In English

St. Theophan St. Theophan tells us that freedom is part of the divine nature that God has implanted in human beings and that freedom is the gift that we have to offer back to God.  However, freedom itself is a faculty of our being that is not easy to identify.  Freedom is not the same thing as choice.  Much of what we generally identify as freedom is nothing more than a lack of constraint on our passion-driven, culturally-formed urges.  Freedom in our culture merely means that no one can tell me what to do--I am "free" to destroy myself in whatever ways my passions drive me and my culture tells me are trendy. And even when we are "free" to do ...

God gives His mercy abundantly. But it’s up to us, with our free will, whether we accept it or reject it, as well as whether we accept it whole-heartedly or hypocritically. Because on this earth, weeds grow so quickly, they put down deep roots and spread wildly.

1) Towards the end of August 2001, someone asked him to pray to Saint Nektarios to help him and the Elder said: -“Let the Saint be, my child. He is now in the United States and tries to save lives”. On September 11th, the disaster at the Twin Towers took place. Some months earlier he had seen what was going to happen and had warned that it was going to change history. -Wow to the States. A great disaster will start there and not just in September! He had given this warning to the Metropolitan of Sisaniou, Antony, in one of the latter’s visits, in the presence of other people. However, he did not give any explanation. - Your Eminence, wait and see what calamity ...

To mention just one of many examples, St. John Cassian, who lived in the 5th century A.D. and travelled to the monasteries of Egypt, the Thebaid, the Mountain of Nitria, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and Pontus, preserves conversations and experiences of the life of Christian ascesis which point to the activities of the unconscious in the development and progress of the spiritual life. According to the account preserved for us by St. John Cassian in a letter to Leontius, the main goal of the monks of the East, in their efforts at individual introspection and knowledge of the self, was to investigate and neutralize the unconscious. One time, St. John Cassian writes, he heard the Monk Germanos ask the experienced spiritual father ...

Ptocheia (Houses for the Poor) The Byzantines maintained a special institution for the poor named ptocheion or ptochotropheion. A man was designated as “poor” if his revenues and possessions were worth less than fifty nomismata. This legal distinction of the sixth century was in­corporated and maintained by Byzantine legislation of later cen­turies as well. Among other disadvantages the poor were for­bidden to stand as witnesses. We have no statistical evidence as to the proportion of the poor people in the Byzantine Empire to the rest of the popula­tion. John Chrysostom, in one of his sermons delivered in Antioch between 386 and 388  when the imperial government had im­posed an increase in taxation, estimated that the poor of Antioch amounted to one tenth ...

I grew up at the edge of Springfield, Illinois, across the street from open spaces, an active farm with cattle and corn growing in a field that adjoined the pasture. Beyond the farm was a forest, and another forest lay a few houses away from the north side of our house. After a few years the farm died but the fields remained, and the fields and forests were great places to explore and play in. I loved one tree in particular; its branches grew in a way that made it perfect for climbing. When I was nine or ten I would climb it nearly to the top, which was as high as the roofline of our house, and when storms ...

Doing away with our will can be achieved smoothly: by loving Christ and observing His commandments.

The greatest ecological disaster described in the Scriptures is the flood during Noah’s times; it took place because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6, 5). Man rebelled absolutely against God and against anything which had to do with his spiritual existence. Because of the prevailing wickedness those days, which was the result of man abusing his freedom, the Lord is forced to say: “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh” (Genesis 6, 3). By ‘flesh’ it is meant ‘man’s carnal attitude, his beastly and full of passions life’. Thus the flood was not imposed by the Lord ...

Recently, after finishing my meal at a Chinese restaurant, I received a very interesting fortune cookie that said, “You are surrounded by fortune hunters!” I don’t believe these fortune cookies tell any true fortune. I read them just for fun. When I first read mine, I thought the words were very amusing. “I am a priest,” I laughed to myself. What kind of “fortunes” can people seek around me in the places I go or the things that I do?” I am either at church performing public services or private services and prayers; or I am visiting the sick, the poor and the distressed. Since many people believe that going to church is a waste of time, they choose to do other ...

Any place can be a place of Resurrection, as long as you live in Christ’s humility.

1. If somebody isn’t thinking and says something that annoys you, don’t get upset. Ignore them. Never mind what they said. Is that a reason for you to burn? In cases like that, say nothing. Instead of saying ‘That mother-in-law of mine’ll be the death of me’, say, ‘That mother-in-law of mine’ll be the saving of me’. Let me not do anything bad. Let me not think badly of her when she’s my salvation’. The Scriptures say ‘defeat evil with good’.  Let’s not do bad things. Good people don’t do bad things when other people are bad or something unpleasant happens. 2. We should always see the good in people. Because if we see what’s not good, we’ll certainly see lots ...

The fall was the result of the inexperience and carelessness of God-created man. These made him neglect and practically betray his personal union and communion with God the Father, believing that he can prosper by himself. Therefore, the fall is regarded and is named as the detachment and withdrawal of each and every created being from the first cause of creation, i.e God. The universe, according to divine revelation, is that which has been caused and as such it is not self-existent, but it exists because it participates in the divine energy and providence. Therefore, if that which has been created is cut off from the cohesive force and energy of God, it is spoiled and dies. The defection of beings from ...

The holy martyr Saint Adrian and his wife, Saint Natalia, both came from Nicomedia. In the second period of the reign of Maximian (286-305), twenty-three Christian men who had been hiding in caves were arrested and subjected to a variety of tortures and abuse. Before they were put to death as martyrs, Adrian asked them: “My good people, why are you putting yourselves through these unbearable and vile punishments?”. They answered: “In order to win the good things God has prepared for those who suffer for Him, which, of course, are beyond the ears of people to hear and the human tongue to describe”< cf. “which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of ...

Photo by Tim Pierce There is a cliché floating around that people drop as if it were a self-evident truth-a category that may not exist, despite our Declaration of Independence. In anything involving religion, morals, medical ethics, or sexuality, whatever you choose to do is “between you and your God.” Euthanize comatose grandpa? This decision is between you and your God. (Grandpa’s God is presumably as out of it as grandpa is.) A woman’s decision to abort is between her and her God, and how a man chooses to worship, or whether to worship at all, is between him and his God. Here we are: back at polytheism. All these gods-mine, yours, hers, his, theirs-are the result of a combination of secularism ...

Sin is a great evil, because it produces unhealthy thoughts, befouls the soul, dissipates it, corrupts it and, in the end, impels it towards death. Just as illnesses weaken the body and kill it, this is what sins do to the soul. An ailing soul, burdened by passion, always gives in to it. It’s unable to rise again and turn to heaven and is too weak to face the light of truth.

Philantropia in Byzantium was not what we understand today as philanthropy and charity.  Nowadays philanthropy implies the prophylactic and therapeutic welfare, concern for the general public and charity so called directed toward alleviation of individual suffering. But in the thought and life of Byzantines philanthropy was: first, a philosophical and theological abstraction; second, a political attribute; third, charity directed to the individual in want; and fourth, philanthropy properly so called and expressed in organized institutions. If we were to ask a Byzantine what prompted him to believe in and apply philanthropia, he would have answered in the following terms, which formed the philanthropic philosophy of a monastery. Become not only merciful, as your Heavenly Father is merciful, but also just; for ...

First of all, Edwards' treatise seems to me to have more to do with John Locke, than it does with the view of the will found in the Bible. John Locke was a great thinker, but was essentially a theistic empiricist. His views on human psychology seek to apply the principles of physics to psychology — a move that is certainly open to question. For example, Locke said that ideas are either complex or simple. Complex ideas are formed from simple ideas — so for example, our idea of "Apple" is based on the linking of the simple ideas of sphere, red, sweet, etc. Thus a complex idea is like a compound formed from several more basic elements. The problem ...

People don’t understand the Scriptures; they find them almost incomprehensible. It’s only when they’re taught by the Holy Spirit that everything becomes clear and the soul feels it’s in heaven. Because the same Spirit is in heaven and on earth, in the Holy Scriptures and in the souls of those who love God. Without the Holy Spirit, people go astray and are unable to know God truly and to be comfortable with Him, even if they study all the time. Believe in the Gospel and in the testimony of the holy Church. Then even here on this earth, you’ll taste some measure of the bliss of Paradise. Truly the Kingdom of God is within us and His love grants Paradise ...

As a child, I remember thinking that church was so uninteresting. “Why is the priest repeating himself over and over again?, I would think to myself.  I was so bored by the repetition. Nothing changed in the service: the same words, the same motions, the same responses by the choir and the cantors each and every Sunday. In the car on the way to church, I would forecast it in my head. I could anticipate what would be said and done and how my boredom would follow. I can imagine that there are many other children in our churches who feel the same way, maybe even more so today because of the hurried growth of today's culture. They like to be ...