The following is a guest post graciously written by my spiritual father, Abbot Tryphon. The Very Rev. Fr. Tryphon is a priest-monk of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR) and abbot of the All-Merciful Saviour Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington.  Joyful living according to the Will of God If we focus only on the things that haven’t been done and ignore the little things that bring joy to our lives, we will find ourselves in a rut, constantly thinking of where we’d rather be living, or the job we’d rather have, or the project that still needs to be completed. Then we’ll wake up one day and realize all we’ve needed for happiness has…

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, I leave the following will to be executed by my words and brethren who are of the same spirit as myself. I pray you, cast away my body in the desert, to be devoured by the beasts and birds, for that body has greatly sinned before God and is unworthy of burial. If you will not do this, then dig a pit on the grounds where we live and bury me in it with every kind of dishonor. Take heed of the words with which the great Arsenius charged his disciples: ‘I will prosecute you…

“The following passage is how Fr. George Calciu concludes a story about a time when, imprisoned by the Communists, he asked one of the cruelest guards for a piece of bread to celebrate the Liturgy in his cell. The guard’s jaw dropped at the audacity of the request and he slammed the door… only to return a while later to silently slip him the requested bread. Fr. George concludes: ‘So you can see the miracle. I did not ask God to make the miracle for me. The most important miracle that God performed during my imprisonment was a miracle of the heart: not breaking the doors, not setting me free,…

“…This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother; He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, “You’re my friends, don’t you understand that? We’re brothers. I’m not…I don’t hold hell in my hands. I am not threatening you. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.” – +St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia “…we, if we wish to retain grace, must pray for our enemies. If you do not find pity on a sinner who will suffer in flames, then you do not carry the grace of the Holy…

What I had pictured as a peaceful and anticipatory trip to All-Merciful Saviour Monastery on Vashon Island was quickly thrown right out the window. My head in a bag for the first half of the trip, I found myself sorely seasick beyond measure as the Victoria Clipper bounced across the violent waves to Seattle. I had been told that the devil often did whatever he could to foil a pilgrim’s trip to such places, but I had never expected this. Needless to say, the sight of Abbot Tryphon waiting for me just outside the ferry terminal was a sight for sore eyes. I went to the monastery, to tear a…

To choose Orthodox Christianity here in North America is to immediately place oneself apart from the majority. I learned this firsthand the other night when I went to the local gathering of Christians at the pub known as Theology on Tap – an event where one could discuss theology and faith over a pint in a semi-organized fashion. The uncomfortable part was that I was the only Orthodox Christian present; all the rest (62 in total!) were Roman Catholics. Add to this the awkward fact of my being a former Roman Catholic, and the feeling of being alone set in rather heavily. However, it gave me some real food for…

“I find no peace and I am not at war, I fear and hope, and burn and I am ice; I fly above the heavens, and lie on earth, and I grasp nothing and embrace the world.” – Petrarch In my view, the world was dying. The sheltered Seventh-Day Adventist apocalyptic bubble of my childhood to the liberalized evangelical flirtations of my early youth offered me nothing. When my world was shattered at 16 when my parents split, God seemed completely absent. As I got older, suddenly everyone seemed to be dying around me. My parents were absent – one had moved halfway across the country, and one was on…

As a former Roman Catholic, I used to always view the Orthodox with a kind of annoyance at what I termed their “crankiness”, their “stubborn nature.” I used to say to myself in frustration, “if they would only stop being so thorny towards us, maybe we could have unity” (this was a justification for myself really, as I was supremely drawn to the Orthodox Church for a long time). As I surveyed the writings of some of the Saints, I became increasingly irritated at their criticisms of us Roman Catholics, and in my mind, I formed a crude caricature of the Orthodox as simply a bunch of old cranks sitting…

“They wandered about in sheepkins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Heb. 11:38-39). The idea that the life of a monk is useless is not uncommon amongst Christians of today. The seeds of such thought can be found in Blessed Augustine’s critiques of certain monastic groups (though he did not attack the monastic life as such), but are mostly to be found in the fruit of the Protestant Reformation in the West. There is decidedly something off when one compares the so-called “Protestant work ethic” with misunderstandings and even…