In English

Imagine going into a fancy restaurant for a special meal. The dining room is beautifully decorated, only the best linens are used, and the glow of candlelight creates a warm ambience. Through the kitchen doors, you see the chef hard at work preparing a delectable dish. He then shouts from the kitchen, never moving from his cutting board, to sit yourself down and asks you what you want to order. You think this is odd, but then you notice there isn’t a single waiter or waitress in the entire establishment. What is wrong with this scene is analogous to what is presently amiss within the Orthodox Church – namely the significant lack of deacons within our parishes. A Model Of Service “Deacon” ...

Christmas is coming and, as has increasingly been the case in recent years, texts are published which decry the fact that the meaning of the feast has been lost and that excessive consumerism is now the order of the day. But if we strip these feast days of their folk traditions, the parties, the opportunity for a few days off and the family get-togethers which are a ‘must’, what will be left to remind most people that it’s Christmas? My question has nothing to do with the justified irritation behind this complaint. But we’d like to put forward the thought that perhaps we might find it in our heart to recognize that all of this is now part and parcel of the ...

It’s impossible not to succeed if you hope in God with all your heart and try your very hardest.

Communicating via the Internet The manner of expression of the Internet is, in the first place, that of presence: to communicate on the Internet you have to be on the Internet. You enter an open stadium where everyone is playing in the same way. If you open a web page, send a newsletter, run a forum, it means that you’re sending a message unaltered to the world. It’s obvious that this equates with a challenge to the identity and anonymity of individual sites. But there’s also a problem which is much more serious and profound, from what appears, for the champions of exclusive technology and functionality. Indeed, qualitative answers in the world of the Internet, unless they’re searchable within it, must be ...

(Discussion with Elder Iosif Vatopaidinos) Question: Why can’t we follow the path of sacrifice by ourselves, when Christ did it by Himself? Elder: He did it by Himself, because he was actually God, the incarnate Word of God. The person we saw was Jesus the man. But Jesus the man also had within Him Jesus the Word and God. Being God and man together, He had divine grace dwelling within him. He Who is the Lord of Life, is one of us, He’s the head of our body. Because we’re clad in Him. “As many as have been baptized into Christ have been clothed in Christ”. We’ve “been clothed” in Him with baptism and we bear Him within us by partaking of ...

  Inquirer: Father, earlier you spoke about our personal salvation. Can you tell me more about this? Elder Cleopa: Some religious confessions teach that personal salvation presupposes the action of Divine Grace alone, according to Calvin, or the grace of faith, i.e. of trust in God, according to Luther, by which the merits or virtues of our Lord Jesus Christ are conferred upon man. Therefore, to give a general outline, there are Protestant Christians who believe that salvation stems only from faith and that on the part of man himself there is placed no condition or requirement for his salvation. Our Church, however, teaches that our personal salvation is neither a gift, nor a simple work, but rather a process and an undertaking ...

How wonderful the sacrament of Tomorrow is!

I’ve left the husband to last because he shoulders more of the burdens and is called upon to serve the family. But even in this sense, he’s considered, in our tradition, to be the head of the wife. The responsibilities of the husband as father are incomparably greater for another important reason: the image which children have of their father is projected onto their spiritual father and in the end onto God himself. Any hostility or negative feelings created between children and their father in their childhood years can have disastrous consequences for their Christian life. In rejecting their father, they also reject God the Father. So the man, as husband and father, has greater responsibilities and obligations towards his wife, ...

The verb ‘to labor’ means to tire yourself out, to suffer. So ‘for those who labor’, means we pray for people who’re suffering. Not from serious illness, because we’ve already mentioned the sick. This was at the time when people labored hard in mines and quarries and so on. That’s who the Church is praying for: people who work extremely hard.

1.3. Late Antiquity A very different philosophical position on the origin of the soul was held by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) and his adherents, who believed in transplantation. For the materialist Epicurus, the newly-born child was merely a transplant of the soul of its parents, that is simply the fruit of their union, not a creation of God. Death, then, dissolves the soul, which is no more than a collection of molecules, and eradicates all human feeling. With this reasoning, we shouldn’t fear death, because we won’t feel it. Instead, we should enjoy the pleasures of life while we can. Epicurean philosophy is considered to be the foundation for later materialist and atheist approaches. Another typical current of thought in the philosophy of ...

It’s not people who tell the truth to your face, nor those who publish it abroad who are sincere and straightforward, but those who have love and real life and who speak with discretion when they need to and say the right thing at the right time.

In George Alexander’s “The Orthodox Dilemma” the reader is given a highly accessible overview of the history, current situation, and possible future of Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. Through personal vignettes and historical illustrations, the writer, himself Oriental Orthodox, seeks to explain and address how the Orthodox Churches have found themselves in their present circumstances. To those with a relatively undeveloped knowledge of Eastern Christianity, many examples that Alexander cites regarding these churches in both Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox expression may seem esoteric and obscure, but his central reason for writing the book is plain—to issue a plea for greater Pan-Orthodox unity of witness on a global platform. He begins by asserting that before any sort of coordinated form of Orthodox ...

You mustn’t treat lapses with indifference. Every time, after an outburst of passion, you should grieve, repent and confess to God what’s happened.

The times in which we live are distinguished by a rebellion, unprecedented in history, against any kind of authority or ‘guardianship’. All authority, religious or moral, social or familial is being called into question and is being shaken by a profound crisis. This general crisis also involves education, its values and its aims. Here, too, everything is being doubted, according to the well-known educator Paul Lagran, who said that one has the impression that humanity has severed its bonds and has embarked on an enormous adventure, though we can discern neither the ground on which it’s unfolding nor the aims it’s pursuing. Authority is a symbol of violence and coercion. ‘What’s an authority? What’s a God? Both are an image ...

Always, in the midst of difficulties, I find Christ more easily and my prayer is more fervent. You say you lose Him. I honestly don’t understand you. I must be a different kind of person.

I. Introduction: Understanding the Evil of Abortion Abortion is a kind of murder practiced throughout the world, usually without a sense of guilt. It has become a widely-accepted medical practice supported by numerous governments and non-governmental organizations. The number of unborn children killed in their mother’s womb across the world is more than the entire population of Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Canada, Romania, Poland, or Spain. It may even be equivalent to killing the entire population of France annually. Abortion has become particularly widespread in Eastern Europe, where the previous atheist-communist regimes brutally disrupted and dismantled Orthodox Christian culture and institutions. In Eastern Europe in the late 1990’s, there were close to 75 abortions per 1000 women in the age range from 15 ...

When the priest has laid the Precious Gifts on the altar, he, or the deacon, offers the Litany of Completion. The people reply ‘Grant this, Lord’, after each petition. He then says, in a low voice the Prayer of the Offertory, after which he goes out through the royal doors and says aloud: ‘Peace be with you all’. The peace of God is a gift from Him to those of us who have a pure life and who forgive other people. This peace cannot be taken away. Nothing can trouble it. And it’s a necessary before we can say ‘Let us love one another’, in peace and unity, all Christians, and can ‘confess the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity ...

Holy Scripture revives and refreshes souls which are despairing and fretting because of sorrows and worries.

My name’s Garyfallia and I was born with spina bifida, a rare deformity of the spinal membrane which almost always causes paralysis of the legs and/or arms and even learning problems, depending on how high up the spine the deformity is. Thank God I don’t have any paralysis, but from time to time it gives me pain in my waist, and I’ve had surgery. The doctors were always noncommittal about my future and about my becoming pregnant. A few months ago, I did, indeed, become pregnant and when a family friend who visits your monastery heard about it, he brought me back a ribbon and a some oil from the Holy Girdle. I wore the ribbon throughout my pregnancy, experienced ...