Ξένες γλώσσες

A brief discourse on the child of God Mary, when she was dedicated to God at the age of three years old, in the Holy of Holies, by her parents. When it was time for God’s mystery for our salvation to be accomplished, it was necessary that the workshop where this would happen should be full of holiness so that He Who is all holy and ‘finds rest in the saints’, should reside in this holy place and so fulfill the prophecy: ‘The mercy of God and the precise verification of His promises met and united. His justice and peace performed a mutual embrace. Truth sprang from the earth and justice bent down from heaven and visited the earth’. ‘For the ...

No-one is saved alone. My salvation isn’t my own business, my own tiny, individual affair. It’s an ontological event which involves not only the whole of humankind but also the whole of creation, every single thing that God has created.

It’s not enough for prayer just to proceed from the lips. It’s of great importance that we should love Him Whom we’re addressing. But we can’t feel that love if we repeat prayers mechanically, or even if we concentrate. Unless we struggle with all our powers to observe the Lord’s commandments, then we’re calling upon His name in vain. But God tells us quite clearly (Ex. 20, 7) that we are not to utter His name unless there’s a good reason to. This is why, when we call upon the name of the Lord, we have to be aware not only of the presence of the living God, but also of His true wisdom.

As our Church begins to observe the Nativity Fast, our Holy Metropolis organized the second annual Altar Boy Retreat on Saturday, November 18, 2017, for altar boys from across the Greater Toronto Area. Held this year at the Metropolis headquarters, the day began with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy by His Eminence Metropolitan Sotirios alone. All of the youth approached for Holy Communion, a truly wonderful display of faith. Following the Liturgy, a Lenten meal was served to all participants, prepared by the Ladies of the Metropolis Philoptochos. This time was also an opportunity for the altar boys to introduce themselves and make new friends. His Eminence spoke to all gathered on this year’s theme of our Metropolis: “Whoever therefore shall confess ...

When people begin to observe the commandments properly, their mind opens and they understand how God has a plan for each person. They feel His special concern in their personal life and that of their family. The holy Fathers say that such people then progress and that the faith in their vision increases. The illumined mind sees that God handles each soul with such fatherly care, with such attention to detail, with such particular interest, that it continues to progress and doesn’t fall back.

The great news which Christianity tells the world every day is that things are judged, as regards their true worth, not by evaluating their external features, but by what they are in essence. We have to judge things not by their colour or shape but by what they mean. And people should be measured not by their status or wealth, that is, by external appearances, but by their heart, which is where the senses, the intellect and the will are united. By this measure (which is an entirely new teaching as far as the world is concerned), people who are enslaved in external terms aren’t really slaves at all and those who have external- bodily- freedom aren’t in fact free. The way ...

The ninth Sunday of Saint Luke and the Gospel reading again revolves around the great temptation of the misuse of wealth. The parable of the foolish rich man is well-known and, at the same time, of enduring interest to everyone, not only to those who have a lot of money. The man mentioned in the Gospel today was so rich that he didn’t have room to store all his wealth and goods. It appears that his sole interest in life was to acquire more and more goods. He was the type of man who, instead of being in love with the beauty of life, was someone with a life-long passion for an abundance of material goods. The poor man was under ...

Many people have tried to deal with temptations through a variety of spiritual means. But without prayer and the practice of repentance no one has ever escaped the hardships of the temptations, which, in accordance with God’s justice, are permitted for our rectification and purification.

Silence is a great fortifier in unseen warfare and a sure hope of victory.

The Church is not opposed to the human body. This is why the Fathers were so careful not to damage their body with their ascetic efforts. They tried to submit it to the Holy Spirit and to God’s commandments, so as not to seek the pleasures and lapses of the flesh, but they never accepted that their bodies should be damaged. In Patristic literature, there’s a saying that ‘we don’t slay the body, but we do slay the passions’. It’s sin and the passions which kill, not the body, which is the temple of God. And if, at times, it appears that the saints seem merciless and harsh in their treatment of the body, it was not to kill it, ...

A Divine Liturgy will be celebrated this Sunday with simultaneous sign language interpretation for the first time in Cyprus. The Diocese of Tamasos and Orinis has invited a theologian well-versed in Greek sign language to come from Greece for the service in St. John Chrysostom Church in Lakatamia in the Nicosia district, Cyprus Mail Online reports. According to parish priest Fr. Kyriacos Kasparis, the interpreter is scheduled to come once a month at first, eventually increasing to once every two weeks plus major holidays, depending on his schedule. “This arrangement is aimed at satisfying the needs of the deaf faithful who have never had the opportunity to follow a liturgy and have someone explain to them the deeper meanings in their own language,” Fr. ...

Whatever difficulties and temptations you face, just remember that they’re nothing compared to the trials experienced by the Lord as a human being here on earth.

All the Pharasiotes began their preparations at once, just as Father Arsenios did. First he baptised all the unbaptised children, including the village president's child, at which time the following event occurred: The child's parents wanted to give him the grandfather's name, Christos. Father Arsenios, however, did not agree, because he wanted to give him his own name, and he said to the parents: "It's natural that you should want to have someone follow in the grandfather's footsteps, is it not also natural for me to want to leave a monk to follow in mine?" He then turned to the godmother and told her: "Arsenios is the name you will give him." Indeed, from an early age, this child did aspire to become a ...

Any reference to the Apostle St. Matthew, author of the first book of the New Testa­ment, is made with such solemnity and reverence that speaking of him as a man seems almost sacrilegious, so close to the divine is he con­sidered. But when Jesus came upon Matthew, he was a man who could scarcely be viewed with little but contempt by the human eye; the divine sight of Christ, however, saw in this man which He beckoned to His service that spark of greatness invi­sible to the rest of the world. It is doubtful that Matthew him­self was aware of what lay dormant in him that was to place him in the forefront of Christianity. Matthew was a native ofCana, the ...

Don’t open your mouth and heart to all and sundry. Only one in a thousand will understand you.

Sunday’s Gospel of the Good Samaritan has as its core message ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself’. But the story is a reply to a specific question and obviously doesn’t exhaust all facets of the issue. For example, in this particular case, the ‘neighbourly’ thing to do next would be to guarantee the safety of the road so that future travellers would not fall victims to robbers. In today’s terms, it’s clear that we must look after refugees and provide them with shelter, food, medical facilities and an environment acceptable to them, but also that we should be working towards making their countries of origin self-sufficient and safe, to the extent that the refugees can return and prosper there ...

The monastic life has been called the angelic state, as being the pre-eminent way of imitating and following the life of the angels. Monastics are always striving to live as citizens of heaven. They consider themselves no more than temporary visitors on earth and their constant desire is to be ‘a little less than the angels’ (Ps. 8, 5). They want to live an angelic life here and to replace the ranks of the fallen angels. Indeed, the organizer of the common monastic life in Cappadocia, Saint Basil the Great, in his 2nd letter to ‘his comrade’, Gregory, asks: ‘What then is more blessed than to imitate the state of the angels?’ The ascetic Fathers declare: ‘Let the life of a ...

The holy and renowned Apostle Philip came from Bethsaida in Galilee, that is the same town of which Saints Andrew and Peter were residents. He was distinguished for his depth of understanding and spent a great deal of time studying the books of the prophets in the Old Testament. He remained chaste throughout his life. The Lord found Philip in Galilee, after His baptism and urged him to follow Him. Philip lost no time; he immediately followed the Lord and became His disciple. Not only that, but when he met his friend Nathaniel shortly afterwards,  he said to him: “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son ...

God can’t be described and is not finite. Neither can His properties be. If, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, people enter into the bosom of glorification, they experience all these endless, imperceptible, untraceable and boundless properties. This is why I said that there’s no end to repentance.