In English

Great Lent is the most holy and the most conservative time in the liturgical year. Among the ancient ritual customs during this period is the particular arrangement of the readings of extracts from books of the Old Testament. In the 7th century, such readings formed the structural basis for the first part of the Divine Liturgy, or the Liturgy of the Word as that part of the service was commonly known. Three extracts were read then, one from the Old Testament and two from the New, that is an Epistle and Gospel. From the 8th century, the Old Testament reading was moved to the Vespers service, because of monastic influence. The use of the Old Testament in modern Church worship is ...

Watch Fr Jonah’s from Taiwan sermon on the Veneration of the Holy Cross (3rd Sunday in Lent).

Meekness and patience have greater power than anger and stubbornness. You can’t put out a fire with fire, but with water. In the same way, anger isn’t conquered by anger, but by meekness and a great deal of patience. It’s better to put a stop to your irritation with a smile than to attack like a wild animal. » Elder Arsenie Boca (of Romania)

Our Orthodox faith, my beloved friends, is called ‘symbolic’, because it’s expressed in symbols. In other words, it’s expressed in simple signs, though these actually have profound significance and meaning. One of these signs, the most important and most sacred, is the Cross. We shouldn’t see the Cross merely as two bits of wood nailed together, one vertical and the other horizontal, but we should think about what happened on that configuration. As you all know very well, my Christian friends, one day, a Friday, on a hill, Golgotha, the incarnate Son of God was nailed to this shape by the lawless Jews and suffered a painful death. But this death of the Lord was redeeming. For those who believe, ...

People can’t know their weaknesses unless they fall into temptations of the body. Then they pray, are distraught and are humbled. » Saint Isaac the Syrian

The harder the struggle, the greater the victory. In the heavenly market-place, there aren’t any cheap wares. The moments of pain and sacrifice are moments of blessing. Beside every cross there’s a resurrection. So what if we’re now in pain and are crying ceaselessly? ‘For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,’ says Paul (II Cor. 4, 17). » Elder Ephraim of Arizona

The crows One time, when the same monk was busy elsewhere, a couple of crows came and ate all his pulses and everything else he had to eat. When the monk returned and saw the damage to his foodstuffs, he began, in his simplicity, to chide the saint, saying: ‘Since I’m being attacked by crows and you’re not protecting me, which other person are you, in fact, protecting and what am I doing staying here for you?’. When he’d finished he went off to do something else, and the crows came back, as usual, to eat. But they immediately went blind and were unable to leave. When the Elder returned and saw the wretched condition of the birds, flapping about aimlessly ...

Doubt is blasphemy against God. It’s insolence, a lie of the spirit of evil that nestles in your heart in place of the spirit of truth. Be as afraid of doubt as you would a poisonous snake, or, to put it better, don’t pay any attention to it at all. » Saint John of Kronstadt

What is the Precious Cross for Orthodox Christians? The Cross is the symbol of sacrifice, the ransom for the salvation of our soul, the guarantee of eternal life. However, apart from being a symbol of sacrifice, triumph and victory, it’s also a symbol of pain and anguish for each of us. Our life is interwoven with suffering and the Cross. Christ’s Cross is a sacrificial altar. On it, the Lamb of God was slain. It’s the means by which the devil was defeated, sin destroyed, and our spiritual freedom pledged. The Cross is the strength and glory of all the saints throughout the ages. The Cross is the cure of the passions, the exterminator of the demons. The Cross is deadly for ...

It’s better for you to suffer evil than to become the cause of evil. The sorrow of someone who’s suffering unjustly is preferable to the joy of someone who’s working with injustice. » Elder Arsenie Boca (of Romania)

In today’s Gospel, Christ wants to talk to us about the mystery of His passion and the cross. How, through the cross and death, He made human nature, which He had assumed, a sharer in eternal life. For this reason His death on the cross became a herald of life and immortality, not only for the human nature He Himself bore, but for the whole of the human race. The cross gives joy and incorruption to every human person. This progress towards the cross and death has become the sole path of salvation for us. If we’re to become sharers in ‘immortal life’, we have also to participate in the sufferings, the cross, the sacrifice of the Lord. We have to ...

All those who’ve been sanctified, and then those who’ve been saved, all those who’ve passed through the furnace of sorrows. Some though illness, some through the struggle against the passions and so on. That is, the whole catalogue of Godly sorrows. These have the right to eternal repose. » Elder Ephraim of Arizona

At the last part of his interview to Pemptousia, Nobuyuki-Gheoghe Nukina, Japanese karate fighter, is sending a message to Japanese people about orthodoxy.

Quite a number of parents simply want to be liked by their children. They think that because their children can have whatever they want, then why shouldn’t they? The parents prefer not to be at odds with the children and so they give in to them straight away, because they think that, by doing so, they’ll gain more ‘points’ in the child’s affections. If you choose to set boundaries for them, you’re running the risk of not always being popular, not always being liked by your children. However, being popular with your children, being liked by them, is not a good yardstick. Strange as it may sound, there are other parents who can’t even be bothered to set any boundaries at ...

One of the most powerful ploys of the devil is to debilitate the heart through sloth. In this way he weakens both our spiritual and bodily powers. In such cases, the heart is drained of faith, hope and love. We’re overcome with lack of faith, despair and insensitivity towards God and to others: ‘The salt has lost its taste’. » Saint John of Kronstadt

Watch fr Jonah’s from Taiwan sermon on the cure of the paralytic (Mark 2, 1-12).

Saint Justin (Popović) was born on March 25, 1894, the Feast of the Annunciation of the Mother of God, in the town of Vranje in Southern Serbia, to devout parents, Father Spiridon and Tashe (Anastasia). At his baptism, in the church of the Annunciation, he was given the name Blagoje (semantically linked in Slavonic to the word for ‘Annunciation’). The ‘evangelist’* Blagoje experienced and practiced his ascetic life in the great mystery of the Annunciation, the good news of the incarnation of the Lord, from 1894 until the Feast of the Annunciation 1979, when he entered into eternal life. His surname, Popović, means ‘son of a priest’ and indicates that his father’s family was traditionally linked to the clergy, having ...

Your hearts are young and want to love. So you should have only Christ in your heart. Your Bridegroom wishes you to love only Him. » Elder Amphilochios Makris of Patmos

The deaf man and another who was blind Some time later, two people were walking along the road, one of whom was deaf and was holding the hand of the other, who was blind. The blind man heard wonderful hymn-singing and joyful, melodic voices and said to the deaf man: ‘If only you could hear the melodic hymns that I can, brother. And I wish I could see the form of the wonderful singers’. The latter said he could just about hear, very faintly, some of the singing. They left the road and made their way to the place where the sound was coming from. As they were walking along, the ears of the deaf man opened completely and he could ...

They are truly blessed who seek virtue and practice it and examine carefully what it is. If you wish to be governed by God, don’t wish to sin. Because if you sin, how will you be governed by God? » Saint John of Damascus