In English

Charles Williams, one of C.S. Lewis’ circle of friends, once wrote a book entitled, The Descent into Hell. In it he chronicles the slow inexorable damnation of a soul. Choices made or not made – a chronicle more of spiritual ennui than of willful rebellion – it is a very sobering novel. There is an understanding of hell that goes far beyond the typical lake of fire and burning Gehenna. Those images, though Biblical, frequently do not speak to the full existential character of hell. Thus it becomes something of a commonplace in our time to think of hell much like heaven – just one of the alternatives we face in life after death. Neither are considered alternatives within the present ...

Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989). One of the most enigmatic and contradictory personalities of the last century, the writer, Bruce Chatwin, came to have a close relationship with the truth of Orthodoxy, mainly through the attraction he experienced towards the life of the monks of the Holy Mountain. A constant traveller, a nomad student of nomads, he found in Eastern Christianity many of the answers to issues which troubled him throughout his life, and especially in its last stages when he  suffered from AIDS.   Bruce Chatwin (l.), Fr. Luke Majoros (c.) and Fr. Mitrofan (r.), both from Hilandar.  He was born and grew up in Sheffield. He was educated at Marlborough and when he left took a job at Sotheby’s. It was here that he ...

The “Milk-Giver” of the Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos Today’s icon dates as far back as the 6th century, residing in the monastic community of St. Sava (or Sabbas) in Jerusalem. Shortly before his death, the saint prophesied that a royal visitor bearing his name would visit the lavra. The Saint instructed his brothers to give the visitor the icon of “The Milk-Giver” and St. Savas’ personal staff. It took 700 years, but a Serbian prince named Rastko Nemanjić, who had taken the monastic name of Sava arrived at the lavra. Coming to venerate the relics of the elder Sava, the saint’s staff fell at the younger Sava’s feet. Learning of the young pilgrim’s name and remembering the centuries’ old prophecy, ...

Warring against people isn’t that easy for the demons. In the course of the battle, they feel sorrow and unease, particularly when faced by stronger opponents, that is the saints and perfect Christians. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about a battle between us and the demons, but about our rout and extermination. Since they’d totally wipe us out without effort or any danger to themselves. So there’s tension on both sides, then. For both sides, defeat’s painful and causes consternation, whereas victory brings joy. So if they sometimes get the better of us, it’s also possible for us to pay them back.

One of the highest and unrivaled of the divine attributes, or powers, or energies, is justice. God provides His creatures with justice according to their needs for their orderly performance and formation. God sustains and holds the universe in two ways. The first is His creative force: “He said and they came to be, He commanded and they were built”. The second way is His maintaining power and His providence which hold the universe together and “promote” it in accordance with the purpose of each being. Therefore, the divine justice administers the necessary providence to each being so that it succeeds in the purpose for which it was created. In this way nature is held in equilibrium. Every time this equilibrium becomes ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky “God will save the World Through Beauty” This saying, often attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, never occurs in precisely this form in his novels – though the idea is present in such a strong sense that the phrase is correctly attributed to him. It is a phrase that is easily misunderstood. For Dostoevsky, in good Orthodox fashion, beauty is far more than a matter of aesthetics – it is the very goodness of creation itself. However (and this is the great writer’s genius), Dostoevsky sees beauty in strangely contradictory forms. The beauty that Dostoevsky sees as potientially salvific is itself a great mystery. In a very powerful paragraph in the Brothers Karamazov, the Brother, Dmitri, states the problem very clearly. Drawing ...

The age we live in is full of contradictions. On the one hand, people are stubbornly indifferent towards their relationship with God, but on the other, references to superstitions, zodiac charts and para-religious phenomena abound. You’ve got people who consider those who start their day with prayer or the sign of the Cross to be bizarre, yet they themselves will spit three times if they see a black cat on the street•. This mechanistic way of seeing things which are, in fact, metaphysical has unfortunately affected even those people who wish to have a relationship with the Church. One such instance is the belief on the part of some people that the spiritual life is exhausted merely by fulfilling a vow ...

Archbishop Anastasios of Albania A. What are the basic principles that would be acceptable to representatives of different religions? 1. To begin with, I do not think that there is just one view. Today, there are 19 religions in existence, and these are divided into 240 branches. At the same times, there are conflicts within their ranks between those who are attached to the letter of tradition and those who are seeking new openings onto the modern world. Wherever the various religions have held sway, they have influenced human life as a whole and to a great extent. And it is to be expected that they would be associated, directly or indirectly, with all facets of the various values we hold- the ...

The Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, which is celebrated within the service which we call the Divine Liturgy, is the most important and perfect event of worship among Christians. For those who’ve been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, the importance and value of this sacrament is beyond price. If we participate in the Divine Eucharist with awareness, this unites us to Christ; in other words, it makes us Godlike. It changes our existence from earthly to heavenly. It brings us into the beauty and glory of the Kingdom of God. The Divine Liturgy brings Paradise into our lives. The transmission and meaning of the Sacrament The Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist was handed down to us by Christ Himself on ...

When you want to start some good work or other, first prepare yourself for the temptations you’ll be facing. Because it’s a habit of the enemy, when he sees people beginning a good task with fervent faith, to hinder them with various terrible temptations, in order to frighten them and distance them from their good intentions.

Rev. Patrick H. Reardon The purpose of these remarks is to inquire what sort of guidance theology may give us with respect to choosing a philosophy. More specifically, I want to take the highest knowledge available to man, the knowledge of God, as a starting point for investigating how the human mind should go about pursuing other and lower forms of knowledge. It is probably best that I declare that my approach to this inquiry will be entirely apophatic. I entertain no serious hope that theology will tell us which brand of philosophy is best. I will be content, rather, if we can discover, on theological grounds, those kinds of philosophy we Christians would do well to avoid. And I do this ...

We appeal to God for the healing of our souls and bodies only as a last resort. God’s healing is always a miraculous act, and we are afraid of facing the manifestation of the almighty power of God. Although the healing we receive from God is a gift, we also know that its implications are many and everlasting. There is a price tag on divine healing, and the price is a complete change of life. It is indeed a serious price – for change does not come easily. For this reason, divine healing can only take place when it is really wanted. It also requires a total submission and a full commitment to the relationship of faith with God’s divine power. In ...

Do Something With Your Life As Christians, we are called to go into the world a little more sensitive, a little more different than when we arrive on this planet at conception. We are called to eternal life in the Kingdom of God with Jesus Christ and to lead others to that same destination. If that hasn’t been accomplished then the main objective of our lives has not been realized and is for not. In the Christian believer’s life there are no coincidences. Each of us is here not by chance, but by God’s Providence. We have been called to be blessed and to be a blessing to others. Yet, the flip side of this coin is that each of us is ...

I am not a Luddite. I am sitting in front of a computer screen, I have an iPhone in my pocket, and I watched the news this morning on the television. I enjoy a good film now and then, and I have been known to binge watch a favorite television show. I make a playlist for road trips, time at the gym, and even household chores. It is not an entirely rare occurrence for Presvytera to take my Nook out of my sleeping hands at night. Despite being a world away and living many centuries ago, I feel that Abba Isaac’s voice is eternally contemporary and has a great deal of relevance for the world in which we find ourselves. Concerning ...

Rev. Patrick H. Reardon We come now to God’s revelation to us in the Holy Spirit. For the purpose of this inquiry, it is neither possible nor necessary to examine this theme in all its amplitude, for Holy Scripture tells a good many things about the mission of the Holy Spirit. I propose, rather, to consider the mission under one aspect only. Namely—the Holy Spirit’s transformation of man’s knowledge, a theme developed in both the Pauline and Johannine sources of the New Testament. We may begin with St. Paul, who addresses this matter in the Epistle to the Romans, in a passage strikingly similar to the Galatians text that we have already seen: “For you did not receive the spirit of ...

In the end, there’s always a temptation before us.

Some Non-Orthodox Christians tend to read more into the Holy Bible than is really there; they want the Bible to be the perfect solution to all of life’s problems. On the other extreme are non-Christians who advocate the Bible is less than what the Church teaches; they continually look for faults in the Bible and disregard its precepts. To arrive at a more balanced view, what follows is an apophatic explanation of what the Bible is not according to the Traditional teachings of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy has a long apophatic theological tradition of describing what God is not so that we don’t foolishly limit God’s being and behavior into mere human conceptions. Likewise, the Holy Bible is not. . ...

God cannot be forced by anyone; neither does He impose His will on His creatures endowed with reasoning. Likewise the man with the gift of God does not want to impose power over any mortal, neither that his spirit be under the power of another. He imitates Christ Who overcame the world through His humble love and drew unto Him all who freely desire to follow Him. The freedom that the man born of the Spirit seeks is neither political nor social but spiritual and of the heart. The more he becomes sanctified, the more he becomes free. Holiness is not an ethical principle but is purely spiritual and ontological. The holy person is not someone who manages to have perfect ...