Ξένες γλώσσες

While the Samaritan woman was talking to Christ, she basically didn’t understand what he was saying. He was talking on the level of eternal life. She automatically transferred what she heard to the level of this transitory life. There was no meeting point. This point was created through a ‘sign’- a miracle- that Christ revealed to her. He said, ‘Go and fetch your husband and come back here’. She replied that she didn’t have a husband.  Then Jesus said to her, ‘You’re quite right in saying that you don’t have a husband. You’ve had five and the one you have now isn’t your husband. It was true, what you said’. The words of the Lord shifted the Samaritan woman onto another ...

Spiritual vigilance and your struggle against demonic evil will last until the end of your life. This is because Satan is constantly vigilant and never rests. He’s like a wild lion prowling around, seeking to devour anyone who’s escaped him. Anyone he finds asleep is in trouble.

Our ordinary condition, the condition of all mankind, is one of fallenness, of spiritual deception, of perdition. Apprehending—and to the degree that we apprehend, experiencing—that condition, let us cry out from it in prayer, let us cry in spiritual humility, let us cry with wails and sighs, let us cry for clemency! Let us turn away from all spiritual gratifications, let us renounce all lofty states of prayer of which we are unworthy and incapable! It is impossible "to sing the Lord's song in a strange land" (Ps. 136:5), in a heart held captive by passions. Should we hear an invitation to sing, we can know surely that it emanates "from them that have taken us captive" (Ps. 136:3). "By ...

The Word became flesh; that is, the Son of God, co-eternal with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit, became human --- having become incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. O, wondrous, awesome and salvific mystery! The One Who had no beginning took on a beginning according to humanity; the One without flesh assumed flesh. God became man --- without ceasing to be God. The Unapproachable One became approachable to all, in the aspect of a servant. Why, and for what reason, was there such a condescension on the part of the Creator toward His transgressing creatures --- toward humanity which, through an act of its own will had fallen away from God, its Creator? It ...

A meditation for those preparing to stand before the Creator and Church community in the awesome Mystery of Holy Confession, thereby being given the renewal of a second baptism. I, a sinful soul, confess to our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, all of my evil acts which I have done, said or thought from baptism even unto this present day. I have not kept the vows of my baptism, but have made myself unwanted before the face of God. I have sinned before the Lord by lack of faith and by doubts concerning the Orthodox Faith and the Holy Church; by ungratefulness for all of God's great and unceasing gifts; His long-suffering and His providence for me, a sinner; by lack of ...

Of course, the mystery of divine migration is different from any other migration and herein is certainly where its value lies, its creative contribution. In essence it is an offer in kind of the gift of a new ethos and completely new manner. In truth it is a voluntary migration, a voluntary exodus from the ‘existential security and certainty’ of an internal triune communion, a communion of love, towards the weak and sick, towards the naked and chastised. I would say that this is a complete inversion and, as the same time reversion. An inversion of the everyday, but certainly not of the directly given as transmitted, where the migrant is the persecuted, forced by circumstances to change place and ...

Just as the shadow follows the body, so God’s mercy follows humble reflections

Any encounter with Christ astonishes people. If you’re not astonished, you should ask yourself whether you actually encountered Christ, if you really felt His presence. This astonishment isn’t inexplicable, nor absurd, but rather it’s understandable and rational. It’s something that occurs when the natural meets the supernatural, the relative meets the absolute and the transitory meets the eternal. When people who are overcome with the fear of death meet the Lord of Life, when the creature gazes upon its Creator, the relationship is incommensurate, unexpected surprises occur. And these surprises become all the more moving when the Lord humbles Himself before His creation, in order to serve it. Indeed, the surprises here aren’t restricted to the general nature of things, but ...

When you turn to Christ, pay no attention to what’s going on inside you. Keep your attention focused on the Lord and beg Him for help. There’s no room for malicious thoughts in a mind focused on the Lord.

Since you have learned to hear, Slavic people, Hear the Word, for it came from God, The Word nourishing human souls, The Word strengthening heart and mind.... (St Cyril and St Methodius, Prologue to the Gospels) During their famous mission to "Great Moravia, "the two brothers of Thessalonica, St Cyril (known also as Constantine "the Philosopher" before his tonsure as a monk) and St Methodius, were faced with strong opposition: the German clergy, who were competing for the souls of the Slavic converts, affirmed that scripture could be read only in three languages --Hebrew, Greek and Latin-- and that translation into Slavic was inadmissible. So, the two Byzantine missionaries became involved in a controversy that anticipated the great debates of the Reformation period on the ...

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." The correct practice of the Jesus Prayer proceeds naturally from correct notions about God, about the most holy name of the Lord Jesus, and about man's relationship to God. God is an infinitely great and all-perfect being. God is the Creator and Renewer of men, Sovereign Master over men, angels, demons and all created things, both visible and invisible. Such a notion of God teaches us that we ought to stand prayerfully before Him in deepest reverence and in great fear and dread, directing toward Him all our attention, concentrating in our attention all the powers of the reason, heart, and soul, and rejecting distractions and vain imaginings, whereby we ...

This treatise was designed to help Orthodox Christians — and especially clergy — cope with those who demand that oikonomia be invoked to allow them to use abortion as a solution to various life crises. It was never the author’s intention to go into detail about abortion itself; such a study would require a book and perhaps several books. However, it may be necessary to point out at least a few facts about abortion that have been withheld from the American public by the pro-abortion media. For instance: 1> Abortion on demand for any or no reason is available up until the moment a child is delivered. The interest of the State in the unborn child after viability (the time when ...

On the occasion of the convocation of the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, we are publishing a text by George Mantzaridis, Emeritus Professor of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which deals with the manner in which Orthodox Theology is produced. This text is a contribution to the more general dialogue which is preceding the discussions of the Pan-Orthodox Synod. Hesychasm is not merely a theological school or ecclesiastical system, but rather a phenomenon which transcends the various schools and systems. It is even more true that hesychasm is not restricted to a particular period in the history of monasticism, such as that of the fourteenth century, when the erudite monk, Barlaam the Calabrian, attacked the Athonite ...