In English

Friday, February 9: Metropolitan Sotirios presided at Great Vespers at the celebrating Church of St. Haralambos in Smithville, Ontario. Despite the bad weather, many pious faithful attended. Saturday, February 10: Metropolitan Sotirios celebrated the Divine Liturgy at St. John the Theologian Church in Toronto, along with the Trisagion and Memorial Services of Wallace-Michael, late son of Mrs. Eugenia West, and for all the benefactors of our Holy Metropolis. The Divine Liturgy was very solemn; the Church was filled to capacity with pious faithful. That evening, the Greek Orthodox Community of Ottawa, Canada’s capital, celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their Parish Priest, Fr. A. Michalopulos. Many spoke at the event, including His Eminence Metropolitan Evangelos of New Jersey, and His Excellency D. Azemopoulos, ...

            Christ is the living truth. “I am the way, and the truth and the life” (John 14, 6). Therefore, He is life without beginning, unlimited (ἀπεριόριστος), unbound (ἀδέσμευτος), co-eternal with the Father, inseparable and undivided from him. “Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For, he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ...

Don’t make excuses and say that you don’t know what you should do and think you’re not responsible for what you haven’t done. Because if you’d done your best, the rest would have been revealed to you later, just as you go from one room to another and learn on the way. It’s not in your interest to learn the next things theoretically before you’ve mastered the first things practically.

One of the greatest problems of Orthodox spirituality in recent years has been the distortion applied to Orthodox eschatology, that is the prophetic discourse concerning the last times. It’s common for spiritually inexperienced people, without any real knowledge of what Orthodoxy means or what its magnificent content involves, to be quick to engage systematically with what’s been recorded regarding the end of world, either as the word of the Lord or that of an Apostle or Saint, even though they’re in no spiritual condition to do so. Indeed, the main characteristic of most people such as this is that they go straight to the Revelation of Saint John, without ever having studied the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles ...

In the end, we have one particular temptation which is constantly before us. This is why we shouldn’t want to know what other people are doing. If people come and talk to me about others, I’ll tell them to hold their tongues or I’ll get up and leave.

If God wants us to suffer, there’ll be some saving purpose behind it, which we mortals can’t foresee. But patience, forbearance and humility in the face of temptation will always, yes always, bring certain benefit.

Saint Neilos was born into a wealthy and illustrious family and was probably a pupil of St. John Chrysostom from as early as when the latter was preaching in Antioch. His birth and personal attributes were such that he was raised to the rank of prefect of the capital. The burdens of his office and the social life of the capital, however, conflicted with his desire for a more spiritual life. He therefore came to an agreement with his wife, by whom he already had two children, and both of them renounced the world. He and his son, Theodoulos, settled on Mount Sinai, while his wife and daughter entered a women’s monastery in Egypt. (This sounds strange to modern ears, ...

All believing Christians should be aware that Christ is in all other believers and we should have so much love for them that we’d be prepared to sacrifice our soul for their sake. We have no right to call other people bad, nor to think of them as such. Instead, we should think of them as good. If you see people troubled by the passions, don’t hate them, but hate the passions that are warring against them. If you see them suffering from wicked desires, feel even more kindly towards them, in case you yourself are tempted, since you’re vulnerable and prone to the entanglements of sin.

‘Since you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ In the parables which the Lord used, He said the phrase ‘the kingdom of heaven is like this’, that is, He compared the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins, to a precious pearl, to a field, to a lost coin and so on. In today’s Gospel, however, He didn’t speak in a parable, but revealed a real state and also His true Self, when He said ‘when the Son of Man comes in His glory’, which means that the reading fully expresses the truth concerning our final judgement. God’s mercy and our charity One of God’s properties is His mercy. His mercy pursues us all the ...

God allows lots of unhappiness and disasters in the world so that those who suffer can be saved through patience, you on the other hand be will be saved by alms-giving. You can enter into the Kingdom of God without wretched trials, but never without generosity. It’s absolutely impossible to get even as far as the gate of heaven without alms-giving.

In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Today's parable is so familiar to us that we may well not even notice its message. And it speaks to us of two things. It reminds us of the fact that a day will come when we will stand face to face with the Living God, and then judgment will come upon us. Not that God waits for us to judge and condemn our evil deeds; but when we will stand before God Who is all beauty, and discover how we have made ugly His image in us, when we will stand before God Who has loved us so much and realise how little love we have given ...

Think well of others. With your prayers, and through Christ, you have a beneficial influence on people. Don’t think badly of others, because then you have a bad influence on them.

So you should reflect on your sins and say ‘Glory to You, Lord, for You’re punishing me justly’. Recollect that, before, you’d forgotten God and say: ‘Glory to You, Lord, that you’ve given me cause and reason to remember You frequently’. Think about the fact that, if you’d been well, you probably wouldn’t have done anything good and say: ‘Glory toYou, Lord, for preventing me from committing sin’. If you deal with your sin in this way and with these thoughts, your burden will become very light. On the other hand, although illnesses are allowed by God, it’s no sin to try and cure them. Because both medical science and medications are also gifts from God to the human race. So ...

God allows punishment in order to head off approaching woes and to stop wickedness from increasing.

Since we don’t deal with our wickednesses, since we don’t weep over our dead selves, we can do absolutely nothing to put ourselves to rights and so we’re constantly concerned with our neighbours. And nothing angers God more, nothing strips us bare so completely and makes us feel abandoned as do gossip, criticism and condemnation of our neighbour.

The feast of the Reception of the Lord (Candlemas, the Meeting of the Lord) which we celebrated recently is held exactly forty days after the Nativity. The name in Greek means ‘meeting’, but not in the sense of a mere encounter. It’s more in the way of a welcome, that is, someone going out to receive another person, as Symeon is depicted as doing in icons of the feast. In the 6th century, February 2 was appointed as the day of the celebration by the emperor Justinian, and this date was chosen because it falls exactly 40 days after Christmas, which had been established in the 4th century as December 25. We draw our evidence for the Reception of the Lord ...

Pride is the most wicked passion and is the cause of many of our ills. It brings turmoil to everything, brings about schisms, overturns regimes, causes divisions, disturbs the peace of the world, and lies behind battles and wars. It’s the cause of all of our evils, and gives rise to insolence, lack of faith, hatred and contempt for others.

Strive for your salvation all together, not each separately. Struggle, triumph and don’t think you’re worthy or wise. Because if you do, you’re accusing God of being unkind and unwise.