In English

At the turn of the year, it’s customary to take stock. We look back at what’s happened, the pleasant and the difficult, the beautiful and the ugly, in an effort to consign to oblivion whatever hurt us, and to hold dearly in our heart what has brought us ease and joy. The reckoning has to do with the events of the calendar year which has passed, in politics, in sport and the special moments of our life. The question is, how do we evaluate, in the end, what’s important to us and what isn’t. Are there events we can relive or is everything unique? The ancient philosopher Heraclitus said that you can’t step into the same river twice, because the moment ...

It’s of great value, but also our duty, for each of us to save a soul in our society, in the deep darkness of wickedness. Elder Gavriil, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of the Apostle Barnabas

Beloved brothers and sisters, Today is the beginning of the new civil year and we joyfully celebrate the divine Liturgy and the Doxology. All over the world, events have been organized with an array of fanciful actions in order to bring in the new year. However that may be, no one has even seen a year arriving from the east and the old year departing into the west. In fact, when the people who have been participating in these pleasing activities go back home, they do so with a certain bitterness and encounter pain, sorrow, despair and a tragic state of affairs. So what is this New Year, then? What does it mean that today is the start of the New ...

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1, 1-8) is from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel. ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it has been written in the prophets’…, etc. Thereafter the excerpt talks about John the Forerunner. He’s the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You see, in order to preach his Gospel, in order to reveal God’s will, in order to call people to believe in his Gospel, to believe in him, Christ himself prepared the way, prepared for the task. He did so through Saint John the Baptist- whom we also call the Forerunner- the great prophet who was sent from God before Christ to prepare the ground. It appears that what has ...

If a people or state are suffering, then everyone must repent and God will arrange everything for the best. Saint Silouan the Athonite

Apart from the external struggle that Christians face, there’s also the internal one: on the one hand, the fight against the former self and sin, which comes in many forms; and, on the other, against the forces of darkness of this age, that is the devil. So in this world there’s no cease-fire, not even for a moment. Elder Efraim Vatopaidinos

Modern people have been unable to organize their life in such a way as to have enough free time for prayer and spiritual contemplation of God. And the reason for this is the insatiable passion of acquisitiveness. The passion of greed is called idolatry by Saint Paul and ‘the daughter of unbelief’ by Saint John of the Ladder. Saint Sophrony, Essex

Love is a good disposition of the soul which makes us prefer  knowing God over all else. But it’s impossible to acquire this love on a stable basis if we have a passionate attachment to some earthly thing. Saint Maximos the Confessor

If you have worldly knowledge, you can’t perfectly acquire spiritual knowledge and really feel it unless you reject the worldly knowledge. Saint Isaac the Syrian

When you’re in a dilemma, when you have to do something or answer somebody, ask the Lord to yourself: ‘What do you want me to do now, Lord?’. The answer will come straight away and you can say it out loud. If you don’t do what your conscience tells you, you won’t feel right. Elder Amvrosios Lazaris

Practical repentance consists of the pain, the lamentation and the tears ‘over our former sins’, and the lamentation over the virtues and gifts which Jesus gave us as our inheritance and which belong to all of us. Elder Iosif Vatopaidinos

The cross is deadly for those who don’t transform their own personal cross into the Cross of Christ, that is those who moan against divine providence, curse it    and surrender to hopelessness and despair. Such people detach themselves from their cross only to descend in their souls to eternal death, to the darkness of Hades. Saint Sergei Romantsiov of the Monastery of Glinsk

Take all your cares to God. He provides for you. Don’t be feeble and don’t get upset. He who examines the hidden depths of our souls knows your own desires and has the power to fulfil them as he knows best. Just ask of God and don’t lose courage. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis

The moment comes for Holy Communion and you’re about to approach the altar. Believe firmly that Christ is present, the king of all. When you see the priest offering you the body and blood of the Lord, don’t think that it’s the priest doing so but believe rather that the hand outstretched is that of Christ. Saint John Chrysostom

The prayer eases the soul, makes it love everyone. Everybody seems good to the soul and nothing bothers it. Abbess Theosemni, Holy Monastery of Chrysopiyi, Hania, Crete

If we want to please God and, through faith, become his heirs, and be called his children, begotten by the Holy Spirit, we have to acquire, above all else forbearance and patience. We have to bear bravely the sorrows, the afflictions, and all the vicissitudes that find us. That is to say, we have to bear the bodily ills, all the different forms of suffering, the ridicule and the insults that befall us. Saint Efraim the Syrian

Stop concerning yourself with the sins of others.  Examine yourself and see if you’re living the way God wants you to. Because, in the Lord’s own words, many people ‘see the mote in the eye of their brother but do not feel the beam in their own’. So don’t judge externally, trying to find fault with others, or you’ll be like that arrogant Pharisee who justified himself and mocked the publican. Elder Cleopa Ilie

When people are ill, they face bodily weaknesses or they’re tried in a variety of ways. In the beginning, they can’t feel their heart burning with love for God. In sickness and trials, the heart suffers. Faith and love demand a healthy and calm heart. Saint John Kronstadtskij

In humanism, the aim of education is to humanize people. But the aim of a Christian training is different. The ‘archetype’ at which our educational progress aims is Christ, as God and human, and the deified person in Christ. Elder Efraim Vatopaidinos

What God wants is for us to do good to others, both in this life and the next. If he didn’t see this as the right thing, he wouldn’t have given us the right to remember the dead in the divine liturgy, nor to have memorial services on the third, ninth and fortieth days, and after a year, which is something which devout people most certainly do. In other words, if this were a travesty, without profit and benefit, surely one of the many earlier, God-bearing saints, patriarchs, fathers and teachers would have been enlightened to put a stop to the delusion. But none of them ever tried to abolish memorial services. On the contrary, in fact, they all approved, ...