Ξένες γλώσσες

As we come to the end of Great Wednesday, we move on from this theme of the Bridegroom, and on Great Thursday we commemorate the Mystical Supper and Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. In the morning, a full Eucharistic Liturgy of St Basil the Great is served in combination with vespers. The relationship between the Mystical Supper and the Eucharist is obvious, but many Orthodox talk about this Mystical Supper as though its sole purpose was to establish the sacrament of Holy Communion. This is just silly. I am not trying to play down the reality of Holy Communion as the Body and Blood of Christ or its connection to the Mystical Supper, but there is more to ...

On Great Tuesday, in the evening, the tropario of Kassiani is sung in Orthodox Churches. This is a poetic rendition of the event described in the Gospels where a sinful woman shows her repentance by laving Christ’s feet with precious ointment and wiping them with her hair.   The woman’s action is significant for two main reasons: 1. It prepared Christ for burial, since the Jews used to anoint the bodies of their dead with a mixture of resin and spices. 2. The intensity of the scene demonstrates the magnitude of her repentance. The particularity of her action has led to associations unrelated to what actually happened, with the result that a number of myths have been woven around the identity of this woman and ...

Knowledge is awareness of God. If you really want to know God, get to know yourself first.

Having established the identity of Christ, let us now begin getting to grips with what He did for us, meaning above all, the events of Holy Week. The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Great Week are marked by the service of the NYMPHIOS (the Bridegroom Service). The morning service of each day takes place on the evening of the night before in anticipation. Each day liturgically begins at sunset, and so the service of Monday is held on Sunday evening, the service of Tuesday on Monday evening, and so on. On Sunday evening, the priest, preceded by lights, and bearing the icon of the Bridegroom makes a solemn procession within the church and places it in the centre, while we sing ...

The woman who had fallen into many sins, perceiving Thy divinity, O Lord, fulfilled the part of a myrrh-bearer; and with lamentations she brought sweet-smelling oil of myrrh to Thee before Thy burial. ‘Woe is me’, she said, ‘for night surrounds me, dark and moonless, and stings my lustful passion with the love of sin. Accept the fountain of my tears, O Thou who drawest down from the clouds the waters of the sea, Incline to the groanings of my heart, O Thou who in Thine ineffable self-emptying hast bowed down the heavens. I shall kiss Thy most pure feet and wipe them with the hairs of my head, those feet whose sound Eve heard at dusk in Paradise, and ...

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 ...

In Ode 8 of Mattins for Great Monday, we read: ‘Let your authority over other people be different from that of the Gentiles: their self-willed pride is not the order that I have appointed, but a tyranny. Therefore, let him who would be first among you be the last of all’. Ode 9 states: Do not think proud thoughts, but be content with what is humble’. This Gospel exhortation is repeated in the Aposticha: ‘Do not be like the Gentiles… Let him who is the first among you be the servant of all, the ruler be the ruled, and the first be last.

a) Joseph the Fair leads the chorus of those celebrating God’s condescension in going to His voluntary passion, an event of universal significance. In his person, the Gospel messages of reconciliation, forgiveness, restraint and purity of heart find their application. He may not have heard the dulcet proclamation of love for one’s enemies; he may not have known personally the lambent Bridegroom of the Church, Who inspires service, sacrifice and honourability; he may have lived hundreds of years before Him. None of this, however, prevented him from proving to be a man of God, an evangelist before the Gospels were written, a man of restraint in lax times, an obedient disciple before the appearance of the Master. b) Joseph is a ...

Life on earth is very short, unimaginably so. But much has been given to us in the short span of time so that we can turn to God from the depths of our heart. He it is Who can transfigure and resurrect our soul. We Christians are really extremely fortunate that we have Our Most Pure Lady, the Mother of God to pray for us before the throne of God.

People should train themselves to recognize immediately, through the feeling in their heart, whether good or evil is coming towards them, in the same way as we identify savory and unsalted things, or sweet and bitter with the tongue.

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four canonical Gospels. (Mark 11:1–11, Matthew 21:1–11, Luke 19:28–44, and John 12:12–19). In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday is marked by the distribution of palm leaves (often tied into crosses) to the assembled worshipers. The difficulty of procuring palms for that day's ceremonies in unfavorable climates for palms led to the substitution of boughs of box, yew, willow, or other native trees. The Sunday was often designated by the names of these trees, as Yew Sunday, or by the general term Branch Sunday. In the accounts of the four canonical Gospels, Jesus' triumphal entry into ...

Holy Week is the heart of the Christian Orthodox Faith and the centre of the yearly cycle of Christian Feasts. Every year our churches are packed at Holy Week and, come the last three days, they are bursting at the seams with both people who attend church every Sunday and people who attend only on special occasions. Holy Week brings the pious and the not so pious together in a way that the most ambitious missionaries can only dream of. I am not going to try to answer the reasons for this. I am going to try to explain not so much what makes Holy Week unique and different from every other time of the religious year, but rather why ...

Beloved brothers, sisters and children in the Lord, The typical feature of the Greek people was and is the preservation of ancestral tradition. Modern times are characterized, if not by the abandonment and rejection of the ancestral customs and morals of the nation, then at least by a disregard, which, in the long term, unless we stand up against it, will result in the creation of a generation without memory, without roots in tradition. And we all know that a tree without roots has no sap, nor has it life. It quickly withers and ‘is cast into the fire’ as the Gospel puts it. So, as the Archbishop of Constantinople and shepherd of the flock in this city, a flock which your ...

The wrath of God is an excruciating feeling for those who are being instructed by God. And it becomes an excruciating feeling when unwanted pains come along. Through these God often guides an intellect which has become puffed up over its virtue and knowledge and brings it to restraint and humility. In this way, He grants us knowledge of ourselves and an awareness of our sickness. And when that happens we cast out vain conceit. The wrath of God is the cessation of the flow of God's gifts and happens to every intellect that soars aloft and boasts about the things given to it by God as if they were its own.

If each of us did whatever good we could, there wouldn't be unhappy people in the world.

Strictly speaking, Lent ends on the Friday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent: the period of forty days is then over. The time of the Passion lasts from the end of Lent until the Resurrection, anticipated on Holy Saturday. It therefore comprises the Saturday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent, called ‘Lazarus Saturday’, and the first six days of Holy Week. Lazarus Saturday has a very special place in the liturgical calendar. It is not included in the forty days of Lenten penitence; it is not included in the harrowing days of Holy Week – which are counted from the Monday to the Friday. Together with Palm Sunday, it forms a short and joyous prelude to the days of ...

Love of pleasure opens the door of our soul to the enemy. If you fight this with firm resolve, then it will be very difficult for any passion to overcome you.

I can remember jumping off the front porch steps in excitement as I hurried into the car to get to the church as quickly as possible to find out which group I was in.  Every year the Jr. Choir of Archangel Michael Church in Campbell, Ohio would split into groups and go to all the Orthodox homes in town to sing the kalanta or carols.  We did this three times a year, Christmas, St. Basil’s and Lazarus Saturday.   I can remember the smiles on the faces of the people we sang for and the lingering aroma of the freshly baked cookies many of the yiayias baked and stuffed into our pockets.  We’d collect money for the church in our neatly ...

St Joasaph was the son of the pious ruler of Epirus and Thessaly Symeon Sinisi, who was descended from the royal house of Nemanja and was proclaimed “tsar of the Greeks, the Serbs and the Albanians” under the name of “Symeon Uros Palaeologus”. His mother, Thomaïs, was the sister of the last Despot of Epirus, Nicephorus II. He was born around 1350 and christened Ioannes. Having been brought up in a devout family, Ioannes showed from an early age particular zeal for the spiritual life and an aversion for the things of this world. He paid frequent visits to churches and monasteries, and particularly the monasteries of the Holy Mountain and Meteora, constantly attending the Divine Liturgy and other services. When ...