In English

He was born in Moscow in 1896 and his lay name was Sergei Symeonovich Sakharov. As he himself recalls, his first experience of the vision of the uncreated light occurred in his childhood. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Moscow. At one stage, his religious pursuits took him into non-Christian mysticism. His artistic ambitions led him to Italy, Germany and France. He found, however, that art neither fulfilled nor enlightened him. Elder Sophrony as a young monk. Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, Holy Mountain His return to the love of Christ resulted in a new, very powerful experience of the uncreated light at Easter of 1924, in Paris. While there he was influenced by his acquaintance with Fr. Sergei ...

On July 25, 1924, the future Elder Paisios (Eznepidis) was born to  pious parents in the town of Farasa, Cappadocia of Asia Minor. The family's spiritual father, the priest-monk Arsenios (the now canonized St. Arsenios of Cappadocia), baptized the babe with his own name, prophesying his future profession as a monk. A week after the baptism (and barely a month after his birth) Arsenios was driven, along with his family, out of Asia Minor by the Turks. St. Arsenios guided his flock along their four-hundred-mile trek to Greece. After a number of stops along the way, Arsenios' family finally ended up in the town of Konitsain Epiros (north-western Greece). St. Arsenios had reposed, as he had prophesied, forty days after ...

When they’d suffered many tortures and had shown endurance unto death, the holy martyrs became worthy of crowns and glory. The more cruel the tortures they underwent, the more glory and boldness they acquired before God. In the same way, and provided they were patient to the end and didn’t complain, souls that were subjected to great sorrows, (either from other people or from bodily diseases),  were also rewarded with the same crowns and glory as the martyrs.  And such people will not only enjoy all this in the future, from God, but even here they’ll be granted the consolation of the Holy Spirit. Since the path leading to heavenly life is, indeed, narrow and full of sorrows, and there ...

Elder Iosif Vatopaidinos made his renunciation at the age of 16, in the summer of 1937, at the Holy Monastery of Stavrovouni in Cyprus. The reason behind his doing so was the following event. He’d watched a film, a comedy, and afterwards felt a great vacuum in his life, a profound necrosis as regards everything transient. He was standing on a bit of a hill in the town of Paphos that evening, when suddenly, within an other-worldly, gladsome light, the comforting, form of the Lord, full of love and peace, appeared. Christ manifested Himself to Him and said: ‘Is this why I created people? People are immortal’. After this vision, he decided to abandon worldly things and become a monk. ...

Eventually, Elder Paissios got cancer and was taken into hospital in Thessaloniki. At the hospital, they looked after him as best they could. Nevertheless, his cancer spread so much that the end was very near. His departure for Heaven was a matter of time. He had been preparing himself for this journey all his life. Thus, for whatever time was left, he wished to stay at the monastery of St John the Apostle in Souroti. Mr. Christofer Oikonomou, now deceased, was near him and he describes in a letter geronta’s departure from the hospital. Today, Fr Paisios left the hospital. There were many people there. We were told that he would give his blessing in the reception. Lots of people, women, doctors, ...

Elder Paisios In the summer of 1975, I was blessed with going for the first time to the Garden of the Mother of God, Mount Athos (Agion Oros). I visited various age-long monasteries; I paid my respects to many of the priceless treasures of the Holy place, that is, holy remnants of martyrs and saints of our faith as well as holy icons. I participated in the daily all-night long masses which are concluded with the Divine Service early in the morning. I sat at the simple monastery table, where everything reminds you that you eat in order to survive and fight for your salvation and you do not live in order to eat, where the reading of the devout ...

As I mentioned in the recent article about the Elder, I was fortunate enough to translate his biography of Saint Arsenios. As a result of this, I met him on a number of occasions. Were I a more saintly person, I would no doubt have recognized more easily the sanctity within the Elder, but being a mere word-bodger and erstwhile teacher I noticed things which I had been trained to look for. The most obvious of these was his intelligence. He really was very bright. With very little formal education, he was still able to read the difficult Greek of the Fathers and quote it as required. When I’d finished the translation, I was asked to write an introduction and did so. ...

Almsgiving is a good and God-pleasing effort, provided you make sure to rid your heart of pride, wickedness, envy greed, deceit and other passions. Unless people try to cleanse their hearts and if they rely solely on their almsgiving, they won’t receive much benefit. Because they’re building with one hand and knocking down with the other.

(Previous publication...) We can see in this preamble to the law on the correction of social injustice that it has a theological basis. It refers to the passions which sway people when they distance themselves from God and which spur them on to increase their own wealth and the injustices heaped upon the poor. It also states that the adoption of laws to support social justice is motivated by love, is in accordance with Divine Providence, and that the survival of the empire is involved. It is apparent, then, that the emperors were not moved by some ideological social model, but by the theology of the Church. This law also failed to achieve the expected results. Thereafter Konstantinos VI Porfyroyennitos (Porphyrogenitus) passed ...

Many saints, before the final decision to embrace the Christian faith, had shown toughness, misanthropy and sin. So find application the Biblical words: "where sin increased, grace increased all the more" (Rom. 5,20). Where the size of sin seemed scary, the grace of God appeared much greater than previously. Something similar occurs in the life of the Russian Princess Olga, which was adorned with the nickname "Isapostolos" (that is, equal to Apostles), just as Constantine the Great. In the life of St. Olga, honored by the Church on July 11, we read that after the murder of her husband, prince of Kiev Igor, she behaved with incredible cruelty and avenged not only to the killers but also to the whole tribe ...

He was born in Vryoulla or Vourla in Asia Minor. As a seventeen-year-old, he and six other Christians were deceived and converted to Islam. When he appeared before his mother in Turkish clothing, she threw him out, saying: “I gave birth to a Christian, not a Turk”. He left, greatly saddened and soon came to understand the harm he had done himself. In Smyrna, he confessed to an Athonite spiritual father, who advised him to go to the Holy Mountain. He came under the guidance of Elder Stefanos at the skete of Saint Ann, at the house dedicated to Saint John the Theologian. “Persecuted and reviled”, he underwent “many trials and tribulations, because of the envy of the hater of good, ...

Christ, as the most biased referee and umpire in our contests, keeps the balance between us and our opponents, tempers the excessive power of their attacks and, besides, ‘together with temptation;’ gives us ‘the strength to win once and for all’.  If we didn’t have this divine assistance the demons would certainly overwhelm us.

So it’s natural for people, who’ve been  made in the image of God, to desire their Creator as their model. It’s this longing for the divine that’s the foundation of our being. Whatever God has, the eternity, the infinite, the immortality, the living forever, the bliss are what the human spirit is continuously reflecting upon. That’s what it imagines and longs for, inventing ways and means and schemes to satisfy this thirst and desire. Confirmation of this is the effort we put into it and the aversion we feel for any other pursuit we might engage in. Look at the various achievements we’ve made. As soon as we’ve achieved them, we tire of them and turn to others and others ...

A good analysis of these efforts on the part of the emperors is presented graphically by Gerard Walter in his book La vie quotidienne a Byzance au siècle des Comnènes (1081-1180) . Writing about the privileged classes, among whom were the nobility, he says that the rich in Byzantium were called the magnates and were prominent among the military leaders and the administrative class. The administrators were also land-holders who ran the Empire and would often buy parcels of land in their provinces. The rich land-holders also aspired to an administrative position in order to enjoy the title associated with it. So civil servants were also land-holders, that is they ran the administration and also owned stretches of land. At the ...

‘I don’t know with what method and in what way I’ll ever bind this friend of mine (i.e. the body) and bring it to judgement. Because before I bind it, it’s loose again and before I can judge it, I’m reconciled to it. Before I punish it, I feel sorry and relent. How can I defeat it, when, by nature, I love it? How can I be free of it, when I’m joined to it eternally? How can I condemn it, when it’ll be raised with me? (Ladder 15, 83).

Ambition is the intense desire of those who love glory to acquire it and a good reputation. Ambitious people chase after glory, which is the aim of every one of their works and actions. They pursue it by every available means, fair or foul, and do whatever it takes to achieve it.