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Degrees of Spiritual Perfection
By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos “The most important work of the Church is to cure man. Therefore the Orthodox Church is a Hospital, an infirmary of the soul. This does not mean that the Church disregards other domains of pastoral activity, since she aims at the whole of man, consisting of both body and soul. She cares indeed for the physical, economic and social problems as well; yet the main weight of her pastoral service is put on the soul’s therapy, for when man’s soul is cured then many other intractable problems are solved. Some people accuse the Orthodox Church of not being very much involved in social problems. However,…
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The Divine Darkness
By St Gregory of Nyssa What does it mean that Moses entered the darkness and then saw God in it? What is now recounted seems somehow to be contradictory to the first theophany, for then the Divine was beheld in light, but now He is seen in darkness. Let us not think that this is at variance with the sequence of things we have contemplated spiritually. Scripture teaches by this that religious knowledge comes at first to those who receive it as light. Therefore what is perceived to be contrary to religious is darkness, and the escape from darkness comes about when one participates in light, but as the mind…
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The Bread, The Wine, and The Mode Of Being
by Chrysostom Koutloumousianos, Hieromonk The recent reappearance of the ancient terror of a pandemic has prompted fertile conversation among theologians and literary people across the world. Various opinions have been articulated, such as that disease can be transmitted through the current way of distributing holy communion, or that the Eucharistic Gifts themselves can be bearers and transmitters of pathogenic germs. It is said that since the bread and the wine do not alter their essence and essential properties, it follows that they are subject to decay and can also spread toxic viruses. This idea has supposedly found Christological grounds as well in that the human body of Christ is a…
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Three Saints of Hope and Pain
by Dr Nikolaos Koios It’s a profound conviction of the Orthodox Church that every epoch has its own saints and there’s not a single age without them. In every era, the saints are proof and demonstration of the grace of Christ, the love of the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit, in place and time, among us. When saints leave this earth for their celestial abode, they leave to the generation which knew them the privilege of Saint John the Theologian (I Jn. 1,2) to declare ‘what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands’. Our…
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God Is With Us
My dears! I should like to speak with you, seated at a cup of coffee. See, I have prepared coffee for myself, sweet, just as I like it. I realize that you are frightened, many of you are frightened with the current situation. Especially those who are in Italy. But let us not forget that God is standing at our wheel. God, who created heaven and earth, who created all things from nothingness. And as sacred scripture tells us with God even the hairs of your head are counted. Do you think that anything happens without God’s will, without divine permission? No. This is why I want to tell you…
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“I LEARNED FROM HIM HOW TO LIVE AND HOW TO DIE”
How Fr. Seraphim (Rose) Influenced the Life of One Future Priest An interview by Jesse Dominick with Fr Martin Person Matushka Sarah Person, and Martha Nichols. Archpriest Martin Person is the rector of the St Herman of Alaska Russian Orthodox Church in Sunnyvale, CA. He and his Matushka Sarah met in 1980 at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where there was an active Orthodox Christian Fellowship of students. That OCF group was mentored and inspired by Archimandrite Anastassy (Newcombe) and by Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose). Fr. Martin and Matushka Sarah were in Russia recently on a pilgrimage to the holy sites in and around St. Petersburg and Moscow. Among…
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“ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL WAS A PARTY, AND I WAS DOING PROSTRATIONS”
I was born in 1967, and grew up, like all my peers, in an atmosphere of atheism...
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The Saint, the Priest, and Face-tattoos
By Fr Photios Parks Some years back, there was a point in my life when I didn’t give a second thought to the Saints. I really didn’t see how they had any place within my faith. In Bible College and in Protestant seminary, I was fed the idea that saints were either a type of good luck charm to sell my house, a statue in your yard to attract birds, or they were individuals likened to magicians whose bones were exploited in medieval times. Fortunately, I had a life-changing experience that dispelled my incorrect notions about Saints and changed my whole paradigm in the way I view these holy servants.…
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Don’t Judge By Appearances
Photo: Monks of the brotherhood venerating the cross of their reposed Elder (Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi) He showed me many trees that had no leaves; they were withered, and they all looked alike to me. And he said to me, “Do you see these trees?” “I see, sir, that they are all alike, and all withered,” I replied. “These trees that you see,” he answered, “are those who dwell in this world.” “Then why are they withered,” I said, “and why do they all look alike?” “Because,” he said, “neither the righteous nor sinners are obvious in this life. They are all alike. For this life is a winter to…
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300,000 Priests Were Given a Choice – They All Chose Death
They could have rejected their priesthood and saved their lives. But they didn’t under Bolshevik persecution… 300,000 priests were killed during the Communist era. They actually had an easy way out. They could have just rejected their priesthood and been set free. They could have kept praying in secret, even singing in church choirs, as long as they rejected their calling. Yet so many of them chose death. What people are ready to die for reveals with startling clarity what is actually valuable in life. I mean, can you imagine being ready to die just because something frustrated you, for example, if you didn’t get your newspaper in the morning? No, people are…
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Stop Saying “Glory to God for All Things!”
A testimony offered by Hieromonk Synesios. “A few years ago, I was the parish priest of St. Vasileios church (Piraeus) and was called to hear the confession of a young man, Xenophon, 42 years old. When I arrived, his days were numbered. Cancer with rapid metastases had affected his brain too. He was all alone at the ward, the bed next to him was empty, so we were all alone. This is what he told me about how he came to Faith, since he was a “hardened atheist” in his own words: ‘I arrived here about 35 days ago, in this ward of two beds. Next to me was another…
