In English

Blessed Irene was born in Cappadocia, into the bosom of a rich and noble family, after the death of the iconoclast emperor Theofilos (842). When Theodora became regent, she searched the empire for a wife for her son, Michael III (842-867). The imperial envoys took note of the beauty and nobility of Irene and sent her to Constantinople together with her sister, who later married Caesar Vardas, the brother of Theodora. On the way, they went past Mount Olympus in Bithynia and Irene visited Saint Ioannikios the Great (4 November), who greeted her and told her she’d become the abbess of the Monastery of Chrysovalantis. Divine providence prevented her marriage to the emperor and, full of joy and with a light ...

Love every person indiscriminately. Never mind if they’re weak and sinful. Don’t think about the sin, but about where the person comes from, which is the image of God Himself. Don’t let the weaknesses of others bother you – their badness, pride, envy, voracity or gluttony. You’re not short of problems yourself. Basically, as regards our relationship to sin, we’re all the same.

This change in basic ethical reasoning can be seen in the routine screening of older women by a procedure called amniocentisis. This is done in order to "identify" Down’s Syndrome and other afflicted children in utero so that they might be destroyed before birth (there is a popular misconception that older women are more likely to give birth to Down’s Syndrome children, however recent studies done have refuted that belief). Large numbers of tests are being developed to screen children in the womb, the sole object being a wholesale "search and destroy" mission against any unborn child who proves to be less than "perfect." What parents are not told is that, most of these tests increase the danger of spontaneous ...

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, during his opening address at the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, quoted the preacher with the golden mouth, St. John Chrysostom: “For the term ‘church’ is defined as a system and synod.” Both the term ‘church’ and the system of synod have generated a great deal of discussion recently and regrettably some division as well. Archbishop Anastasios of Albania remarked in his opening statement that the “Heresy of our time is egocentrism.” Following the Inaugural Session, I spoke with a well-known delegate about the Archbishop’s statement, and on the self-centredness of many monomaniacal critics of the Council. One of his comments was especially insightful. He compared them to the pope, and argued that unlike the Roman pontiff who ...

People who don’t have love within themselves have been cut off and isolated from all that is best and spiritual.

This saint lived in the time of Emperor Antoninus, in the year 140, and came from a village of Old Rome. She was the daughter of Christians called Agathon and Politeia, who observed the commandments of the Lord scrupulously. They were childless and constantly besought the Lord to send them one. God, who fulfills the wishes of those who venerate Him, granted them a daughter, whom, at her Holy Baptism, they named Paraskevi, because she was born on Friday, the day of preparation. The child devoted herself to God from the time she was still in her mother’s arms. She was taught by her mother and encouraged by her. Once she had learned to read, she constantly studied the Scriptures and ...

His discourse was also theological. He never ignored dogma, never indulged in moralizing, empty verbiage or flights of fancy. He spoke well, was comprehensible, and used theology, not as a system of knowledge, but as the essence of life, which imbues the whole of human existence. The centre of his theology was the Bible, which he knew in depth. His sermons were, at bottom, Biblical and he recommended that his ‘children’ read the Scriptures, and, indeed, he set a chapter of the New Testament to be read every day, by all of them. He immersed himself in the Scriptures, engaging with the text and enjoying the interpretational footnotes, both Patristic and modern. We would often speak at length on the telephone ...

The life of a monk should be such that he should gradually become an angel on earth and a man in heaven.

Monastery of Grigoriou Spouts and water from the mountain, occasional springs here and there. Faucets and water at the entrance to the monasteries, cooling passers-by and visitors alike. Streams with refreshing, crystalline water, their sources in the ravines and, higher up, in the untrodden gorges or at the root of some oak tree seen only by God. Water that flows down to the sea, water that kisses Athos. Holy water in the forests of pine on the way to Saint Ann’s. A spiritual spring of holy water. Every corner has a spring, overshadowed by a broad-leafed plane tree or crisscrossed with ivy. Refreshing moments when you quench your thirst, bodily and spiritually.  Under the dense foliage the weather takes a ...

Sleep. It’s enough that you’re vigilant. Some people are vigilant for a few, others are vigilant for everybody

People are born with a dual nature: they are both material and spiritual. With the dust of the earth, God made our body and He gave life to this body by breathing into it the soul. The soul and body are indissolubly united. Neither is superior to the other; neither is opposed to the other. To the body has been assigned the precious role of being the temple of the soul, not its place of confinement, as in non-Christian philosophy. The soul has been given to us as being bodiless, rational and immortal. Body and soul have been fashioned by the Creator to co-exist and collaborate in absolute harmony. In this way, the aim of human existence will be fulfilled, ...

In the year 1628 the holy martyr Athanasios, a Greek by birth, the son of a çavuş who had converted to Islam, was martyred for his faith in Christ, with the collaboration of his father, who had urged him to convert from faith in Christ. From an early age, when he was twelve years old, this holy and blessed man abandoned his parents and the Mohammedan faith and fled to the Holy Mountain, where he became a monk in the monastery of Iviron. When he’d been in the monastery for eight years, he went to the khan to ask him if there could be a return to the Christian faith for his mother and father, who was a harsh, ...

Don’t accept bad ideas and you won’t be forced to sink into evil and its works. Because if you don’t sin in your mind then you won’t sin in deeds either. When you fall into various temptations, think of it as a great joy.