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 ...
The love which the world gives consists of pain and thralldom, because the evil demons involve themselves with it. There’s only a small amount of real love. For the most part it’s simply enslavement. The evil spirits try to enslave us so that we cleave to certain persons or things, so that our heart will be distracted from seeking God, Who is the source of live and love.
The Gagauz are Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christian populations with obvious Balkan cultural and physical characteristics. They start to appear in historical sources only during the period around the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, living within the borders of the Ottoman Empire in 3 regions of the Balkan Peninsula: in Dobruja, in Thrace and in Macedonia. During this period they immigrated in their majority to the southern part of the region ofBessarabia, then passing under the sovereignty of the Russian Empire. These immigrations were mainly a consequence of their participation in the Russian- Turkish wars on the side of their coreligionist Russians. The descendents of the remaining Gagauz, who did not immigrate then from the Balkans, are ...
In 1740, the Ottoman Empire was at war and Sultan Ahmet ordered that all the male children of Christians be taken off to army camps. Theocharis, who was an orphan, was picked up with other children and begged the Lord day and night prevent him from being tortured. One day, the cadi of Neapolis in Cappadocia visited the camp and noticed the young man. He took him into his service, with the task of looking after the stables. One evening, the wife of the cadi saw Theocharis praying on his knees for a long time with his hands raised to the heavens. Impressed by his piety, she persuaded her husband to marry him to their daughter. When the cadi offered to ...
How do we please God? By observing His commandments, that is if we submit to His holy will, His law, which saves, rather than submitting to the passions which destroy the soul.
3. The problem of the relations between Christians and people of other religions is much more complicated. In general it has two facets. The first is practical: the need to co-exist with people of other religious persuasions. In this case, we have a “dialogue of life” where the only appropriate attitude is one of peaceful co-existence, respect for religious freedom and, broadly speaking, for the human rights of others. But there can also be co-operation on matters of social harmony and progress. The second is theoretical: understanding other religions from a theological standpoint. Just as the life of Christ, the new Adam, has world-wide consequences, so the life of His mystical Body, the Church has world-wide range and energy. Its prayers ...
With the preaching of Saint Paul concerning Christ, a significant change began to occur in the Greco-Roman world in the middle of the first century A.D. The Jews of Thessaloniki were particularly annoyed by the activity of Paul and his associates and stirred up a mob, throwing society in the city into uproar. Thereafter they complained loudly to the local political authorities: “These people who have been turning the world upside down have now come here, as well… they are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar and saying that Jesus is another king” (Acts 17, 6). Unwittingly, by the use of this phrase, they recognized the already significant, and even more so the forthcoming, change in the world, ...
The Prophet Samuel, the last Judge of Israel, appeared on the stage of Biblical history towards the end of the period of the Judges, which, because of the lack of a king (“there was no King in Israel”, Judges 21, 25) was a chaotic period of intense political instability and of the introduction of foreign elements of worship into the Israelite religion. Samuel came from the small town of Ramah, and was dedicated, by his mother, Anna, who gave birth to him after a long period of infertility, to the sanctuary at Shiloh, the most sacred in the land of Israel. It was here that the Ark of the Covenant was kept, under the care of the priests of Eli, ...
The perfection of Christ’s law-giving is hidden secretly behind His Cross, that is in our total sacrifice for the love we have for Christ and our neighbor.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his essay “A Meaningful Storm”, described the history of the Church as consisting of a series of layers. The earliest layer (and most fundamental, I would suggest) is that of the early church, a time of pagan persecution when the Church lived its life in the catacombs as a hounded and illegal sect. (Well, it lived in the catacombs metaphorically speaking—the Sunday service never was actually held in the catacombs, which were places of burial.) Then came the second layer, after the Peace of Constantine, when the first Christian Emperor called off the dogs of persecution and gave the Church a privileged place in the sun, beginning the long and glorious Byzantine experiment of Church-State symphonia. After about a ...
The Finnish Orthodox Church (Finnish: Suomen ortodoksinen kirkko; Swedish: Finska Ortodoxa Kyrkan) is an autonomous Orthodox archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Church has a legal position as a national church in the country, along with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. With its roots in the medieval Novgorodian missionary work in Karelia, the Finnish Orthodox Church was a part of the Russian Orthodox Church until 1923. Today the church has three dioceses and 58,000 members that account for 1.1 percent of the population of Finland. The parish of Helsinki has the most adherents. Although it appears that the earliest Christians in Finland were Byzantines, most of the country received the Christian faith in the Latin tradition through the activity of ...
There are three ways in the spiritual life. The first is to have an illness. The second is to set about all your tasks cheerfully. The third is to have an Elder to whom you’re obedient. This last has something a bit more to it.
