The struggle is relentless and continuous, external and internal. Sometimes, the enemy acts visibly, through people and things, and at others he attacks people invisibly, through their thoughts. On occasion, he’ll appear openly, with a violent and merciless attack, like an enemy, but at others he’ll be disguised as a friend, who flatters and leads you astray with his cunning. » Saint Nicholas Velimirovich
Someone once went to Elder Iosif the Cave-Dweller- may we have his blessing- a man who came from his home town. When he got there, the Elder asked him about all the old people there. You know, the way you do if somebody comes from home. How’s so-and so? How’s old what’s his name doing? That sort of thing. That’s what Elder Iosif asked. A great striver. And a man who loved his home town. Eventually they got to someone and he asked: ‘How’s he doing?’ The pilgrim shuffled uneasily. ‘He died without confession, Elder. And he’s left us very worried about him’. The Elder then pierced him with a penetrating look and said: ‘Brother, you’re wrong. Kostas confessed’. ‘How did he?’ ‘Before he departed he ...
The supposedly ‘pious’ parents, whose concern was to make their children into ‘good Christians’, oppressed them through their human love and achieved the opposite to what they wanted. Children are pressed when they’re little and then, when they become sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, they go off in a different direction. » Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (verse 20) What we hear today in the Apostolic Reading, is an address by the Apostle Paul to the Galatian Christians. Galatia was a Province of the Roman Empire located in the center of Asia Minor, with Ankara as its capital. The Apostle Paul, during his Apostolic Journey, preached the Gospel there and founded Christian Churches. Shortly after, false teachers began to work in the area. They were fanatical Judaizers, teaching the Christians that in order to be saved, they had to be circumcised and obey the provisions of Jewish Law. They also declared that people should not accept what Paul teaches, because he was not one of the original ...
When people see everything with good thoughts, they’re cleansed and given Grace by God. With bad thoughts, you condemn and wrong others, you prevent the Grace of God coming and the devil has high hopes of leading you astray. » Venerable Païsios the Athonite
The second month of the Church’s year is linked to the celebration of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod. This was a synod which was accompanied by one of the most violent interventions by the State in the internal affairs of the Church. The iconoclast dispute was the last Christological quarrel* and threatened not only the dogmatic but also the territorial cohesion of the Empire, both in the East and in the West. The Synod was called in Nicaea, Bithynia, in 787, with the aim of putting an end to the conflict by dogmatically establishing the honour to be paid to the holy icons. At the same time as this was happening, the Byzantines in the West were facing sustained diplomatic and ...
Every prayer of the Church assists with the purification of the heart. But especially the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, sinner that I am’. This prayer, which has been passed down over the centuries on the Holy Mountain has the following advantage: since it’s only a sentence long, it allows us to concentrate our mind. In doing so, we help our mind to descend into the heart and we pray from there with no thought for any other thing or concept, evil or good, but God alone. » Blessed Georgios Kapsanis, Proegumen of Gregoriou Monastery
‘Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near’ (Lk. 12, 33) ‘Avarice is the root of all evils’ (I Tim. 6, 10) Of all the sicknesses that befall the human soul, the most repulsive, in my view is avarice, or miserliness. I’ve abhorred it since I was a child. And now, although my opinion on many things has changed with age, I still feel the same about people being tight-fisted. I’d rather have dealings with a murderer than with a miser. Because a murderer might have killed in the heat of the moment, in anger, and then have repented afterwards, but a miser’s an ice-cold calculator, rotten to ...
Bibikhin’s positions in the energy problem are close in many points to the positions by Heidegger (he was the translator of Heidegger’s principal works in Russian, and his general philosophical standpoints were also close to Heideggerian ones). Heidegger did not discuss Palamas’ teaching; but the very scale of his thought as well as his fundamental studies in the energy problem embracing all its historical stages prescribe the horizon and level for the contemporary vision of the problem and make it necessary to take them into account. First of all, as mentioned above, Heidegger states that the energy problem is of key importance for ontology and for philosophy as such; cf., e.g.: “For Aristotle the question about dynamis and energeia is ...
Don’t foster sorrows in your heart because the joy of the evil one is sorrow and despondency, which beget many things which fill the soul with bitterness. >Blessed Joseph the Hesychast
From Homily XIII on the Gospel of Saint Matthew If you forgive your neighbours, before you free them of any burden, you release yourself from your sins, without any effort. And if you examine the sins of others with charity and leniency, by this judgement you store up a wealth of forgiveness for yourself. What then? Suppose somebody fornicates, should I not say that fornication’s bad, should I not correct someone who’s performing disgusting practices? Of course you should, but not as if they’re opponents, or enemies who deserve vengeance, but rather as a doctor who mixes medicines. We’re supposed to restrain those who sin, but not to judge them. In other words, you shouldn’t be a strict judge. And, as I’ve ...
As the image of God, people should be self-aware, free and in control of themselves, because if awareness is taken away from them, they become unfree and are ruled by others. They’re unworthy of their high calling, such a sublime destination which is what their divine Creator wanted for them. So personal freedom is a necessary consequence of our high mission of the training of our character and of our presence in the world. » Saint Nectarios of Pentapolis
Contemporary philosophy could say perhaps that in Orthodox theology, both in Meyendorff and Palamas himself, the principle of energy did not obtain sufficiently high status and central place. After the “forgetting of energy”, as if trying to compensate for it, modern thought, starting with Heidegger, represents energy as the fundamental principle of ontology, of equal significance and status with the principle of being. According to Heidegger, in Plato being is conceived as idea, and in Aristotle it is conceived as energy; in his early Marburg lectures of 1924 he writes already: “In Aristotle’s teaching on being, energy appears as, probably, the most fundamental characteristic of being”. However, in Orthodox energetism the situation is a bit different. Introducing the principle of ...
If you are purified from the passions, then you can leave your heart freely to its will. But the more active its passions are, if you leave your heart to its will, it’ll condemn itself to general instability and insecurity. » Saint Theophan the Recluse
God didn’t send us to earth so that we could live comfortably but for us to prepare for the eternal life that awaits us. Just think what a terrible tragedy it would be if our Maker and Creator couldn’t offer us anything better, more luminous and more protracted than this life on earth, which has the stench of decline and death and lasts less than the span of a raven! » Saint Nicholas Velimirovich
Contemporary man… should be more receptive to the basic positions of Byzantine thought, which may then acquire an astonishingly contemporary relevance. Fr. John Meyendorff Many ideas and positions propounded and maintained in the works of Father John Meyendorff are taken now by us as evident and well-known, as commonplaces. We must, however, make an effort to see them in the right way: before Meyendorff, they did not belong to commonplaces, and they have become universally recognized due to him. In cultural process the fate of commonplaces is unenviable. Although they are exploited permanently, they are never appreciated and are treated with no respect; and when one looks for something new and original, one chooses often the easy way of denying and ...
The Apostle Paul, after being freed from his first imprisonment in Rome, went to Crete with his valued companion, Titus. After a short period of apostolic activity, The Apostle Paul made Titus the Bishop of Crete to continue the work of evangelizing the people, and the Apostle himself once again continued his tour through Asia Minor and Greece. He found his way to Nikopolis (N.W. Greece), where he intended to spend the winter of 66-67 AD. It was here that he sent his Letter to Titus, where he invited Titus to meet him in Nikopolis. We heard the last part of this Letter today. As we know from his other 13 Epistles, the Apostle Paul was particularly concerned ...
The path of life is all pain and tears, all thorns and nails. Crosses spring up everywhere, there’s stress and sorrow all around. Every step’s a Gethsemane, every hill’s a Golgotha, every moment a spear. If we could squeeze the earth like a sponge, it would drip blood and tears. » Elder Ephraim of Arizona
You have to know and always remember that you’re a fallen person. And since you fell through your reason and your free will, you have to rise from your fall through the same weapons, illumined by the light of the Word of God and strengthened with the Grace of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus. » Saint John of Kronstadt
People who are humble are cognizant of their inner state and however bad it is, don’t lose their personality. They know they’re sinners and they mourn over it, but they don’t despair, they don’t exhaust themselves. Those who have holy humility don’t talk at all, in other words they don’t react. They allow others to rebuke them, to reproach them without getting angry and finding excuses. » Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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