In English

“I shall be with you till the end of the world” (Matth. 28, 20). With these words, Christ bids farewell to His disciples at the Ascension, on the Mount of Olives. His last act is a departure and, at the same time, a pledge. This seems to be something of a contradiction, but is not, in fact, so. Christ was no longer present in the manner that the Apostles had known until then, but He promised that He would not leave them orphaned and abandoned.   “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with the power from on high” (Lk. 24, 49). The promise was fulfilled. On the fiftieth day after the Resurrection ...

Saint Luke associated sorrows with the personal Cross which we have to shoulder in our life and which distinguishes the way of Christ from other ways of living. He says, typically, in one of his sermons: ‘Our life, the life of each person, is sorrow and pain. All these sorrows in our social and family life are our Cross. A failed marriage, an unfortunate choice of profession, don’t they bring us pain and sorrow? Shouldn’t people who’ve suffered these calamities have to bear them bravely? Serious illnesses, contempt, dishonour, loss of personal wealth, jealousy between spouses, slander and, in general, all the wickedness that people do to us, aren’t they all our Cross? That’s exactly what our Cross is, the ...

Take the trouble to live even a single day of your life in accordance with God’s commandments. You’ll see for yourself, you’ll feel in your heart, how wonderful it is to carry out His will. God’s will is our life.

Christ Himself sanctified this on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ God, why have you done this to me? What did I do to you? Am I not your Son’. The same question as mine and one which also went unanswered. At least it seemed to. But events provided the answer. Many such ‘whys’ came out of the mouth of Job the Much-Suffered and from the stylus of wounded David, two men whose tragic loss of their children marked their passage through history and who are often presented to us as unique models of faith, fortitude and patience. We address this question to God, we ask it of ourselves, we repeat it to people we feel are ...

Recognize the gift of autonomy. You aren’t subject to any created being, only to the one and only Creator. Always serve Him, in all gratitude, as God and Creator, as Father and Lord.

Saint Luke bore bravely not only the death of his wife, his illnesses and his blindness but all the mocking, reproaches, false charges and slander, the absurd and never-ending interrogations, the persecutions, the exiles, the unjust imprisonments and the horrible tortures to which he was subjected by the people of the totalitarian state of his time. And all for the love of Christ, in the name of Christ. He kept his confession to the end, though it could have cost him his life. When they forced him to take down the icon of the Mother of God from the operating theatre, he stopped operating. He resumed only when her icon was back on the wall . His internal spiritual state ...

By Orthodox Christian News in Orthodox News Jun 15, 2016 ⋅ 0 Comment(s) ⋅ Tags: Holy And Great Council WHO: Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, director, Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office for the Holy and Great Council WHAT: Webinar-hosted media conference on the upcoming Holy and Great Council, June 16-27, 2016, Orthodox Academy of Crete WHEN: Wednesday, June 15, 17:00 hrs in Crete (UTC +3) Jun 15, 2016 10:00 AM (GMT-4:00) Eastern Time (US and Canada) WHERE: Register at https://goarch.zoom.us/webinar/register/2fbeca7b18df91034ac87b605f06faf5 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. BACKGROUND: The Press Office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate hosts a website,www.orthodoxcouncil.org, which provides background information on the Holy and Great Council, which will meet in Crete June 16-27 and gathers approximately 500 representatives from the autocephalous ...

Because they know in advance the great effort required for the journey, the big birds that migrate to warmer countries show great love and bear on their wings any smaller ones they come across. But they’re often verbally attacked by chickens whose eyes are puffy from all the filth they scratch around in every day, to the extent that they can’t see straight, the poor things. It would be in such people’s best interests to take a pair of scissors to their tongues rather than go to Hell, since they find it so hard to keep their mouths zipped.

Blessed ‘whys’. It’s a question that’s so common, so profound, so powerful in its expression and so difficult to answer. It’s a question that’s so true, so human, so demanding, but one which, by its nature, is difficult to deal with in words, it’s not expressed through the mouth, it doesn’t fit into words, it’s not something to express in front of an audience, much less is it answerable by single words from people supposedly in the know to others who are patently suffering. It may be the outstanding issue on which there can’t and shouldn’t be any speeches. It’s too deep for us ever to be truly aware of it. It’s too painful to for us to countenance as bearable. ...

In this way, hospitality avoids the danger, the anomaly of favouritism and shows it to be a veritable sea of compassion. If you love your brother, you love the stranger. In any case, as Saint Basil the Great notes: «there is one nature, both this person and that are people. There is one poverty, one penury for both of them. Give to your brother and to the stranger. Do not turn away from your brother, but also make your foreign brother familiar. You should see straight. Do not prefer your friend over the stranger when it comes to dealing with their poverty… We are all related, all brothers, children of the same Father. If you look for your spiritual father, ...