Ξένες γλώσσες

There’s no doubt that, after God, humans are the most mysterious and enigmatic beings. From the beginning of our history, it can be seen that within us co-exist two opposing forces which attempt to gain domination and win us over to their side: good and evil, life and death, God and the devil. Each in a different way and by different means. But what’s the factor by which we feel and discern not only these circumstances, but all the realities which are in the perceptible world around us? No sooner do we acquire our senses in this world than we see and feel with them and we describe all the material things around us. But though dumb beasts see, with their ...

Grace doesn’t begin to act within us unless we want it and seek it. God doesn’t want to trespass on the freedom He’s given us. Otherwise we’d all become saints in the blink of an eye at God’s divine command.

Having lost the understanding of the redemptive nature of suffering, society today believes that to endure suffering is the evidence of mental aberration. This reflects the secular and humanist understanding of earthly life as being the totality of existence. If there is no God and if there is no Eternal Life, no Heaven, no Hell, then suffering is futile and foolish. Those who are Christian however, have the promise that earthly sufferings are but as jewels in the Crown of Salvation. Like gold refined in the fire, we will be made more beautiful through suffering in Imitation of Christ. To counter the culture, the Church must strongly teach that avoidance at all costs of humiliation and suffering is not the Christian ...

Sloth, stubbornness or any other passion is always followed by the commensurate punishment. When my internal disposition towards God and His holiness isn’t good, then I feel this punishment within myself, in my heart, like a fire that burns.

This brief study aims at a short review and analysis of today’s culture, the thoughts and ambitions of people nowadays, especially those in Europe, who have a large impact on others around the world. We’ve used the word ‘Europe’ but we would not wish to restrict ourselves to geographical confines of the term of ‘badly ageing Europe’, but rather we mean both civilizations, East and West, which, despite their different forms and expressions, belong to the same camp of atheist humanism. We would like to focus the attention of our people on the lurking danger of abandoning our ideals, our traditions, our heritage, for the sake of the new-fangled and erroneous ideas which are flooding our society through all available ...

It’s often been observed that some nuns find it difficult to express certain troubling thoughts to the Abbess, and that they find it easier to do so to the Elder. Of course, it’s obligatory for the Abbess to agree to hear the thoughts of all the nuns, but in such a case we see that the Elder can be of help in the resolving the situation to the spiritual benefit of the nun concerned. Besides, the Elder is more easily able to reconcile and placate the nuns regarding any friction or pettiness which disturbs the interpersonal communion of the nuns, especially when certain passions are prevalent which tend to appear more often in the feminine nature, such as envy, jealousy, complaining ...

My dear friends, This evening it has been my pleasure, after accepting the honour of an exceptional invitation, to speak from the chair of the late Archbishop Iakovos. To speak, that is to say, from under the shadow of a radiant person and servant of the Church who was known for the acute perception of his gaze. But also to speak from the chair of a migrant to whom the Ellis Island medal was awarded in 1986, for his creative integration into and contribution to American society. And we all know what Ellis Island was. I shall end, therefore, with his words, which demonstrate the immediate and imperative need on the part of the modern world, and particularly of the Orthodox Church ...

‘Son, your sins are forgiven’. This phrase, as used by Christ to the paralytic at Capernaum, links sickness with sin and forgiveness with cure. This is why Christ first cures the centre and root of the sickness, that is to say sin, and then goes on to provide a cure for the body. This cure is proof that ‘the son of man has the authority on earth to forgive sins’. Unless there’s a relationship and connection between forgiveness and cure, Christ’s words are incomprehensible, hanging in the air, without any cohesion. Christ is declared the victor over sin He lifts and shifts away the weight of it and cures the symptoms, one of which is sickness. Christian teaching and science But all ...

There are some ‘progressive’ people who see the Church as their enemy. Yet is there anybody who has more love and who desires our happiness more than the Church, more than God Himself? The Church takes care of everything that’s compatible to our nature and suffers with the soul and body of every Christian.

Guard your mouth against superfluous, acrimonious and gratuitous words. Practice the Jesus prayer and self-restraint and the Lord will surround you with the priceless gift of His love. "Book of the Elders"

Christ applied the balm of humility to the wound of ambition, the desire for pre-eminence. If the ‘messenger of great counsel’, that is Christ, was so humbled, then we, too, should be prepared to follow the same path. ‘He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’, as Saint Paul emphatically stated. The higher people rise, the more they should humble themselves and not be proud. Authority has been given to them not for them to be domineering, but to serve others. Saint John of the Ladder says: ‘Not only to cut, but also to take care of the wounds of others. It’s only through humility that leaders acquire a natural mode of behaviour ...

So from the middle of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th, monasticism in Greece, both men’s and women’s suffered a sharp decline. Even the Holy Mountain itself was threatened by a lack of monks. On the occasion of the millennium celebrations for the Holy Mountain in 1963, Ecumenical Patriarch Athinagoras said pointedly: ‘Together with the millennium, we’re also celebrating the dying breath of the Holy Mountain’. Divine Providence, however, had no wish to see the end of Athonite monasticism. And so now we can talk not only about repopulation but a blossoming of the Holy Mountain. With their virtuous lives and their spoken and written words, charismatic elders, such as Iosif the Hesychast with his disciples, Saint Païsios ...

Apostle Paul, Byzantine enamel, 12th Century, Victoria and Albert Museum, London How can you compare him to anyone else, given that he suffered almost every day on behalf of all the inhabitants of the world, all together, and for the gentiles, and for the cities and for each person individually. To what iron or to what diamond? What can you call that soul of his: golden or adamantine? It was more resistant than any diamond and more valuable than gold or precious stones. It outdid the resilience of a diamond and the value of gold. So with what element can we compare it? With nothing that exists. But if gold could become diamond and diamond gold, then we might compare ...

There continues to be much said and written about the historic Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church. The discourse is often critical and infiltrated by individuals who hold extreme – some say fanatical – positions, criticizing and condemning those who oppose them. One hierarch told me this week that his elderly mother called him after being “informed” about the Council and proceeded to list for him all of its shortcomings. Listening in on the deliberations at the Orthodox Academy of Crete, I thought it might be helpful for the Orthodox faithful – as well as those interested in the Council and Orthodoxy more generally – to get a sense of the atmosphere and goings-on in the room. Of course, the deliberations ...

The characteristic feature of true repentance is profound emotion, devastation and sorrow of the heart, which is sad not because it’s going to be punished, but because, with its sin, it saddened and angered God Who is such a loving and tender Father. It’s the sighs, the compunction, the prayers, the fasts, and the tears. That repentance is genuine and real.