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Photo by Tim Pierce There is a cliché floating around that people drop as if it were a self-evident truth-a category that may not exist, despite our Declaration of Independence. In anything involving religion, morals, medical ethics, or sexuality, whatever you choose to do is “between you and your God.” Euthanize comatose grandpa? This decision is between you and your God. (Grandpa’s God is presumably as out of it as grandpa is.) A woman’s decision to abort is between her and her God, and how a man chooses to worship, or whether to worship at all, is between him and his God. Here we are: back at polytheism. All these gods-mine, yours, hers, his, theirs-are the result of a combination of secularism ...

Sin is a great evil, because it produces unhealthy thoughts, befouls the soul, dissipates it, corrupts it and, in the end, impels it towards death. Just as illnesses weaken the body and kill it, this is what sins do to the soul. An ailing soul, burdened by passion, always gives in to it. It’s unable to rise again and turn to heaven and is too weak to face the light of truth.

Philantropia in Byzantium was not what we understand today as philanthropy and charity.  Nowadays philanthropy implies the prophylactic and therapeutic welfare, concern for the general public and charity so called directed toward alleviation of individual suffering. But in the thought and life of Byzantines philanthropy was: first, a philosophical and theological abstraction; second, a political attribute; third, charity directed to the individual in want; and fourth, philanthropy properly so called and expressed in organized institutions. If we were to ask a Byzantine what prompted him to believe in and apply philanthropia, he would have answered in the following terms, which formed the philanthropic philosophy of a monastery. Become not only merciful, as your Heavenly Father is merciful, but also just; for ...

First of all, Edwards' treatise seems to me to have more to do with John Locke, than it does with the view of the will found in the Bible. John Locke was a great thinker, but was essentially a theistic empiricist. His views on human psychology seek to apply the principles of physics to psychology — a move that is certainly open to question. For example, Locke said that ideas are either complex or simple. Complex ideas are formed from simple ideas — so for example, our idea of "Apple" is based on the linking of the simple ideas of sphere, red, sweet, etc. Thus a complex idea is like a compound formed from several more basic elements. The problem ...

People don’t understand the Scriptures; they find them almost incomprehensible. It’s only when they’re taught by the Holy Spirit that everything becomes clear and the soul feels it’s in heaven. Because the same Spirit is in heaven and on earth, in the Holy Scriptures and in the souls of those who love God. Without the Holy Spirit, people go astray and are unable to know God truly and to be comfortable with Him, even if they study all the time. Believe in the Gospel and in the testimony of the holy Church. Then even here on this earth, you’ll taste some measure of the bliss of Paradise. Truly the Kingdom of God is within us and His love grants Paradise ...

As a child, I remember thinking that church was so uninteresting. “Why is the priest repeating himself over and over again?, I would think to myself.  I was so bored by the repetition. Nothing changed in the service: the same words, the same motions, the same responses by the choir and the cantors each and every Sunday. In the car on the way to church, I would forecast it in my head. I could anticipate what would be said and done and how my boredom would follow. I can imagine that there are many other children in our churches who feel the same way, maybe even more so today because of the hurried growth of today's culture. They like to be ...

As the psychoanalytical dialogue progresses through its various stages (which, for the moral conscience, are particularly sensitive), the patients’ attitude toward their personal responsibility for creating and maintaining these moral conflicts manifests itself quite clearly. Experienced psychotherapists and psychiatrists, however, know that neurotic people, who are experiencing an existential moral problem, will never admit that the symptoms of their mental disharmony or disorder are the result of the way in which they are experiencing this moral conflict. Patients always insist that the problem is pathological/anatomical, and for this reason never think to visit a psychiatrist but rather insist on visiting general practitioners, cardiologists, surgeons, and every other kind of specialist except a psychiatrist. And, as prominent psychiatrists testify, often, since ...

On the 24th day of the month of August, the Church celebrates and honours the sacred memory of the holy hieromartyr Cosmas Aitolos. Saint Cosmas is one of those saints of the Church who are called New Martyrs and who appeared in the years of Turkish rule. After the Fall of Constantinople, the Turks became the new persecutors of the Church in the East and then many Christians, man and women, preferred to give up their lives rather than convert to Islam. It was these who, through their example, kept alive the Orthodox faith of the subject Orthodox peoples of the East. Saint Cosmas was born in 1714 in the village of Megalo Dendro, in Aitolia, which is why he’s called “Aitolos” . He ...

Man has been trying to make sense of the creation ever since antiquity as it is manifested in the teachings of many religions and philosophies. Generally, we may say that ancient Greek philosophers have offered three explanations as to the creation of the world: a) the Stoics and the Epicureans advocated that the world was self-existent, autonomous and eternal, b) The Pythagoreans argued that the physical elements and laws were divine and c) The Aristotelians attributed the cause of the creation to a god “who was the first mover, unmoved”. We may also argue that all subsequent theories, whether hailing from scientific or philosophical/religious circles, are divided into the following three main categories: the materialists, the pantheists and the theocrats. However, ...

God longs to be longed for by people. He fills those who wish to drink. He benefits those who want to do good works. He gives much more pleasing things than others receive. The only thing is that we shouldn’t ask to be given small things that are unworthy of us.

  Finally, to consider as an option for situations other than that of life and death the murder of a human being whose only fault is that he occupies the body of an unwilling fellow human being through no fault of his own, is to take the path of Fallen Adam who by disobeying God, chose a life apart from Him. In the same spirit of Adam’s "choice," by the spilling of innocent blood through abortion whether directly — by having or performing an abortion — or indirectly — through counseling, promoting, providing, condoning or even, yes, ignoring abortion — we remove ourselves from the Salvation of Jesus Christ. The Great English philospher, Edmund Burke once said, "It is sufficient for evil ...

Catechumen It is very, very difficult indeed for infinite and eternal life to make its way into the human soul—so narrow—and even into the narrower human body. Held behind bars, the inhabitants of this earth suspiciously stand their ground against anything coming from without. Cast into this prison of time and space they are unable—from atavism or perhaps from inertia—to bear being penetrated by something outlasting time, outlying space, something which surpasses these, and is eternal. Such an invasion is considered to be aggression towards them and they respond with war. A man, given the fact that he is being corrupted by the “moth” of time, does not like the intrusion of eternity into his life and is not easily able ...

In an age that seems to be forever witnessing wars between nations, and civil wars within nations, peace seems to be something that is about as possible as the alchemy that would turn metal into gold. Peacemakers struggle to find peaceful solutions for the conflicts between nations, political parties, religions, neighbors, and even within families. Peace is something we all hope for, but never seem to see in our lifetime. When peace comes to one part of the world, war breaks out in another part of the world. War seems to always have the upper hand, while peace seems only the dream of pacifists, dreamers, and poets. In the nineteen-sixties, many had hoped peace was about to reign in our world, ...

Love brings ease and joy to the heart, whereas envy kills both the body and the soul. How can you not love, when you hear love being preached all around you, when the only enemy of the human race, the devil, is eternal hatred? In all places and in all things you should show love.

The great Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Gustav Jung made a significant contribution to understanding the spiritual life by underlining the moral character of most of the personality’s repressions. Jung argued, on the basis of his clinical psychotherapeutic and medical experience, that these repressions were usually of a moral nature. In fact, in some cases, Jung went even further and taught that neurosis, which is today a very common disharmony in the personality, has a religious character. This is why, in his opinion, the problem of neurosis is actually a religious problem. Jung’s view here on the primary content of our modern repressions has been corroborated by many psychological and psychotherapeutic studies, as well as by philosophical thought. In fact, a ...

Paradise was a divine place, a fitting abode for man, who has been created “in the image and likeness of God”. He lived there in the bliss of the divine attributes, which were integrated into his very essence. He had the sense of being superior and steward of all other created beings. He was dispassionate, lived without concerns, care, or officiousness for his life. He was not hard pressed for any necessity. He only had one task, that of the angels: to constantly and ceaselessly praise the Creator. The fullness of his likeness to God did not allow him to have any doubts and questions. His indulgence was to participate in the fullness of divine consummate love. According to Saint John ...

For approximately 2,000 years, the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ has continued uninterruptedly in the world according to His promise. If He should return today, would He recognize His Bride, the Church? If the faith and the traditions of His Church have remained constant, He would certainly be able to recognize the Church which He established. Have those traditions and the faith remained strong in America? A number of holy people of our Church, including Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios of Constantinople and Patriarch Elias of the Patriarchate of Antioch, both of blessed memory, did not think so when they visited the United States a few years ago. They immediately perceived that the spirit of materialism and secularism had infiltrated the lives ...

Our awareness of ourselves as Orthodox Christians does not permit us to overlook the fact that Orthodoxy and Western Christianity cannot share a single ‘Christian identity’. On the contrary, it compels us to stress the fact that Orthodoxy is Europe’s long-forgotten original Christian faith, which at some point should once again serve as the basis of its Christian identity.    The United Europe of the twenty-first century is striving to find its identity. The question of ‘European identity’ did not use to be a serious concern since it was originally shaped only by economic and political factors. However, from the moment that cultural and particularly religious factors had to be taken into account in the attempt to define it, there have ...