Ξένες γλώσσες

Saint Dimitrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki, occupies a special place in the liturgical tradition of the city. The magnificent basilica, with the Grace-giving relics of the saint, is a source of consolation and blessing. The famous mosaics, the catacombs, and the Byzantine icons in the chapel of Saint Efthymios are some of the notable characteristics of the church. The tradition of Church singing was also cultivated in the choir stalls of Thessaloniki, with the exceptional choirmaster, the late Chrysanthos Theodosopoulos. In honour of the choir and the work of the late choirmaster, we offer this live recording of the choir of the church singing liturgical hymns in the first plagal tone, in an arrangement by Konstantinos Psakhos. %audio%

Blessed David was born at the beginning of the 16th century in the sea-side village of Gardinitza, opposite the island of Evia. His father was a devout and virtuous priest. When David was no more than three years old, Saint John the Baptist appeared to him one night and took him to the nearby church which was dedicated to him. He remained standing there, barefoot, for six days, lost in the vision, in front of the icon of the Forerunner. Nourished from an early age on the principles of obedience to his parents, asceticism and ceaseless prayer, he left his family home at the age of fifteen, in search of a spiritual father. He found him in the person of ...

1.1 The Life and Work of Fotios the Great Fotios (Photius) the Great (810-893) was born in Constantinople into a rich, aristocratic family. His father was called Seryios (Sergius), a genuinely Orthodox man, as Fotios himself would later say, and his mother was Eirini (Irene) a virtuous and godly woman. His mother’s brother had married the sister of the Empress Theodora, who supported the veneration of icons, and his father’s brother was Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople. Fotios received an excellent education and devoted himself to the study of the Classical Greek and Patristic literature. During the second period of the iconoclast controversy (815-843), Fotios’ family suffered persecution for their support of the icons and Fotios himself was excommunicated because of his ...

Christianity flourished in an­tiquity in the face of seeming­ly insurmountable odds. In de­fiance of odds of a different kind, the odds of chance, a pair of physician brothers came into the service of Christ. Less than five hun­dred years later they were fol­lowed by two different sets of brothers of identical n  ame and purpose in the service of the Lord. The result is that all six have become saints of the Church. Evidence of divine purpose in this succession of saints demon­strates that the precise science of mathematical probabilities has a hand in the spiritual affairs of mankind. The original pair of brothers were born Cosmas and Damian during the early years of the Christian Church. They were raised in ...

The Lord allows all sorts of things to happen to us which are against our will, because, if everything always went the way we wanted, we wouldn’t be prepared for the Kingdom of Heaven. Neither heaven nor earth look kindly on those who insist on imposing their own will. God has His divine plan for each of us and we should submit to this. We should accept life as it’s handed to us, without asking ‘Why did this happen to me?’

Christ brings a new ethos into the world. To those who sought power, honour and glory, He said: ‘I didn’t come to be served but to serve. And to give my life as a ransom for people’. This is His radical message to His disciples and to all those who wish to follow Him. The effort of love is the most noble expression of the Christian ethic. It’s relevant to Christians who live in the world and to monastics who’ve left the world, even to the remote hermits. We read in the narratives about the saints how persons of repute renounced the world and became ‘innkeepers’, welcoming the poor on a daily basis and feeding them from the wealth they’d ...

In recent years there has been a rash of new religions erupt­ing on the community skin, a kind of social disease to which the seasoned Christian is immune, but which afflicts the well-intentioned but more impressionable young. The merchants of these new reli­gions, which can  be better described as cults, achieve a measure of ephemeral success for which' they are indebted not so much to the validity of their ideology as to the modern tools with which some people could be persuaded to become stockholders of the Brooklyn Bridge. The power of the public relations counsel, sometimes known as press agent, is augmented by the far-reaching effects of the newspapers, radio, and the awesome television set, with which the Pied ...

A wicked conscience is when people transgress God’s moral law, living in order to impose their own will, which is whatever their ego dictates. The conscience of these people has been distorted by their darkened understanding and the dominion of the law of sin. It no longer reacts, nor does it protest against the violations of the moral law.

During the nineteenth century the newly created Greek State attempted to become European, focused on its progress and modernization. Of course, this tactic had a catalytic influence on the direction of the Church and especially on monasticism. Our text focuses on some basic ideas, within the framework of a variety of observations, and does not make the claim of being complete. Furthermore, despite the plethora of studies of monasticism covering the post-revolutionary years, the absence in the bibliography of a comprehensive-systematic study of the developmental path of the monastic life, from the official declaration of Greek Autocephaly (1850) up to our era, was evident. Source: Agioritiki Photothiki The New Spirit and Climate             Already, from the end of the eighteenth century, a new ...

Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 8, 41-56) is truly wonderful. It has to do with the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood. According to the text, an important figure in the synagogue, Jairus, approached Jesus and asked Him to accompany him to his home to cure his only daughter, who was twelve years old and at death’s door. Christ set off for the house, but a woman who’d been suffering from hemorrhaging for twelve years and had found no cure from doctors approached Him and touched the hem of His garment. When she did so, the bleeding stopped. Christ realized that power had left Him and asked who it was who’d touched Him. ...

When you give yourself entirely to the power and love of God, you’ll realize that everything happens because God wants it to, because God allows it.

If it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven, then it should have been virtually impossible for the beautiful and glamorous Ana­stasia to enter the service of Christ. The attributes that make for living a life of ease in the grand style are obstacles to be surmounted if one prefers to lead a life of hard work in a simple manner for the glory of God. To her everlasting credit, Anastasia, who was born with every advantage, willingly surrendered the flower-strewn path of her noble birth to walk down the perilously rock-strewn path of Christianity. Anastasia was born into one of Rome's most celebrated ...

We find two Anastasias in the Lives of the saints, both of whom were of prominent and famous families and who confessed their faith. Both were daughters of mighty Rome. The first was married against her will by her parents, but never came together with her husband, nor even slept with him, pretending she was ill, though in reality because he was a pagan. She was thus able to preserve her virginity, because, a few days later, her husband died. She therefore lived  the whole of her life in asceticism, prudently and with all the virtues, giving all her property as alms to the poor. She visited the holy martyrs in their places of confinement, urged them to bear their torments ...

Upon hearing the Greek axioms “Molon Lave” (“Come and take them”) and “Oxi” (“No”), every proud Greek is awestruck. He is filled with pride. He admires. He praises his predecessors. He kneels and shows them the honour they deserve. Anyone who studies the two phrases of “Come and take them” and “No”, they see the boldness of these words. In both cases, the enemy outnumbered the Greeks. Logically, the Greek army should not have been victorious. And yet, they won in both situations. They were victorious, because they were smarter than their enemy. They were victorious, because they knew they were right. They won because they said, “We fight now for all the marbles.” We sacrifice everything, even if the only thing ...

What are attractive pleasures for other people are stumbling-blocks for the faithful. Christ alters our ‘tastes’. Those who are reborn have a different kind of joy. They’re not drawn to and don’t enjoy such things. And if sometimes they do get involved, it’s because they’ve been led astray, not for any satisfaction they find.

We know very little concerning the martyr Nestor, other than that he was a close spiritual brother of Saint Dimitrios. He may have volunteered to fight the giant Vandal, Lyaeus, in order to prevent other Christians being drafted in to do so against their will. According to Saint Nikolaï Velimirović in the Ochrid Prologue, the emperor, Galerius, entertained the people with such spectacles and had a platform built on which Lyaeus wrestled with his opponents, and having overcome them, tossed them over the side onto a forest of spears. Before the contest, Nestor went to the prison where Saint Dimitrios was being held. The latter blessed him and told him that he would be victorious but would then be martyred. On entering ...

Elder Joseph the Hesychast (1898-1959) was a charismatic personality of 20th century’s Orthodox spirituality. He became a monk in Mt Athos at a young age and finally he was a top teacher of Jesus’ prayer. Like many gifted monks, he had many out-of-body experiences and visions, and he as well felt his end coming. From his monastic group (“Synodeia”) came many famous abbots and spiritual fathers. His epistles’ corpus was collected and edited in Greek and after in English, in an excellent paperback, under the title: "Monastic Wisdom; The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast". The edition is from Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery (USA), by Ephraim Poonen. Recipients vary, as holy father addressed clergy, monasteries, laity, both in Greece and ...

Impiety is a sin of the mind against God. It’s ignorance of God and ends with the death of the soul. It’s caused by our lack of awareness of God. In itself it’s perverse and gets us nowhere. It’s the mother of evils.

The Dimitria, the festival of Saint Dimitrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki, was an exceptional feast for the whole of the Western world. The work ‘Timarion’, which was written in the 12th century, declares that the city attracted ‘not only locals or those of one race, but people from all over Greece and of every ethnicity- Greeks from all over, various tribes of Bulgars from among those who lived between the Danube and Southern Russia, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Celts who live beyond the Alps’. The citizens of Thessaloniki prepared very early for the autumnal Easter, their own Easter, the feast of the saviour of their city. From the middle of September, which coincided with the feast of the Elevation of ...

Purity means a desirable home for Christ on earth and an earthly heaven of the heart, supernatural renunciation of human nature.