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Let’s struggle with all the strength that God’s given us. Let’s entreat Him to agree to help us, so that we keep His commandments and that His will may be accomplished within us, by the coming of His kingdom, that is His Grace. May the All-Good Spirit visit us and thus restore the tripartite balance of our soul. Then we’ll be counted worthy to obtain not only the image but also the likeness, and to become children of God by grace. Photo by Spyros Drosos How does divine Grace visit us and dwell within us? First of all, God seeks pure and untainted faith. If you’ve got real faith, it’s not possible that you won’t have works, as well. As Saint ...

Bodbe Convent, where the relics of St. Nino, Equal to the Apostles and enlightener of Georgia lie, is situated in eastern Georgia (Kakheti), two kilometers south of the city of Sighnaghi, in a picturesque place, at the feet of the Great Caucasian Range. The convent has a miraculous view of the Alazani Valley and the snow-capped mountains of Caucasus. According to ancient literary sources, the convent was founded right after St. Nino’s earthly life, in the first part of the fourth century. St. Nino’s ancestral roots lead to Cappadocia. Her father Zabulon, a general of the Roman Emperor Maximian, introduced Christianity to ten fiefdoms of the Gallic lands. He was married to Sosanna, a sister of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Their only ...

There is more to Lent than fasting, and there is more to fasting than food. This principle lies at the heart of the Lenten Triodion, the main hymnbook of Lent. Lent is without doubt the richest and most distinctive season of the ecclesiastical year. The Lenten services, the spiritual lessons of the Triodion and the biblical readings for the season invite us to simplify our lives and to immerse ourselves in the ‘bright sadness’ of repentance. Written for the devout Christian, the Triodion is full of warnings against pride and hypocrisy – the ultimate spiritual sins to which religious folk are so susceptible. Orthodox Lent begins on ‘Clean Monday’, seven weeks before Pascha, when Orthodox Christians celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection. But ...

All the professions which we Christians practice are like nets. When we work for ourselves, we’re ordinary fishermen. But when we become Apostles, each in his or her profession, then we become fishers of people.

Many a time even the law of gravity was hardly noticeable, because everything was complemented and relieved by the grace of obedience and self-denial. We continually inhaled the fragrance of the resurrection and of eternity.

            “Grief in the Lord(or grief for the sake of the Lord- Πένθος κατα Θεόν) is the state in which the soul feels gloomy; it is the disposition of the aching heart, which does not cease fervently seeking that for which it feels thirst. The longer it takes for it to attain to this goal, the harder the heart struggles chasing after it and runs after it with painful lament”.( Saint John of the Ladder, 7th Word on On the joy-producing grief”)             Grief and  what follows from it, are the most valuable tools and spoils of repentance. Without them our repentance is doubtful. What other means or tools could the penitent show when he is called upon to appear at ...

3. But while the Lord, in this manner, is presented as a “sign gainsaid” and “is set for the fall and rising of many”, depending on the attitude of each person, it remains a reality beyond all doubt that each one of us, will have to take a stand, once and for all, either for or against Christ. A lot of people imagine that it is possible to adopt an indifferent attitude, neither giving the Christian faith a warm welcome nor being hostile towards it. This is self-deception. Because the Lord said that “those who are not with me are against me (Matth. 12, 30).  This so-called neutrality, which even in international affairs gives the impression of refusal and unwillingness ...

With the appearance of coenobitic monasticism and the foundation of the first great coenobia in Egypt by Saint Pakhomios, things became increasingly organized. The first coenobium- and this is of great symbolic importance- took the Greek name of “Κοινωνία”, i.e. “Community”. Everything was common: common work, common financial management, common liturgical life, common refectory, common instruction. Work was divided and specialized, with overseers responsible for its co-ordination. At the end of every year, there was a financial report and the monasteries with a surplus met the financial shortfalls of the monasteries with a deficit. The fundamental element however, was that the founder of this “Community”, Saint Pakhomios the Great, conceived and understood it with spiritual characteristics, as a visible expression ...

Our good God created us in His image and likeness. The image is common to all people, but only very few have the likeness. So let’s examine what the likeness is. The likeness is when we imitate God, as much as we can, as the Saints did. If people have only the image, not the likeness as well, it does them no good, even though they’re human persons and supposed to be rational. When they possess reason and still do stupid things, how can they be called rational? When they don’t imitate the Lord, insofar as this is possible, in humility, meekness, righteousness, charity, wisdom and purity, but instead engage in foolish and beastly works, how can you call people like ...

Don’t seek positions which bring honours and relaxation, but those which demand self-sacrifice, self-denial, and a spirit of love and humility.

February 3, Feast of Saint Werburga While it may be true that history doesn’t repeat itself, it is also true that human beings do. Each generation, each person, is born into the same spiritual state as the generations who have gone before. It’s true that a child will benefit from a loving environment, a good education and a proper formation in the faith, but that child’s children will not directly inherit any of this; the process needs to be started afresh. That said, similar circumstances will tend to produce similar results. The persecutions in the Late Roman Empire did not directly produce martyrs: the martyrs- ‘witnesses’- suffered because they felt obliged to testify for their faith. Had they not, had they ...

(Extract from a sermon preached at the University Church of Great St Mary's, Cambridge, on 19 May 1985) And then, lastly, two events which I would like to bring together. The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Crucifixion. Every male child first-born of a woman was to be brought to the Temple as an offering. If we read back into the Old Testament about the institution of the act we discover that God commanded the Hebrews to bring the first-born male children of every family to the temple as a blood offering, as a ransom for the first-born of Egypt, who had to die that the Jews might go free. Every first-born male child was therefore brought and God ...

With great emotion, Symeon the righteous holds the divine infant in his arms. His heart is inundated with joy. His gaze is fixed upon the heavens and his lips move devoutly, in the fervent prayer which has risen to his mouth at that blessed moment: “Lord, now you  are letting your servant depart…”. This thrice-blessed elder then turns to Our Most Holy Lady, to tell her words of great moment. With the air of a prophet illumined by the spirit of God revealing the will of the Most High, he says, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign gainsaid”. Truly prophetic words, which Our Lady hears, not merely with emotion ...

Through sin, we did not only set aside God’s commandment but also engendered within ourselves a false idea and notion about God. In reality, the false idea and notion about God are actually the very essence of satanic deceit. This is why our fall, became His ‘fall’: in the human conscience, God is no longer Who He really is. The human conscience, wallowing in the tyranny of our desires, can think only in a post-fall manner about any form of authority and control regarding everything within it and around it. Just as we tried to become God by violence, so now our centres of power, even religious ones, demand absolute authority and domination, and there’s no way round this. God can ...

At this point, the curtain of the Royal Doors is usually closed, and preparations are made for the Holy Communion of the priests and the faithful. While this is happening, the Communion Hymn is sung, which is often verses from certain psalms, but may also be other hymns or extracts from the prayers of preparation for Holy Communion. First the priest communes from the ΙΣ portion of the Body, and then the Blood, three times. The priest then gives Communion to the deacon and the other priests, if present, make their Communion in the same way, having first put on their stoles. The priest then places the other portions of the Body in the Holy Chalice and carefully gathers the ‘pearls’ (the ...

Good glory is the glory of virtue. It never grows old, it never fears treacherous actions, it remains solid, it isn’t taken away, it doesn’t fear loss. It always remains robust, it isn’t threatened by anyone and brightly accompanies a person right to the tomb, which it makes its immortal monument.

Already we’re in the second month of the New Year. And we begin with the feast of the Reception of Christ, on February 2. It’s a very great feast. Christ is received by a man for whom the expectation of this moment governed his life. He awaited Him and then received Him. Do we await him, though? Is our life an expectation of the coming of Christ? Symeon waited expectantly for Christ Who was the content and beauty of his life. We alas, have shifted the focus of our lives elsewhere. We have different priorities. How does someone ‘receive’ Christ? What are the necessary conditions for a meeting with Him? What do we expect from Him? First of all, our lives ...

This text is an abridgment of a sermon preached in 1626 by John Donne, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London. Although it was actually delivered on Christmas Day, it seems equally appropriate to the Presentation*, or indeed any manifestation (epiphany) of Christ’s presence. John Donne was a leading figure among the Metaphysical Poets (17th century), and the influence of their “conceits” of comparison is evident here. Thus he compares Symeon, the priest, with members of the Church as a “royal priesthood”; the qualities which Symeon brought to his calling with those we ought to take with us to our invitation to Holy Communion; and the reception of Christ by Symeon in the temple with our reception in church by Christ (“At ...

It’s worth noting that some people who are choleric, after a violent and extended fit of temper, become like velvet, meek and peaceable. Every passion, by itself, becomes both a torment and tormenter for the person who has it.