seeks love openly and boldly. So with vehemence, though not anger, we should snatch what’s right from those who dare to belittle it and trample on it. Because zeal for proper devotion fights and wins not through hatred but through rebuke.

Oἱ Βίοι. It is the conviction that most of the times it is useful to know the way of acting of some important men that has led to the writing of biographies. Biographies concern the comparative examination of two persons, like Βίοι Παράλληλοι of Plutarch, or only one person, for example Moses. Biographies have a historical character, because they include the events, the information and the characteristics of the persons they refer to, but at the same time, they also have an exemplary character through the positive or negative behaviour of persons and the way they act. Specifically the comparison between two works that concern the biography of one and only person should insist on finding out existing differences. In particular, this happens ...

‘A good word’ at the Polyeleos, in tone four, in a composition by Yeoryios Rysios, the priest, follows the usual order of the old Polyeleos in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods of settings, with Verses, a hymn to the Trinity and one to the Mother of God, with a kratema (‘terirem’). This is a modern composition from the 19th century which demonstrates the new trend in composition towards elaborate lines, in harmony with the urban and cosmopolitan environment of Constantinople. At a vigil, the choirs of Vatopaidi sing the hymn to the Trinity and to the Mother of God from the Polyeleos ‘A good word’ (Ps 44 ‘My heart is uttering a good word’) by Yeoryios Rysios, the priest († 1865). %audio%

John always draws these from Scripture, following his own recommendation: “A genuine teacher is he who has received from God the tablet of spiritual knowledge, inscribed by His Divine finger, that is, by the in-working of illumination, and who has no need of other books.” In other words, for John the genuine teacher is like a new Moses. This is actually how the monk Daniel describes John: He approached the mountain, he entered the innermost darkness and, mounting by spiritual steps, he received the divinely written law and divine vision; he opened his mouth for the word of God, and drew in the Spirit; then he poured forth a good word from the good treasure of his heart. Scholars remind us that the ...

When you want to advise people for their good, first give rest to their body and bring them relief with words of love.

Saint Basil the Great was the founder and organizer of coenobitic monasticism. His rules, and the reforms introduced by Saint Theodore the Studite, are still in place to this day. Of course, Saint Basil was not involved with monasticism in an amateur fashion. He was himself a monk and lived the monastic life for a good many years. Even from the time when he was studying in Athens, he planned to withdraw into the desert with his friend Saint Gregory the Theologian, when they had completed their studies. Later he was to regard the time he spent studying as a waste. He wrote in an epistle to Efstathios of Sevasteia: “I spent a great deal of time on futile efforts and ...

Many things are said and written about the great Cappodocian Father of the 4th century St. Basil the Great of Caesarea. In Basil the Great, we find the consummate theologian, liturgical scholar, ascetic and evangelist of the Faith. Too often, however, one more aspect of Basil is left overlooked and that is Basil as the first great Christian philanthropist. It is with this focus on Basil’s care, concern and heart for the poor, the underpriviledged, the sick, the unemployed, the homeless and disenfranchised that marks the level of profound theological reflection and insight that Basil exudes in his writings. St. Basil the Great’s Early Life Let us first, however, examine the context of the world in which Basil was born and matured ...