To be quiet is the fruit of a royal and noble upbringing. Those who’ve learned how to be quiet have also learned how to talk. Because to be quiet is the product of rational thought. In the same way as speaking prudently is. People who don’t know how to be quiet can’t hold a conversation, either.
On seeing Fr. Symeon, in person you weren’t impressed by his appearance. He was an ordinary clergyman and he himself cared nothing for anything more. Often, indeed very often, he would stress that he was a ‘non-being’, clearly referring to the phrase used by Saint Paul in I Corinthians (1, 28), where he talks about ‘things which are not’. And he believed this deeply and demonstrated it by his behaviour. Although he had a great many spiritual children, he never said of anyone ‘He or she’s my spiritual child’. He rejected the title of ‘Elder’. Some professors went to see him once with a group of students, in the first few years after the monastery had been built. One of ...
The Scriptures have a low door. If you want to enter, you have to be either a child or you have to bow your head humbly.
We shouldn’t entertain thoughts that are pleasing to the devil, but should destroy them with the sword of the word of God.
Saul, Hebrew by birth, Jew by faith, Roman by citizenship, Greek by education, and thereafter Paul, a Christian in outlook and in his heart, was the cornerstone of European and, by extension, the whole of Western civilization. He regenerated and renewed the whole world, in fact. No other person has affected the course of human civilization, and even life on the planet, as much in the last 20 centuries. The great Paul, with the Greek language as his vehicle, united the East and the West, bringing from the East the message of the Sun of Righteousness, to bring people together, ‘that they might be one’. And he did so not with some coercive, external, still-born political system, but through freedom and, above ...
I reckon all the fine things of this world to be wisps of grass, soap bubbles, smoke, straw and dust.
Blessed Irene was born in Cappadocia, into the bosom of a rich and noble family, after the death of the iconoclast emperor Theofilos (842). When Theodora became regent, she searched the empire for a wife for her son, Michael III (842-867). The imperial envoys took note of the beauty and nobility of Irene and sent her to Constantinople together with her sister, who later married Caesar Vardas, the brother of Theodora. On the way, they went past Mount Olympus in Bithynia and Irene visited Saint Ioannikios the Great (4 November), who greeted her and told her she’d become the abbess of the Monastery of Chrysovalantis. Divine providence prevented her marriage to the emperor and, full of joy and with a light ...
Love every person indiscriminately. Never mind if they’re weak and sinful. Don’t think about the sin, but about where the person comes from, which is the image of God Himself. Don’t let the weaknesses of others bother you – their badness, pride, envy, voracity or gluttony. You’re not short of problems yourself. Basically, as regards our relationship to sin, we’re all the same.
This change in basic ethical reasoning can be seen in the routine screening of older women by a procedure called amniocentisis. This is done in order to "identify" Down’s Syndrome and other afflicted children in utero so that they might be destroyed before birth (there is a popular misconception that older women are more likely to give birth to Down’s Syndrome children, however recent studies done have refuted that belief). Large numbers of tests are being developed to screen children in the womb, the sole object being a wholesale "search and destroy" mission against any unborn child who proves to be less than "perfect." What parents are not told is that, most of these tests increase the danger of spontaneous ...
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, during his opening address at the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, quoted the preacher with the golden mouth, St. John Chrysostom: “For the term ‘church’ is defined as a system and synod.” Both the term ‘church’ and the system of synod have generated a great deal of discussion recently and regrettably some division as well. Archbishop Anastasios of Albania remarked in his opening statement that the “Heresy of our time is egocentrism.” Following the Inaugural Session, I spoke with a well-known delegate about the Archbishop’s statement, and on the self-centredness of many monomaniacal critics of the Council. One of his comments was especially insightful. He compared them to the pope, and argued that unlike the Roman pontiff who ...
People who don’t have love within themselves have been cut off and isolated from all that is best and spiritual.
This saint lived in the time of Emperor Antoninus, in the year 140, and came from a village of Old Rome. She was the daughter of Christians called Agathon and Politeia, who observed the commandments of the Lord scrupulously. They were childless and constantly besought the Lord to send them one. God, who fulfills the wishes of those who venerate Him, granted them a daughter, whom, at her Holy Baptism, they named Paraskevi, because she was born on Friday, the day of preparation. The child devoted herself to God from the time she was still in her mother’s arms. She was taught by her mother and encouraged by her. Once she had learned to read, she constantly studied the Scriptures and ...
His discourse was also theological. He never ignored dogma, never indulged in moralizing, empty verbiage or flights of fancy. He spoke well, was comprehensible, and used theology, not as a system of knowledge, but as the essence of life, which imbues the whole of human existence. The centre of his theology was the Bible, which he knew in depth. His sermons were, at bottom, Biblical and he recommended that his ‘children’ read the Scriptures, and, indeed, he set a chapter of the New Testament to be read every day, by all of them. He immersed himself in the Scriptures, engaging with the text and enjoying the interpretational footnotes, both Patristic and modern. We would often speak at length on the telephone ...
