God welcomes those prayers which are offered in an appropriate manner, that is with an awareness of our imperfections and unworthiness. But for this awareness to exist, what is required is complete rejection of our wicked self and submission to God’s commandments. What is required is humility and unceasing spiritual effort.
The question of whether Christianity, as a social creed, is conservative or radical makes me wonder if the terms ‘social creed’, ‘conservative’ and ‘radical’ have any meaning as regards Christianity and, if so, what this might be. These terms do have their specific meaning, when they express our social progress within the course of our history, but Christianity is another kind of history. It’s history because it has its historical events, those of the New Testament, on the one hand; but on the other there’s the life of the Church as the body of Christ. It is, at the same time, within history and outside it, in its essence, because it is revealed truth, eternal and absolute. It wants to guarantee ...
As Saint Silouan says and Saint Sophrony explains, the word of God can resound in the heart of man in unison with prayer. As a result of his fall, man is divided at all levels. He has one thing in his mind, another in his heart and desires yet another with his senses. He has no hypostasis. God, however, cannot speak to man for as long as his being is fragmented. Through the labour of repentance, his mortal nature is strengthened, his being is healed and gathered in one tight knot. Then God can give a word, because, when God speaks to man, He addresses Himself to his hypostasis, to his heart, that is, to the place where his whole ...
In its quality, love is the likeness of God, insofar as this is possible for us, of course. As regards its action, it is inebriation of the soul. As regards its properties, it is the source of faith, a deep well of forbearance and a sea of humility’. (Saint John of the Ladder). Love isn’t a priority for people today. Success, money, a share in the good things of civilization, the satisfaction of every desire, especially carnal ones, and recognition are the keys which interpret the dreams of many. Love requires an exodus from the self. Lives requires effort. Love requires an opening up to others and, at the same time, assistance from God, given that it’s an imitation of him. ...
Your soul becomes like the things you do; it takes the form and pattern of your actions. Your appearance, your attire, your walk, the way you sit and also your food, your bed, your house and furniture should all be simple. And your words, your song, your companionship with friends, all of these should also tend towards moderation, not to excess. Saint Basil the Great
Knowledge which precedes faith is natural knowledge. Knowledge which is subsequent to faith is spiritual knowledge. Natural knowledge, (the ability to tell good from bad) brings us to faith in God. Faith, to the fear of God. The fear of God, repentance and good works. Through good deeds we’re granted spiritual knowledge and the awareness of the mysteries, which engenders contemplation of God. Saint Isaac the Syrian
You’re to glorify only the Lord and Creator of the Universe as God. You’re to cling to him with love and repent to him day and night for your witting and unwitting sins. Because he’s compassionate and forgiving, slow to anger, rich in mercy and does good eternally. He has promised and bestows the heavenly and everlasting kingdom, painless and immortal life and the unwaning light, for the enjoyment of those who revere him, venerate him, love him and keep his commandments. Saint Gregory the Theologian
Those who truly love God consider themselves travelers and strangers on this earth. In their quest to unite with God in heart and mind they look only to him, at all times. Those who wish to live the inner life must first of all have fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom. Saint Seraphim of Sarov
Of course, the evil spirits move us to wickedness but they don’t force us do it. If they could do so, there wouldn’t be anybody who hadn’t committed every kind of sin. But just as they have the ability to lead us to temptation, so we have the strength and freedom to reject it. It’s therefore absolutely certain that the demons have no power over us, except when we surrender our will to them. Abba Cassian
Tonight’s talk will try to express something which is difficult to put into words. It will try to give characteristics and parameters to something which, by nature, is not so much describable but more indirectly perceptible, more concealed. It’s something which you suspect rather than something obvious enough for you to discuss. Aims can be defined, but it’s difficult to confine experiences within verbal frameworks. This is especially true of the authenticity of the experience of faith and of grace, which has to do with the innermost depth of human nature, the truth about us, a mystery which is continuously unfolding. It’s not so much an exposition, an expression, or a mode of behavior to which people conform. When an experience ...
Enjoy everything around us. Everything teaches us and brings us to God. Everything around is a drop of God’s love. The animate, the inanimate, plants and animals, birds and mountains, the sea, the sunset and the starry sky. They’re little loves, through which we come to the great love, Christ. Flowers, for example, have their own grace; they teach us through their fragrance, through their magnificence. They speak to us of God’s love. They bestow their fragrance, their beauty on sinners and on the righteous alike. If you want to be a Christian, you have to have a poetic soul, you have to become a poet… Prayer is approaching every one of God’s creatures with love and living in harmony ...
We would like to inform you that The Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex and Pemptousia are organizing their “1st Digital Meeting with Archimandrite Zacharias” Thursday 24 June 2021 at 16:00 (UK time) Talk and discussion on: The Christian as an Image of Pentecost You may follow the talk live on these links: English Interpretation via Facebook Live Video https://fb.me/e/JXXG9Y45 Romanian Interpretation via Facebook Live Video https://fb.me/e/HS14IXk2
Given that we are images of God, we long for God and run to him willingly in order to be lifted up by him. We delight in prayer and hymn-singing. Our spirit rejoices and our heart leaps. The more we pray, the more our soul is stripped of our secular desires and is filled with the good things of heaven. The more it’s separated from earthly things and the pleasures of life, the more it enjoys the gladness of heaven. Our understanding and experience confirm this for us. Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis
‘People beyond the passions are revolted with excessive hatred by evil; those who have progressed even further beyond the passions are voracious for the riches of the virtues’ (Saint John of the Ladder) These days we’ve identified wickedness only with whatever conflicts with secular laws. Anything that hursts another person or creates bodily or spiritual wounds to ourselves is wicked only insofar as it contravenes another person’s right to life, liberty and property. Other than that, there’s great tolerance, with the result that we treat evil as a relative category. Good is seen as being self-evident and is not generally acknowledged. News is only what’s deviant, what provokes fear. News is the satisfaction of the desires of famous people. News is ...
When you hear that Scripture tells you that ‘he will render to all in accordance with their works’, don’t think of works worthy of hell or the kingdom of heaven, but rather of works of belief or unbelief in him. Christ will pay each of us for these, not as if he were carrying out a commercial transaction, but as God the creator, who purchased us with his blood. Saint Mark Ascetic
Hesychasm leads to the opening of the heart, an opening towards communion with God and our neighbor. Isolation or sealing yourself off within yourself has no connection to hesychasm. Isolation without the ascetic practices of hesychasm detracts from the sacramental life of the Church and may act more for our condemnation than salvation. Elder Efraim Vatopaidinos
Saint John Chrysostom is almost the only Father of the Church about whom his contemporaries and later generations wrote a significant number of biographies. So far, we have more than eight (Byzantine) biographies. Some of these represent a kind of reworking of an earlier version, though not, of course, slavish imitation of the original. In these texts, we occasionally come across information which is entirely new and sometimes significant. How far this information is trustworthy is something which research will determine. It may well be that some of this information will never be confirmed. Apart from anything else, there’s a suspicion that some of it was included by the biographer principally in order to make a good point. When describing ...
“Who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped” According to the Patristic Theology, the Ascension of Christ is inherently connected to the descent of the Holy Spirit. Evidently, the Comforter’s coming is an essential continuation of Christ’s work on earth, as a part of His divine plan for the salvation of humanitymn. By taking the human nature, Christ does not just complete the divine plan of His Father, but also continues to act and to attract the unique human hypostases where He entered as a Forerunner. Read more
Who is Jesus Christ, who is both God and human? What in him is God and what is human? How do we recognize the God in him and the human? What did God grant us in the person of Jesus? All of this is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of Truth’. In other words, he reveals the truth about Jesus, about the God in him and the human being and about what he bestowed upon us. And this infinitely surpasses what our eyes have seen, our ears have heard and our hearts have ever felt. Through his incarnate life on earth, Jesus established his theanthropic body, the Church, and, through this, prepares the world for the advent, ...
‘…each one heard their own language being spoken’ (Acts 2, 6). As a result of this event, some 3,000 people believed and were baptized. The grace of the Holy Spirit made the word of God comprehensible and accessible to the souls of the believers and bore immediate, abundant fruit. Today we celebrate Pentecost, we sing beautiful hymns, full of meaning at the Kneeling Service at Vespers, we preach wonderful sermons about the Holy Spirit, but we also fear the Holy Spirit. Yes, that’s right. We fear him. Because the Holy Spirit has the potential to transform a religious body into the living Church of Jesus Christ. I wonder at those people who insist that the faithful shouldn’t understand what’s said in Church. ...
