Ξένες γλώσσες

One of the greatest problems of Orthodox spirituality in recent years has been the distortion of Orthodox eschatology, that is the prophetic discourse concerning the last times. It’s common for people with no experience spiritually, without any real awareness of what Orthodoxy means or of its magnificent essence, to concern themselves with whatever’s been recorded as the word of the Lord, either as the word of an Apostle or Saint, regarding the last times of the world. They do this hurriedly and without the necessary spiritual background. In fact, the main characteristic of most of them is that, without ever having studied the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Saint Paul and the other Apostles, that is, without ...

The more sins and evil multiply on earth, so to do the correctional visitations, that is famine, earthquakes, wars, all kinds of sicknesses and death. Our concern, as Christians, is to abandon sin, to reconcile ourselves with God, to have fear of Him, humility and patience, and then all our tribulations will lessen and will become very beneficial for our salvation.

            Photios Kontoglou, the greatest icon painter of modern Greece and one of her most important theologians and literary writers, died in Athens on July 13, 1965. His death, during surgury, passed almost entirely unnoticed in America, even among Greek-Americans, but he was deeply mourned throughout Greece.             I was in Greece when he died and had the good fortune of seeing and talking with this great and holy man just five days before his “falling asleep.” The editor of an Athenian religious monthly asked me to write an obituary . . .  I have undertaken to write this brief biography.             Photios Kontoglou was born on November 8, 1895, at Kydoniai (Aivali), on the west coast ...

“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ,” St. Paul wrote in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:1). The most excellent way to follow the Apostle’s prescription is to practice Christ’s own words recorded in the Gospel of John: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (14:15). Those who most excellently follow His commandments after the Birth-giver of God, the Most-holy Theotokos, are His saints, known and unknown. Saints are an integral part of the Orthodox Church: St. Clement of Rome writes, “Cleave to the saints, for they who cleave to them shall be made holy,” while St. Ephraim the Syrian adds, “Blessed is he who plants in his soul good plants, that is, the virtues and the lives of saints.”  Reverence for ...

He Himself said: “The Father gave all judgement to the Son”. The same Son Who came to save the world will judge it. And He’ll judge it lightly, so that most will be saved, because God wishes the world to be saved. The only people who won’t be saved will be those who don’t want to be, who won’t be taught and who will not see the signs pointing to belief in Christ. What they say now, they’ll say then: “Lord, when did we see you?”. When and where did we see Christ? This is where the Gospel reading about Christ’s second coming takes on an incomparable profundity and the greatest social significance. Not fine words and theories, just small, everyday ...

Stop all the universes, all the worlds there are, all created beings. Put down all the hearts, all the minds, all the animals, all the immortalities, all the eternities. Because without Christ, they’re hell for me. One hell after another. They’re all innumerable and endless hells, in height, breadth and width.

For several centuries, going back to the revolutions of the 18th century if not beyond, democratic societies of the West have acknowledged a manifold debt to classical Greek antiquity whether in the realm political theory or in political institutions, including the word and concept of democracy itself.  These societies have seldom acknowledged any debt to the Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages.  Rather, Byzantium - whether in its thought or in its institutions – often is presented as the very antithesis of what classical Greek antiquity stood for, or, by extension, what modern societies should stand for.  Byzantine thought is characterized as lacking creativity, at best devoted to preservation or sterile imitation of classical forms but with no grasp of ...

Nothing else in life is so certain as that we shall die. The fact that we were born and are in this world leads to the certainty that one day we will be leaving it. Every day we see and understand that people are born and that they die; some come, others go. But there’s another certainty: that we’ll be judged, in other words that we’ll give an account of the way we’ve led this life. This is a belief common to all, deeply-rooted in people of all nations and throughout all time. But we have “the prophetic word more certainly”; our Scriptures write about the great and manifest day of the judgement and Christ Jesus talks of His second ...

In the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Continuing my short sermons on Confession, I would like to say that in the first place Confession is an encounter and a reconciliation. It is our encounter with Christ Whose love to us has no limits, Who loves us with all His life and all His death, Who never turns away from us, but from Whom we sometimes, perhaps even often, walk away. It is an encounter that can be pure joy when during a lapse of time nothing separated us from Christ, when our friendship was pure, was whole, when our friendship wasn’t broken by any unfaithfulness. Then we can come to Christ joyfully, happily. We ...

Don’t think just about what to eat, to wear, what a big house you’ll build. Knock on the doors of the poor, the sick and the orphans. Choose the doors of the sad over those who are happy. If you do good works, your reward from God will be great. You’ll see miracles, and in the next life you’ll have boundless bliss. Our Lady doesn’t want big candles; she wants charity to the poor.

O Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of all, Take from me the heavy yoke of sin, And in Your compassion Grant me tears of compunction. From the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete Some of us might think: here we go again, another Lent is on us, and many weeks without our favorite eggs and bacon, all that we like and just can’t live without Today, I would like to propose you a more dynamic and positive outlook on Lent. Great Lent is actually an adventure, a fabulous journey. All of us Orthodox Christians are together on this journey, and we have a great companion: the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-31).             You heard this parable during the Divine Liturgy a few weeks ago. It ...

“The thrones were set and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head as pure wool. His throne was a flame of fire...A river of fire rushed before Him...The tribunal sat and the books were opened. And the beast was given over to the burning of the fire” (Daniel 7:9-11) This famous vision of God in the book of Daniel has perplexed theologians and inspired artists and authors for centuries. Many Christians regard this vision of the Ancient of Days as a vision of God the Father. But contra Orthodox Christianity, this is a vision of God the Son, the eternal Word of God, the pre-incarnate Christ. “In the beginning ...

Besides, the repair of traditional and historical buildings as well as the conservation of cultural heirlooms is a very costly business. For many members of the Church it may be a luxury which ought to be of more interest to the archaeological services and less to the Christian engaged in the spiritual struggle. But the value of Christian cultural wealth can’t be assessed as measurable material; rather, it must be seen as something which has radiated the life and spirit of the Church throughout its history. People of the Church, of every social and economic level, have often expressed their relationship with God through art. Art of all kinds. The Church accepted this from very early on and gave it ...

If you’ve turned to God with all your heart, and you’ve given yourself over to Him entirely, He won’t allow you ever to be deceived. His angel, your sleepless guardian, will warn you secretly of every danger.

The period of the Triodio and Great Lent is very important for the spiritual life of the Church. This is because it prepares us properly for our participation in the greatest feast of the Church, the Lord’s Resurrection. The content of the hymns and the melodic accompaniment with which they are invested is one of the ways the Church uses to instruct the faithful in spiritual exercise and edification. ‘Open to me the gates of repentance, Giver of Life’ and ‘The multitude of my past iniquities’ are hymns which mark the beginning of the Triodio and characterize this liturgical period. Dimosthenis Païkopoulos, a former 2nd Domestikos of the Patriarchal church and one of the finest teachers of the art of Church ...

People who have given in to their innate urges can’t have a reasoning soul, because a reasoning soul wishes to act freely. Since it’s mobile, it also has freedom of movement. Whatever it does, it does of its own volition, not out of necessity. So a reasoning soul is intellectual, mobile and free. It’s aware of itself and the quality of its actions.

In our presentation we will touch upon an issue which may not be readily acknowledged by those who are not initiated in the existence of divine Grace. We would actually say that it quite ‘heavy going’ as its title reveals: ‘God-forsakenness’. However, it is a particularly important, “a crucial”, element in spiritual life. When many people, perhaps most, will hear what we have to say they will respond: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”(John 6, 60) However, Elder Sophrony stressed that God wishes to see us become perfect just as He is perfect (See Elder Sophrony: We shall see Him as He is). The path to perfection necessarily passes through the Calgary of God-forsakenness. During the crucial ...

Nikiforos Theotokis was born on 15 February, in the year 1731, in the town of Kerkyra . The fourth child of seven, his parents, Stefanos and Anastasia Theotokis, gave him the name Nikolaos at his baptism. His first teacher was the hieromonk, Ieremias Kavvadias, one of the most outstanding teachers on Corfu at the time. He had a great effect on the personality of young Theotokis and afterwards maintained spiritual ties with him. In December, 1748, despite the fact that he was only 17 years old, he was ordained deacon in Lefkada, by Archbishop Chrysanthos Psomas of Lefkada and Ayia Mavra, since there wasn’t an Orthodox bishop on Corfu. His ordination was in flat contradiction to the canons of the Church, which ...