God wants everyone to be saved and we should be thinking about the salvation of everyone and should pray for them all. But neither revelation nor experience provide us with a basis for claiming that everyone will, in fact, be saved. Freedom is a great gift, but a terrible one.
A Hierarchical Great Vespers was held on Tuesday, October 17, 2017, at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Toronto for the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, presided by His Eminence Metropolitan Sotirios and assisted by 17 priests. His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew honoured 10 Greek-Canadian Orthodox Christians across Canada with the title of Archon. At the conclusion of Great Vespers, the Investiture Ceremony for the Archons was held. Three new Archons were invested: Nicholas Aroutzidis, Archon Kastrinsios; Frank Topos, Archon Maestor; and, Dimitri Soudas, Archon Depoutatos. The remaining Archons will be invested later in the year during similar Great Vespers and dinners in Montreal and Vancouver, respectively. After the Archon Investiture Ceremony, a dinner was held at the Metropolitan Centre next ...
Through patience, we arrive at humility and thereafter we enjoy God’s grace. Boldness towards God is acquired through a clear conscience and works of virtue.
When people of merit avoid political power, then it’s left to the undeserving to assume it. Naturally, Christians would prefer the implementation of civil power to be in the hands of people of the faith. In the early centuries, however, Christians didn’t seek secular office because they considered this to be inconsistent with their primary goal. The nature of a good Christian doesn’t necessarily mean success in the exercise of political power. The aim of civil authority is to regulate this present life, not that of the future. Saint Paul states that obedience to state authority has its limits. It’s understood as submission to the demands of the common weal. Everyone should submit to the higher authorities which exist, because these ...
The source of all wickedness is vainglory and love of pleasure. If you don’t hate those passions, you won’t be able to root out any of the other ones.
To live in an Orthodox manner means: a) I love God very much; b) I try not to sadden Him; c) through my life, I bear witness to Christ.
We feel sad, worried, exposed and afraid not only because of external events, but also because we ourselves have lost the centre of our lives. We’ve become subject to the temptations which Christ rejected in the desert: gluttony, vainglory and the desire for power. We’ve chased after easy money. We’ve sought to climb the social ladder. We’ve become imprudent investors. We’ve organized our lives around selfish aims, love of pleasure and popularity. Even if we consider ourselves believers and claim to acknowledge the virtues of the Gospels, we apply them only insofar as it suits our personal interests. Our relationship with God has become contractual. Even the Churches have become places for the pursuit of interests and ambitions, where shepherds ...
TORONTO—I recently attended a leadership workshop where a guest speaker spoke about the importance of listening, supporting her point by articulating that “God” gave us two ears, but only one mouth, so that we would listen more, and talk less. It was quite a surprise to hear that word, God, in such a setting, since He has been largely removed from the public square. Her reference reminded me of an article from July written by veteran columnist Susan Delacourt, in which she employs former U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s famous 1979 “crisis in confidence” speech as a framework for predicting the rise of the current White House occupant. Among the key points I took away from re-reading his speech—many of which Delacourt highlights—two ...
In accordance with His plan, God allows each person to be tested with various sorrows, so that it will be obvious who it is who loves Him.
People today, who are indifferent towards so many things, are also indifferent to matters of the faith. Naturally, some sociologists and anthropologists are not slow to interpret this phenomenon as ‘the end of faith’. And there are historians who analyze it as ‘a turn towards modernity’ which is typical of our times. But, as will become clear below, none of this is true, both because there have always been people, throughout the course of history, who have been indifferent to religious matters and also because if the souls of such people ever warm, they become fervent in the faith, to the point where they surpass, spiritually, many who have been in the Church for years. One of the causes of indifference ...
We must be people of grace, so that those who meet us find relief.
Paper delivered by Prof. Goutzioudis at the 3rd Hagiological Conference on the subject: ‘The Apostolic Fathers and their Era’, which was held in Smyrna and Ephesus (4-8 May 2017) The name of the Apostle Barnabas was linked to the authorship of the work in question by Clement the Alexandrian, Origen, Didymus, Hieronymus and other ecclesiastical writers. There are indications in the text that it can’t, in fact, have been composed by the apostle himself, and point more to the identity of a Gentile Christian with a good knowledge of Jewish tradition. The anonymous author must have been a teacher in the community to which the epistle is addressed*. Even very early on the attribution was viewed with suspicion and Eusebius is ...
The dogmatic boundaries of the Church The significance of the right faith for the existence of the Church God’s love knows no bounds, it’s without limits. As Saint Gregory of Nyssa puts it in his Dialogue on the soul and resurrection, the divine life is activated through love and God’s agapetic. Energy has no boundaries. The creation of the universe and, in particular, the human race, is an expression of God’s boundless love, as is the whole history of His dispensation, with its culmination in the incarnation of the Son and Word of God: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son so that all who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life (Jn. 3, ...
Listen to me, listen to me all you bad judges of other people’s sins. Because if it’s true- and it really is- that ‘For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged’ (Matth. 7, 2), then rest assured that we shall fall into the same sins, be they bodily or spiritual, for which we’ve condemned our neighbour. It can’t be otherwise.
We haven’t reached rock bottom yet, we’ve still got some way to go, but once we do then things will start to sort themselves out.
The saints are our friends and the friends of God, the people to whom we can always turn. On the one hand, to receive comfort and strength. On the other to receive models tried and tested by God for our everyday life, our everyday trial, since they’ve been tried and proved ‘like gold in the furnace’. Their life is not merely a moving narrative, but an indication of how we might live. So now we’ll bring their message into today’s bleak atmosphere. These days we’re experiencing the shock of a global crisis which is particularly and painfully felt on the economic level and which is continually deepening our insecurity, despair and the breakdown of social norms. But let’s see what crisis means. ...
When you feel a persistent weight or you’re tormented by lack of faith, you should know that the enemy has taken his seat in your heart and is making the most of your ignorance, weakness and instability in the faith. You must condemn your foolishness, blindness and lack of faith immediately. Then the Lord will have mercy on you, the weight in your heart will disappear and you’ll find peace.
You want to know the meaning of those seven phrases uttered by Christ on the cross. Aren’t they clear? The first one: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing’. (Luke 23, 34). With these words, Christ showed His mercy to His executioners, whose malice didn’t abate even when He was suffering on the cross. Besides this, the words He cried aloud from the top of the rock of Golgotha represent a proven but never well-understood truth: that those who do evil never know what they’re doing. By killing the Righteous One, in reality they’re killing themselves and, at the same time, are actually glorifying Him. As they’re trampling all over God’s law, they don’t see the millstone which is ...
The Lord’s uncreated divine grace acts as a mother to us and doesn’t only preserve us from all ills, but also comforts our spirit with the sweetness of its presence. And it inspires us with courage to undertake renewed defence and attack. In sufferings and in trials in general, our spirit is expanded and our spiritual knowledge increased. ‘In my sorrow you saved me, bringing relief to my soul’ (Ps. 4, 1).
‘The point is this: those who sow sparingly will also reap sparingly, and those who sow bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written, “He dispenses; he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever”. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every ...
