In English

Today we’re facing another form of Iconoclasm: the pressure being exerted on the Church by a secularized society to adapt to its measures and ideals, so that the Church, too, will be secularized. Secularization presents a very great danger to the Church. Instead of the Church helping the world to become like the Church, the world is attempting to influence the Church and make it more like the world. So the Church will retain its outward forms, but will lose its faith. It will suffer what Papism has, concerning which Saint Nektarios wrote: ‘Through the dogma of Infallibility, the Western Church lost its spiritual freedom, lost its adornment, was shaken to its foundations, was deprived of the beauty of the grace of ...

Lots of people approach the Lord, but few decide to follow Him. There are many people who read the Gospel, who rejoice over its sublime concepts and enthuse over its holy teaching, but only a few decide to live according to the Gospel law.

A unique masterpiece, an icon of the Ascension of Christ by the great Russian iconographer Andrey Rublyov has arrived in Athens from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and will be displayed in the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens from June to September, 2016. The Ascension of Christ by Andrey Rublyov The icon of the Ascension of Christ is one of the five works by Rublyov which have survived. It was sent to Athens as a foretaste of the exhibitions which will be staged at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in collaboration with the Tretyakov Gallery and the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, within the context of ‘2016, Year of Russia and Greece’. It’s worth noting that only a few days ago, ...

The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, is a joyful festal stage in the truly jubilant Resurrection time of our Church. With feelings of rejoicing, we Orthodox faithful pack the churches on this holy day, to send hymns of thanksgiving to  our Saviour and Redeemer Lord and to praise His holy ascent to the heavens, after He had consented to descend in order to perform his redemptive work for the human race. (Jn. 3, 13; Phil. 2, 6-11). We hymn His return to the divine throne of His ineffable majesty, at the right hand of God the Father, to Whom He is forever our great and eternal Intercessor (I Tim. 2, 5). After His effulgent resurrection ...

When your mind isn’t distracted by worldly things and is united to God, then the ‘Good morning’ you say will be like giving a blessing.

The Russian hieromonk Dorotheus, a great instructor in spiritual asceticism, who was in this respect very much like St. Isaac the Syrian, counsels those who are learning the Jesus Prayer to recite it aloud at first. The vocal prayer, he says, will of itself turn into the mental. "Mental prayer," he continues, "is the result of much vocal prayer, and mental prayer leads to the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer should not be said in a loud voice but quietly, just audibly enough that you can hear yourself.,' It is particularly beneficial to practice the Jesus Prayer aloud when assailed by distraction, grief, spiritual despondency and laziness. The vocal Jesus Prayer gradually awakens the soul from the deep moral ...

In the face of  moralism and psychological outbreaks of purity among the monophysites and duophysites of every age, who want to make every post-lapsarian event into a sin, therefore impure, therefore to be rejected, the awareness of the Church, as this has been expressed by the friends of God, its saints, reveals that God affirmation to us is total and, for this reason is also true. I would say, therefore that the incarnation, as it has come down to us from the whole of our Church tradition but particularly from the Fourth Ecumenical Synod in Chalcedon, is manifested as the great mystery of the Church, from which all the other mysteries derive their existence. God is no longer content to ...

Get rid of two things about yourself: don’t think you’re somebody important and worthy; and don’t think that anybody else is of greater value than you.

As is obvious in just this quick study of abortion within our nation’s culture today, compared to the pure, clear and undiluted moral certainty of the Church, secular society in the Twentieth Century is a sink hole of ethical depravity that has lost all concept of moral absolutes — unless it be to embrace absolute evil. Utilitarianism, the philosophy of Atheistic Secular Humanism, preaches moral relativism and situational ethics saying in effect that there is nothing which is intrinsically good or evil, but rather that all things are dependent upon situation and circumstance. This errant nonsense has become the guiding light of all cultural reasoning and has caused the moral and ethical chaos rampant in Western society. The Ten Commandments have ...

Some people take the Body of the Lord without the fear of God. And they eat it. But they aren’t filled. Because as long as they take the sacrament only through the mouth, they’ll never be filled with its grace. From that point of view, they’ll still be hungry. Since, even before they come they felt full. *** If they take Holy Communion while they’re still in love with their sins, it doesn’t bring them the fruit of salvation. People aren’t satisfied with Holy Communion unless they really hunger for it. Unless they’re hungry. Those who’ve realized through their bad habits, that sin is poverty and hunger. These are the people who take the full energy and grace and efficacy. Not even the so-called ...