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Monk Efraim Lavriotis carrying the icon of the Mother of God the Dread Protection (photo. Monk Païsios Karyotis) Emmanouïl Fotios Passalis, this kind, very simple, very humble man of God, was born in the village of Maritsa, Rhodes in 1926. While he was in the world , his spiritual father was the late Amfilohios Makris (†1970). He came to the Holy Mountain and went first to the skete of Kavsokalyvia, to the Elders Mihaïl (†1979) and Ierotheos (†1968). He came to the Monastery of the Great Lavra in 1957 and was tonsured a monk in 1958. He had great reverence for the founder of the Monastery, Saint Athanasios the Athonite. He was a willing and conscientious servant of the monastery ...

Within the Church, oikonomia is supposed to be applied with utmost care and with an eye toward the perfection to which we are called as followers of Christ. It is also (properly) invoked with the intent of making a bad situation better, not worse. However, this practice means that possibly and under certain circumstances there can be a departure from the seemingly unchangeable position of the Church on matters which include morality. And because we no longer live in a Christian culture and many things which in the past would have been considered crimes are now presented as acceptable and even preferable, the practice of oikonomia is fraught with moral and spiritual perils. Any deviation however slight from the moral ...

Peter was born in Bethsaida, close to Lake  Gennesaret, where, along with his brother Andrew, who also became an Apostle, they plied the trade of fisherman, together with two other Apostles, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. In all the Gospel records he is first mentioned as Simon, while in other books of the New Testament he’s called Simeon. He is also mentioned a good number of times as Simon Peter, and also as Cephas. Apostle Peter, byzantine icon, 15th Century It’s not clear in the New Testament exactly when Christ names him Simon Cephas, i.e. rock or stone. According to Matthew (16, 18), this naming occurred at the time of Peter’s confession to Philip in Caeasarea. According to Mark (3, ...

The wedding in Cana brings to mind the well-known image of the prophets in the Old Testament, especially Hosea, regarding the marriage between God and His people. The recognition on the part of Jesus’ that there was no more wine and her indirect appeal to Him echoes, in a sense, the state of the people of Israel. The potential of the old nation had been exhausted and so they turned to the Messiah, obviously seeking His intervention. He does, indeed, intervene and re-creates the people; He doesn’t exterminate the old. The wine doesn’t appear out of nowhere, but from pre-existing matter within the divine creation, from water. But the water is a clear reminder of the old order of things, ...

Confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Church. It’s the application of the Lord’s words to His disciples: ‘Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’. So this is the greatest benefaction of God to people, because it gives us the assurance and certainty that at the day of judgement all our confessed sins won’t exist. Unfortunately, however, lots of the faithful- mostly out of ignorance- undervalue this great sacrament or misinterpret it.  Since we know that when people decide to go to confession they’ll encounter a variety of impediments and temptations, we’d like to offer our meagre advice to help overcome the ...

It is essential for us to realise the link there is between Christ and the apostles. <...> If you read the Gospels you will see that the apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ were born and lived in the same area. Christ came to live in Nazareth as a child; the apostles lived all about the place of His abode. We know nothing about the early years of these men, but if we think that Cana of Galilee was less than 4 miles away from Nazareth, if we think that all the cities and all the villages in which Peter and Andrew, John and James and others lived were around the same place, we can imagine that they had met ...

The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church concerned itself with the matter of the canonical organization of the Orthodox Diaspora. Therefore, the respective documents were discussed concerning the Orthodox Diaspora and the Rules of Operation of Episcopal Assemblies in the Diaspora, which were submitted by the Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (Chambésy, 2009), and by the Synaxis of Primates of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches (January 21-28, 2016), approving them with some minor amendments as follows: It is affirmed that is the common will of all of the most holy Orthodox Churches that the problem of the Orthodox Diaspora be resolved as quickly as possible, and that it be organized in accordance with Orthodox ecclesiology, and the canonical tradition ...

To the Orthodox people and to all people of good will To God, "the Father of mercies and all comfort," we address a hymn of thanksgiving and praise for having enabled us to gather during the week of Pentecost (18-26 June 2016) on Crete, where the Apostle Paul and his disciple Titus preached the Gospel in the early years of the life of the Church. We give thanks to the Triune God who was well pleased that in one accord we should bring to a conclusion the work of the Holy and Great Council that was convoked by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch. Bartholomew by the common will of their Beatitudes the Primates of the local Orthodox Autocephalous Churches. Faithfully following the example ...

Fasting is a divine commandment (Gen 2:16-17). According to Basil the Great, fasting is as old as humanity itself; it was prescribed in paradise (On Fasting, 1, 3. PG 31, 168A). It is a great spiritual endeavor and the foremost expression of the Orthodox ascetic ideal. The Orthodox Church, in strict conformity with the apostolic precepts, the synodal canons, and the patristic tradition as a whole, has always proclaimed the great significance of fasting for our spiritual life and salvation. The annual liturgical cycle reflects the entire patristic teaching on fasting, the teaching on constant and unceasing watchfulness of the human person, and our participation in spiritual struggles. Accordingly, the Triodion praises fasting as grace that is full of light, ...

Each of us can come to a conclusion about God, depending on the measure of divine Grace we have. Because how can we think about and judge things that we’ve never seen or heard or know about? The Saints say that they’ve seen God. But there are other people who say that God doesn’t exist. It’s obvious that they talk like this because they don’t know Him. But this doesn’t at all mean that He therefore doesn’t exist. The Saints speak about things that they really have seen and know. They don’t say, for example, that they saw a horse a mile long, or a ship ten miles long, because such things don’t exist. And I think that, if God ...

The contribution of the Orthodox Church in realizing peace, justice, freedom, fraternity and love between peoples, and in the removal of racial and other discriminations. For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16). The Church of Christ exists in the world, but is not of the world (cf. Jn 17:11, 14-15). The Church as the Body of the incarnate Logos of God (John Chrysostom, Homily before Exile, 2 PG 52, 429) constitutes the living “presence” as the sign and image of the Kingdom of the Triune God in history, proclaims the good news of a new creation (II Cor 5:17), of new heavens and a ...

I. On Orthodox Marriage The institution of the family is threatened today by such phenomena as secularization and moral relativism. The Orthodox Church maintains, as her fundamental and indisputable teaching, that marriage is sacred. The freely entered union of man and woman is an indispensable precondition for marriage. In the Orthodox Church, marriage is considered to be the oldest institution of divine law because it was instituted simultaneously with the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings (Gen 2:23). Since its origin, this union not only implies the spiritual communion of a married couple—a man and a woman—but also assured the continuation of the human race. As such, the marriage of man and woman, which was blessed in ...

The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church concerned itself with the matter of Autonomy and the Means by Which it is Proclaimed.  Therefore, the respective document, which was submitted by the Fifth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (Chambésy, October 10-17, 2009) was discussed and was approved with some minor amendments as follows: The questions of the text examined by the Council addressed: a) the concept, nature, and various forms of the institution of autonomy; b) the prerequisites for a local Church to request autonomy from the autocephalous Church to which it belongs; c) the exclusive prerogative of an autocephalous Church to initiate and complete the process of granting autonomy to a certain segment of its canonical jurisdiction – autonomous Churches shall ...

The Orthodox Church, as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, in her profound ecclesiastical self-consciousness, believes unflinchingly that she occupies a central place in the matter of the promotion of Christian unity in the world today. The Orthodox Church founds the unity of the Church on the fact of her establishment by our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the communion in the Holy Trinity and in the sacraments. This unity is expressed through the apostolic succession and the patristic tradition and is lived out in the Church up to the present day. The Orthodox Church has the mission and duty to transmit and preach all the truth contained in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, which also bestows upon ...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit With a hymn of thanksgiving, we praise and worship God in Trinity, who has enabled us to gather together during the days of the feast of Pentecost here on the island of Crete, which has been sanctified by St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, and his disciple Titus, his “true son in the common faith” (Tit 1.4), and, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to conclude the sessions of this Holy and Great Council of our Orthodox Church – convened by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, by the common will of Their Beatitudes the Primates of the most holy Orthodox Churches – for the ...

SYNAXIS OF THE PRIMATES OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES  Chambésy, 21-28 January 2016 THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE AND ITS IMPEDIMENTS DECISION ** This document was not signed by the Patriarchates of Antioch and Georgia I. On Orthodox Marriage The institution of the family is threatened today by such phenomena as secularization and moral relativism. The Orthodox Church maintains, as her fundamental and indisputable teaching, that marriage is sacred. The free union of man and woman is an indispensable condition for marriage. In the Orthodox Church, marriage is considered to be the oldest institution of divine law because it was instituted simultaneously with the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings (Gen 2:23). Since its origin, this union not only implied the spiritual communion of ...