The enemy’s sly and attempts either to abandon us to sin and unrepentance or craftily to bring us into despair through the thoughts we have when we do repent. Elder Efraim Vatopaidinos
Through the prophets and the apostles, the Holy Spirit wrote the word of God and interpreted it through the holy fathers*. Both the ability to record the word of God, as well as the capacity to interpret it, are gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit. This and this alone is what the holy Orthodox Church accepts. This and this alone is what its true children accept. If you interpret Scripture arbitrarily, you reject the interpretation of it by the holy fathers, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And if you reject this interpretation of Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then, without question, you’re also rejecting Scripture itself. In this way, the word of God, which is ...
‘Should it happen that a host of coarse thoughts rises up against you and you give way and are defeated, you should be aware that you’ve separated yourself temporarily from divine grace. This is why you were allowed to fall, by righteous judgment. So strive to remain always close to God’s grace and never distance yourself from it through negligence’ (Saint John the Carpathian). The above passage, from what are known as the consoling texts of our saintly and God-bearing father John the Carpathian, transports us into the climate of the joyous paradise of the Philokalia of the holy niptic fathers. What does the saint reveal to us of his many years of living the spiritual Christian life as an ascetic? ...
On the beach I experienced one of the most moving confessions… perhaps the best. Three days before we celebrated the summer Easter, the Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God, I met with a clergyman friend of mine. We’re in the habit of meeting occasionally to talk about what’s happening and to discuss theological questions. We top up our spiritual batteries. On that day, we’d both finished late with our paraclitic canons and started out straight away to the place we’d agreed to eat at. We weren’t serving the liturgy the next day, so, afterwards, we went for a walk until we came to the beach, which was completely deserted because of the lateness of the hour. We found ...
In the Synaxarion for the Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, there is a particularly moving account written there. At the age of about 50, The Holy Virgin received a divine message that in three days, she would depart for Heaven. She then invited her relatives and neighbors to her home in order to reveal this message and to say goodbye. It was a surprise to them, and naturally, there were many tears. The Virgin Mary comforted them, saying that she would intercede for not only them, but for the whole world. This is evident in the countless blessings that the intervention of Our Lady has brought for all those suffering and asking her help. After God, it ...
When you read the Gospel, don’t expect pleasure, stimulation or wonderful thoughts. Seek to see the infallible, holy truth. Don’t be content with fruitless study of the Gospel. Read it in a practical way. Strive to fulfil its commandments. Since it’s the book of life, study it with your life. Don’t think that there’s no reason why the most sacred book, the Four Gospels, begins with that of Saint Matthew and ends with that of John. Matthew teaches us mostly how to comply with the divine will and what he has to say is most appropriate for those just setting out on God’s path. John has more to do with the manner of union of God and people who have been renewed ...
Saint Justin Popovich Today (29th of August), we also specifically glorify the first Evangelist and Christian Confessor, the first to confess God in the New Testament world. Consider how fearlessly, openly and directly he confessed God’s Truth: ‘King, it’s not right for you to have your brother’s wife, your living brother’s wife. You’ve taken your brother’s wife away from him. All of the laws of heaven and earth are against you, and I quote these laws of heaven and earth to you, because this is what I was sent to do. King, you can’t have your brother’s wife’. Bold and undaunted, like an immortal lion, like one of the Cherubim in the flesh, he was the first Confessor of Christ’s Faith, ...
Saint Justin Popovich Today is a little Great Friday, a second Great Friday. Today the greatest man of those born of women, John, the Holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, is slain. On Great Friday, God, was murdered, God was crucified. At today’s holy and great feast, the greatest of all men was put to death. The choice of the expression ‘the greatest’ is not mine. What are my praises of the great and glorious Forerunner of the Lord, when the Lord Himself praised him more than anyone among men, more than any of the apostles, the angels, the prophets, the righteous, the wise? The Lord declared: ‘among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John ...
God doesn’t exist logically. A saint, Symeon the New Theologian, said so. He said God doesn’t exist in any modus essendi, any mode of being, that we can grasp. He’s a ‘non-existent being’, God. He does exist. But not in any way that can be compared with this world. In other words, God can’t be understood through reason, or through philosophy, but only through experience. When you have experience of God, then the nous can express that experience. Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol
Monasticism is an imitation of the life of the Mother of God, which was from the beginning to the end an imitation of the way of Her Son and God. In essence, the handmaiden of God Mariam had prophetically followed the way of the Lord in Her life even before He came into the world, and She partook more than all in the judgment of the Son of God. The life of the Holy Virgin was prophetical, because She was not only overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation, but also filled with the Holy Spirit. Rather, She was carried about and led by the Holy Comforter. She uttered a word only once, singing Her hymn to the Lord, after She ...
The Coexistence of Wickedness and Virtue Good and evil are comingled in such a way that they’re colored by each other, so that the wickedness of evil can show, as can the benevolence of good. In this way, we can learn from both. Let us see, then how this interlacing occurs and what we can learn from it. A) The intertwining of wickedness and virtue. three people represent wickedness and three represent virtue. The former are Herod, his wife and his daughter, Salome. See what happens. Herod’s celebrating his birthday and, instead of thanking God for the occasion when he first saw the light of day, he troubles God with his drunkenness. Instead of releasing the Forerunner, who was his prisoner, ...
Expressed with great inspiration in a poetical form, today’s apostle reading is rich in meaning. The first Christians lived with the greatest fulness of fervour and grace in comparison with the later generations, as they were ready for martyrdom at any moment. And yet the apostle never ceases to instruct them through his word and persistently remind them of their lofty purpose to become the temple of the Living God. ‘We are labourers together with God.’ God fashioned man from clay, out of nothing, but He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life which made him a living soul. He granted him the great honour of being created in His image and destined to become His likeness. God calls man to ...
Seek love. Ask God every day for love. Together with love come all the other benefits and virtues. Love, so that you’ll be loved by others. Give your whole heart to God, so that you’ll dwell in love. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis
We shouldn’t be bothered with sins, nor should we think about them. We should confess them and then change course and deal with beautiful things instead. Abbess Theosemni, Monastery of Chrysopiyi, Hania, Crete
Nothing makes a soul so philosophical, conciliatory and mild as continuous recollection of its sins. Saint John Chrysostom
However difficult a bodily struggle might appear, a spiritual one is far more so. Because, as Saint Paul says, you’re not dealing with ‘flesh and blood’, in other words with something visible, but with the invisible forces of darkness which labor, striving ceaselessly, in order to wound people and make them spiritually moribund. Elder Efraim Vatopaidinos
Stand firm: watch yourself, watch your feelings. If you keep the memory of God peacefully in your heart, then you see the robber demons that want to take it from you stealthily, on the sly. Because if you guard your thoughts carefully then you can sense those who want to enter and pollute you. Wicked thoughts bring turmoil to the mind. But those who recognize this wickedness remain calm and pray to the Lord. Saint Isaiah the Anchorite
Living as we do among pressing and sometimes frightening temptations, it’s good to keep the Lord before us at all times and, through his presence, to pray continuously and retain this greatly-desired presence of our sweetest Christ. Saint Seraphim Romanchov of the Monastery of Glinsk
The saints are our friends and the friends of God, the people we always flee to. On the one hand to receive comfort and strength; on the other to have as models tested by God for our everyday life, our everyday tribulations, people who’ve been tried and been found to be ‘like gold in the furnace’. Their lives aren’t merely moving stories, but a guide to our own way of living. Elder Christodoulos, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou
The logicality of the Christian faith is often so paradoxical and strange, especially for Orthodox Christians today, that we need to delve into the texts of the Fathers in order to have a feel for it and attune ourselves to it. Though it must be said, of course, that the acceptance and gradual familiarization with this reasoning leads to the ‘jolt’ of the taste of the other way of life which was brought by Our Lord Jesus Christ- to the opening of the eyes and spiritual senses so that the faithful can see and feel eternal life even in what’s considered this narrow and wretched life. So that they can see the unseen and eternal, as Saint Paul says. To be ...
