Ξένες γλώσσες

If we bear all our sorrows, we find grace from the Lord. This is why the Lord allows us to be tested: so that we may be tried and he can weave crowns for us. Saint Iosif the Hesychast

Nowadays, from all the studying they do, people end up as tape-recorders and they fill their cassettes with superfluous things. But, according to Abba Isaac, teaching without action is a ‘legacy of shame’. Saint Païsios the Athonite

Very often, what we say is limp and weak. If we want to transmit what we’re saying and make it lively, it has to be incarnate. When, with what you say, you give your flesh and blood to other people, then, and then alone, will your words say something. Archimandrite Vasileios Gontikakis

Of course, good works are not of value when ‘they fall as crumbs from our table’. You don’t give alms from the surplus you have, but from something which will cost you a little. Alms-giving also means hardship and effort. This is why, when Christ saw the widow’s mite, he said: ‘She has put more than anyone into the treasury’. Others put in what they had to spare, but for her it was as if she put in everything she owned, since that was all she had. It’s a good thing if good works involve effort and sacrifice. Metropolitan Athanasios Limassol

When we observe Christ’s commandments, we don’t offer him anything, because he needs nothing since he himself confers all good things. What we do is to benefit ourselves by bringing upon us eternal life and the enjoyment of ineffable blessings. Saint Theodoros of Edessa

Between us and God there’s a wall. This wall is called ‘Me’. This is what doesn’t let God enter. God’s repelled. Get down on your knees, pray, keep a vigil and then see if God doesn’t listen! Hieromonk Chrysostomos Stavronikitianos

Freedom from the passions is forgiveness of sins. Those who have not been freed of the passions by grace, haven’t yet found forgiveness. Saint Thalassios the Libyan

Jesus was going towards Jerusalem when, outside a small town, he encountered a group of ten lepers who entreated him loudly: ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us’ (Luke 17, 13). Leprosy was a terrible disease which in ancient times was devastating for those who contracted it and, in the end, proved fatal. If anyone showed the first signs of leprosy, they were seized and sent into exile, away from society, to prevent the spread of the disease. Thank God, we now have medicines to treat this terrible disease, and the relatively few new cases, mostly in the developing world, can be treated effectively. At the time of Christ, however, leprosy was very widespread. It presented an immediate danger to everyone and caused ...

‘If you align your will with rights, you won’t make the progress you should’ (Abba Dorotheos). The will is a gift from God to us. Those who distort the teaching of the Church and say that God wants us to be his slaves, to do whatever he wants without a choice, are wrong. From the beginning of our history on the earth, the will has been a feature of our existence, since we’re made in the image of God. The will is linked to our freedom. We’re free to want something out of love for God and observance of his commandments; and we’re free to make ourselves gods. This is why the will and the right to renounce our self is freedom ...

A. Examine the bad habits and proclivities you’ve accumulated over the course of your life. If they’re long-standing, they’ll need more effort if you’re to defeat them; less if they’re more recent. Just as it takes greater effort to cut down and uproot an ancient, sturdy tree than it does a sapling. B. Examine the cures you need to apply for these bad habits and proclivities. The first of these is that you have to want to rectify your condition, not half-heartedly, but decisively. Because bodily ailments can be remedied without any effort of will, but those of the soul can’t be cured so easily. That’s because they require a firm intention on the part of the person suffering if they’re ...

From its earliest years, the Church has honored martyrs in blood and martyrs in conscience. ‘Martyrs in conscience’ were saintly monastics and ascetics who lived in the wilderness. There’s a difference between monastics and ascetics. Monastics are those who live all together in large coenobitic monasteries, while ascetics or anchorites live in isolation in secluded, inaccessible caves. Both monastics and ascetics are people who have left behind worldly matters and have dedicated themselves to something better and more perfect. These are also the people of whom Saint Basil the Great wrote: ‘they proved to have greater than human capabilities’. One such was Saint Theodosios the Coenobiarch, the memory of whom the Church keeps today. Saint Theodosios was born in 423 in ...

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

The notion that God punishes those who sin, recalling a strict father who punishes his naughty children seems to be one which is difficult to banish from people’s hearts. Besides, the Church does, indeed, speak of punishment, ‘the outer fire’ and a number of Fathers urge us keep hell in mind, so that we’ll be less susceptible to evil. Though this is true, it’s not the whole truth. Just as we don’t present a rounded portrayal of a person if we dwell overmuch on one facet of their character, the same is true of God. If we insist, either on a collective or personal level, on some sort of edificatory behavior on the part of God, this doesn’t take into account ...

‘My world’s different for me than in the eyes of the world’ (Greek song) What meaning does a feast of the faith have these days? Most people see anything to do with the Church from a cultural perspective. Remnants left over from the past, useful, not always necessary, but not much of a bother either, particularly when they’re accompanied by days off work, holidays, rest and a change of pace. We who are within the Church are content with good wishes, church attendance, and all this entails: holy water, antidoro and so on. It’s true that many people take communion more frequently now than in the past. But it’s difficult to transfer into practice what it is that marks the feast ...

Through His coming, the Lord filled the whole world with His divine grace and spread His creative energy on all the earth. He descended into Jordan, not in order to sanctify Himself, but to sanctify the waters and the whole creation, so that we may receive baptism and be clothed with His glorified human nature, wherein ‘dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’ (Col. 2:9). He descended into the waters ‘to draw up with Himself bright sons from the streams of Jordan’ and make them citizens of His eternal Kingdom. The first humble Appearing of the Lord became a prophetic event, wherein ‘the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath been poured forth upon all’ (Tit. 2:11). The first humble Appearing ...

Time is something tragic in the life of man because every new year measures how near his life is to its end. Is finally time a friend or an enemy, a blessing or a curse? The way in which we measure time is necessary, but it is also relative, artificial. Yet, every beginning of the year is an opportunity for us to give an account for our spiritual life and make a new beginning. From the beginning of creation, Scripture speaks about time: ‘And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day’. Certainly, man was not created in order to be imprisoned in time, he was created ...