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From Revolution to Restoration
When I was quite young, my mother abandoned my younger sister, kid brother and I for a life of Drug Addiction, and just a few years later my father began his new life with his second wife and her children. Being so young, I could understand very little of what was transpiring, but I did know that I was living in a broken home. The burden of three little ones was thrusted upon my grandparents, and out of the goodness of their hearts, they took it upon themselves to raise us. Although the situation I grew up in may not seem ideal to some, I thank God every single day…
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The Opening of the Senses
By Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov Printed in Issue 6* PEOPLE become capable of seeing spirits by a certain alteration of the senses, which is accomplished in a way that is unnoticeable and inexplicable to a person. He only notes in himself that he has suddenly begun to see what before this he had not seen and what others do not see, and to hear what before this he had not heard. For those who experience in themselves such and alteration of the senses, it is very simple and natural, even though not explainable to oneself and to others; to those who have not experienced it, it is strange and not understandable….…
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Overdose
From Issue 4 part one: Monk Ephraim In the year of 1425 a monk was taken captive and tortured to death in his monastery in Greece for being a Christian. He was slowly tortured to death over a period of a year. After each episode his wounds were allowed to heal, and then he was subjected tonew and worse punishments. Finally they executed him. He was hung upside down from a tree in his monastery groundsand run through with a pole which had been sharpened to a point and set on fire. All traces of his life and martyrdom were forgotten until this century, when he appeared to the abbess…
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St. Moses the Black of Scete
Commemorated August 28th. Saint Moses Murin the Black lived during the fourth century in Egypt. He was an Ethiopian, and he was black of skin and therefore called “Murin” (meaning “like an Ethiopian”). In his youth he was the slave of an important man, but after he committed a murder, his master banished him, and he joined a band of robbers. Because of his bad character and great physical strength they chose him as their leader. Moses and his band of brigands did many evil deeds, both murders and robberies. People were afraid at the mere mention of his name. Moses the brigand spent several years leading a sinful life,…
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What Saint John Taught Me…
By an Orthodox Subdeacon From Issue 16 This article was written by a subdeacon who had the blessing of serving with Saint John as a child as well as having the Saint as a family friend and mentor. These are his reflections, looking back at the greatest things Saint John revealed to him about the spiritual life. I look down from my perch in the choir loft, the cathedral is spread before me like a map. From the chandeliers above to the lit candles, everything is a sea of light. People still returning from the Cross Procession, candles in hand, only add to the radiance. With the start of the Orthros Service,…
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A Letter to Thomas Merton
By Fr. Seraphim Rose I am a young American convert to Russian Orthodoxy—not the vague “liberal” spirituality of too many modern Russian “religious thinkers,” but the full ascetic and contemplative Orthodoxy of the Fathers and Saints—who have for some years been studying the spiritual “crisis” of our time, and am at present writing a book on the subject. [1] In the course of my study I have had occasion to read the works of a great number of Roman Catholic authors, some of which (those, for example, of Pieper, Picard, Gilson, P. Danielou, P. de Lubac) I have found quite helpful and not, after all, too distant from the Orthodox…
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The Nuns of Shamordino: Prisoners of Solovki
The Nuns of Shamordino Printed in Issue 22 Upon him who labors— God sheds mercy; but he who loves acquires consolation. Elder Ambrose of Optina In the summer of 1929 there came to Solovki about thirty nuns. Probably the majority of them were from the monastery of Shamordino, which was near the renowned Optina Hermitage. The nuns were not placed in the common women’s quarters, but were kept separately. When they began to be checked according to the list and interrogated, they refused to give the so-called basic facts about themselves, that is, to answer questions about their surnames, year and place of birth, education, and so forth. After…
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The Impossibility of Aloneness: When Christ Found Me in the Himalayas
By Subdeacon Joseph Magnus Frangipani Printed in Issue 24 I’m an Orthodox Christian living in Homer, Alaska and experienced Jesus Christ in the Himalayas, in India. I listen to the heartbeat of rain outside… Cold, Alaskan fog blowing in off the bay, emerald hills now that autumn is here and summer chased away into the mountains. But a milky white fog spreads over the bay like a silken ghost. I used to visit Trappist monasteries, back when I was Catholic, at the beginning of high school, and searching for a relationship of love. I read plenty of philosophy then to know that knowing isn’t enough, that having a realization in…
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Beyond Torture: Communist Prisons of Romania
“In Communism there were some special prisons which were laboratories–laboratories in which they believed they could create a Communist personality. When you said ‘I still believe in God,’ in five minutes you were full of blood.” This video features Fr. George Calciu, whose writings will be in upcoming Issue XXV.
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The Sacrament (Mystery) of Christian Baptism
by St Cyprian of Carthage. From a Letter written to a new convert, 246 A.D. I promise to share with you the grace God in His great mercy has shown me, and to tell you as simply as I can what I have experienced since I was baptized. Until that time, I was still living in the dark, knowing nothing of my true life. I was completely involved in this world’s affairs, influenced by all its changing moods and troubles, and exiled from the light of truth. I had indeed been told that God offered men and women a second birth, by which we could be saved, but I very…
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On Forming the Soul
By Blessed Fr. Seraphim of Platina The soul that comes to Orthodoxy today often finds itself in a disadvantaged or even crippled state. Often one hears from converts after some years of seemingly unfruitful struggles that “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I became Orthodox.” Some sense this when they are first exposed to the Orthodox Faith, and this can cause them to postpone their encounter with Orthodoxy or even run away from it entirely. A similar thing often happens to those baptized in childhood when they reach mature years and must choose whether or not to commit themselves to their childhood faith. From one point of…
