Ξένες γλώσσες

The distinction between the sexes isn’t the inspiration of a wicked God Who created the material body which the supporters of gender Theory are called upon to set to rights. For Orthodox theology, the distinction between the sexes isn’t the result of the fall which must be overridden so that we can be brought to an androgynous or sexless state, as the Gnostics believed, but is rather the expression of God’s providence. Saint John the Damascan notes: ‘Marriage has been instituted so that the human race shall not be eroded and consumed by death, but that it should be preserved through procreation. But it might be asked what is meant by “male and female” and “increase and multiply”. To which ...

The Jesus prayer gives you so much sweetness, so much joy. It’s short, but it’s got so much power. So much, that you say: ‘Even if I go to hell, I’m not afraid. I’ll just say the prayer there, as well’.

In the liturgical life of the Church, the event of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and they began to speak in various languages, is linked to the story of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. There, too, people began to speak in different languages but with an entirely different outcome. Pentecost brought the unity of the gospel, Babel brought the scattering of peoples through the diversity of languages. There are lessons within the Babel story, however, that are worth noting. I leave it to others to worry about the historical nature of the Tower of Babel. Linguistic evidence points to widespread language differentiation for most of human history. But the lesson of Babel should not ...

In a quiet room (preferably after some spiritual reading or after lighting the lamp in front of the icons and censing), as far as possible removed from  noise and concerns, when you’re free of all thought and calculation, let your intellect go down into your heart and say the prayer ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, sinner that I am’. What peace and power our souls derive from this stillness in God… How it enables us, in the other hours in the day, to retain our peace, without irritability, tension and anxiety, with all our powers in harmony and unity…

Steam from warm mamaliga rises up and fogs my glasses as my mind slowly clears. “Why am I having corn mush for breakfast?” I ask myself. The day before slowly comes into focus, not a dream after all I guess. The pine plank of a bench provides me uncomfortable support but after the ride yesterday I’ll take anything. Gazing out the frosted window I find nearly half a metre of snow, quite a difference from what was in Bucharest when I left. “So, how ‘bout a cup of coffee?” cries out an accent I hadn’t heard in quite a while. An American accent. An American accent coming from a black bearded Orthodox Monk? No, I must still be dreaming. But, never being one ...

When people are empty of Christ, a thousand and one other things come and fill them up: jealousies, hatreds, boredom, melancholy, resentment, a worldly outlook, worldly pleasures. Try to  fill your soul with Christ so that it’s not empty.

Long ago, in the days when Arcadius and Honorius ruled the Roman Empire, a saint was born on the islanld of Cyprus. His parents were pious, humble islanders whose names are not recorded. The saint’s name was Tychon. Tychon’s father was a baker in a small Cypriot village. Each day, as he measured the flour, kneaded the dough and shaped the loaves of bread, he dreamed one dream, that someday his son would become a priest. Tychon’s gentle mother cherished the same dream. How happy and proud these good, simple people would  be when their son was a priest. Tychon spent the years of his boyhood in the village of his birth. He played in the fields around the village and helped ...

If you don’t see Christ with the eyes of your soul when you pray, you haven’t learned to pray. If only you knew what it is to see Christ with your eyes… As soon as you see Him, you’re filled with indescribable joy. Yet you’re overcome with an overwhelming feeling of awe, so that your legs fold involuntarily, you fall on your face before Him and you stay there, in ecstasy, sobbing unceasingly. What can you say there, in the presence of God? You simply wonder, you’re shattered and you weep constantly. I’m telling you, it wasn’t one day or two, it was three months I couldn’t stop my tears. That sweetest of yearnings just burns you up. Try as you will, you ...

People who belong to the Church of Christ belong to the truth, and those who don’t belong to the truth don’t belong to the Church of Christ. People who are very tall and those who are very short are both just as far away from the stars.

Avoid harmful dealings and your soul will always be very calm.

Give your heart to the Lord and He’ll supply all the vitamins and energy it needs to stop it collapsing.

When people are in a state of Grace, the soul is calm and mellow. It can’t be goaded into rage. Later, such people are expected consciously to reject evil. They have to overcome all the enemies of their soul while they’re still in this life. Our enemies aren’t made of flesh and blood. If they were, we’d be able to hide from them and escape them. But our spiritual enemies are everywhere.

Spiritual people know everything, because their mind is that of Christ. They know that what’s here is ephemeral and what’s there is permanent and immortal. They know that they themselves will be saved in the future and that, by the same token, unbelievers will not.

Before we depart for the heavens, we have to realize the value and meaning of this life: that it’s an arena in which we strive. We should remember that the saying is wise and true which tells us: ‘They had pain for a teacher and learned a lot’.

The passions are transmittable to our spiritual organism. Wickedness, for example. Even if it’s not expressed in words or deeds, it’s still hidden away in the heart and can just be discerned, maybe in the eyes and the face, and then it’s transmitted to the soul of the person it’s directed against.

Twenty years ago today His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was in Canada. Twenty years ago today His All-Holiness presided over the Divine Liturgy at the old Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario. The Liturgy included 17 bishops, 70 priests, and 19,000 faithful. It was a day for those who were present have and will never forget. It was the high point of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s remarkable nine-day, eight-city trip to Canada. To celebrate this milestone anniversary of the Patriarch’s visit, the Ecumenical Patriarchate Archons in Canada, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Sotirios, developed and have published an edited volume of works under the title, Bartholomew in Canada: A Twenty Year Celebration. The book begins with a foreword by Metropolitan Sotirios and ...

Fr. Nikolaos teaches Theology and Philosophy at the Orthodox Institute, Cambridge and at the Ecclesiastical Academy, Thessaloniki. He is well-acquainted with European thought and is one of the leading theologians in Greece. Interview with Yorgos Kiousis The real problem of our times isn’t atheism, but polytheism, which appears, in fact, in the form of idolatry. This creates a danger, because, in the place of Christ, the loving and sacrificed God, we set the bellowing monster of our narcissistic fabrications concerning power and domination. How do people today experience the event of Easter? Beyond the emotional and festal investment, there’s also an astonishing existential revelation: that God descended into the condition of my chaos and irrationality, loving me, at the expense of being crucified by ...

Callous people are stupid philosophers. They explain God’s will to their own condemnation. They’re blind and they teach others how to see. They praise silence and laud it with loquacity. They teach meekness and often become angry while doing so. They praise prayer and avoid it like the plague.

The Grace which comes from repentance snatches up the soul and wings it towards God, Whose light attracts it. At the beginning, He isn’t so apparent, but His warmth, which is love, starts to soften the heart. Then, strangely, a dichotomy appears in people. On the one hand, they’re overcome with fear, or rather horror, at their dreadful sinfulness; and on the other, they’re overwhelmed by the grace of God’s hitherto unknown presence. The fear side of the dichotomy is superfluous, because, with the presence of Grace, the eyes of the mind are opened and it sees for itself its defilement.

Unawareness of lack of the virtues is a downward slide into impiety. Because those who are accustomed to the pleasures of the flesh and disobedience to God will end up denying Him when the opportunity arises and will prefer the life of the flesh to Him. They’ll believe that the pleasures are more important than God.