Ξένες γλώσσες

“The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Rm 10:8; Dt 30:14) What strikes us most at Christmas is how our Creator eliminated the distance between himself and us, His creatures. He not only takes upon Himself our nature in order to save us, or speaks to us in order for us to know him and believe in Him, or gives us His body and His blood in order to unite with Him, but also achieves something better. He gives us use of the word, an experience that exclusively characterizes rational beings, enabling us, in turn, also to eliminate the distance to Him through its use. The Word becomes incarnate in our lives, and we ...

Discourse 38 I. Christ is born, glorify Him. Christ is from heaven, receive Him. Christ is on earth, be lifted up; sing to the Lord, all the earth and, joining both in one, I say: Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad that He Who is of heaven is now of earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy: with trembling because of your sins, with joy because of your hope. Christ of a Virgin; Women, live as virgins, that you may be mothers of Christ. Who does not worship Him Who has been from the beginning? Who does not glorify Him Who has lately come? II. Again the darkness is dispelled; again Light appears; again ...

Archim. Zacharias Zacharou All the ordinances of the undefiled Church are offered to the world for the sole purpose of dis­covering the ‘deep heart’, the centre of man’s hypo­s­tasis. According to the Holy Scriptures, God has fashioned every heart in a special way, and each heart is His goal, a place wherein He desires to abide that He may mani­fest Himself. Since the kingdom of God is within us, the heart is the battlefield of our salvation, and all ascetic effort is aimed at cleansing it of all filthiness, and preserving it pure before the Lord. ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life’, exhorts Solomon, the wise king of Israel. These paths of life ...

Cemetery One day this winter, I saw a perfect stranger lose his glove. He walked quickly across a busy intersection where I was waiting in my car for the red light to turn green. As he neared the sidewalk on the right side of the intersection, a black glove fell out of his backpack. He didn’t see it fall. He strode briskly up the hill. My mouth opened instinctively, and I had a flashing mental image of myself leaping out of the car to shout to him. “You lost your glove! It’s on the sidewalk behind you! Come back and get it!” Then the light turned green and I drove on, impelled by the cars behind me. But I couldn’t shake my ...

Bare bones convince those who gaze upon them that nothing earthly is ours.

Moses taking of fhis sandals In the earliest years of Christian teaching, dogma was proclaimed only when a denial of something (Jesus’ humanity or his divinity, for example) made it necessary. The articulated doctrine of the Trinity emerged slowly, from the more important domain of silence into the lesser domain of words. Words, even at their best, are inadequate and prone to misunderstanding, leading to concepts and imaginary constructs that can get in the way of participation in the mystery. We need words, but we need them to take us to the place where we realize their inadequacy. They point us in the right direction, but they are never sufficient. In dealing with other religions—or for that matter with serious agnosticism—we should ...

Wednesday, 24 December  2137, the secondary three-man Committee for the Protection of Nature of the International Academy of Sciences was continuing its session. The three esteemed scientific chiefs, who, coincidentally, constituted an informal representation of the three largest races on earth, since one was white, another yellow and a third black, had been called upon to take a final decision on a pioneering proposal. The proposal was framed and submitted by the primary, multi-member Committee of the same Service, and concerned the protection of the Blaniulus Guttulatus worm, which was in danger of extinction for reasons unknown. The report recommended that the new method of wave mutation be applied, by which a person can be transformed into another living species. ...

A katavasia (hymn of descent) is the irmos for an ode in a canon, that is it's sung at the beginning of an ode and the rest of the verses are sung to the same melody. It's also repeated at the end of the ode, slowly, with emphasis and compunction. The singers come down from their stand to sing it, which is where it gets its name. Katavasia, ode 9, Christmas canon, tone 1, sung by Panayiotis Neokhoritis, Archon Chanter of the great Church of Christ. Magnify, my soul, her who is greater in honour and more glorious than the hosts on high. A strange and most wonderful mystery do I see. The cave is heaven; the Virgin the throne of the cherubim, ...

The holy New Martyr Ahmed was born in the seventeenth century to a Muslim family in Constantinople. By profession he was a copyist in the Great Archives. In accordance with Ottoman law, since he did not have a wife, he had a slave instead, a Russian woman. Another captive from Russia lived together with her, an old woman, also a slave. Both these women were very pious.   On feast days the old woman would go to church. Taking the blessed bread or antidoron, she would give it to the young woman to eat. The old woman would also bring her holy water to drink. Whenever this occurred and Ahmed was close to her, he would smell a beautiful and indescribable fragrance ...

Every time we stand before the Lord either in prayer or in celebration in Church of an event from the life of Christ, or we are in any other way experiencing the presence of the Lord, two basic things happen, which are attested by the Church and the experience of the Saints: Firstly, we are feeling joy because we are experiencing the Lord’s abundant love towards man. He moves our heart into great gratitude, since we are experiencing- to the measure of our spiritual condition- God’s great gift for us. Secondly, by being presented before the Lord we are also standing in a kind of critical judgment for our actions, which leads to our salvation, particularly if this takes place during ...

When I first went to live with my holy Elder, there in that harsh place in the desert, when I was living close to this man, that’s when I became acquainted with my egotism and saw it in practice.

Paraskevi, who out of sheer humility does not wish to reveal her full name, was among the first spiritual children of Elder Sophrony, during the time of her studies in England. She sent us a copy of two handwritten scripts by the blessed Elder. A good wish card which the blessed Elder sent during Christmas 1967, when Paraskevi was going through some difficult times because of the illness of a close relative The outside of the card The Christmas wish card (handwritten): Archimandrite Sophrony The Old Rectroy,Tolleshent Knight by Maldon, Essex Christmass 1967, + Dear beloved in Christ, Sister Paraskevi. May the Lord’s grace and peace be abundant in you. Let me first wish you Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year! Paraskevi, has it ever happened to do something ...

Nationalism is our form of … idolatry ... ''Patriotism'' is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say that by ''patriotism'' I mean that attitude which puts one’s own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare ... Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.” (Erich Fromm) I once asked an Orthodox Cypriot nationalist, “If you had no other choice but to worship at either a Greek Anglican ...

Cake Demonstrating Homosexual Marriage The best place to access the views, questions, prejudices and challenges of the World is, I believe, the office water-cooler.  The next best places would be the Huffington Post and (for Canadians), the CBC.  The water-cooler however retains its pride of place as the site more often visited by the common man who, if he retains his common sense, tends to avoid the Huffington Post and the CBC.  Anyway, it was at the office water-cooler that the common man (in this case, a woman) was expressing the common view on gay marriage, and asking with some anger, “If two guys love each other, why can’t they get married?”  The anger accompanying the question indicated that the ...

God is good and loves us and he asks that we should be charitable and perform works of love.

I was having a conversation recently about the Occupy Movement, where it was described to me as violent and un-American. I have to disagree with my fellow Orthodox Christian's viewpoint. Although I do agree that perhaps the youth of the Occupy Movement could be better organized, and it has attracted some rogue rebels without a cause as with any movement, I do not see how speaking out against injustice could ever be a bad thing? In fact, isn't speaking out against injustice a major principle of Jesus' teachings? From my upbringing in the Orthodox faith, I was always under the impression that speaking out against injustice is the ultimate expression of love towards mankind. First of all, I realize that recently part ...