Pride of the intellect sent Satan to Hell. Pride of the intellect separated Adam and Eve from God, and impelled the Scribes and Pharisees to kill Christ. Pride of the intellect is the most fertile ground for the cultivation of sin that we’ve ever known. Unless our intellect kneels before Christ, we’ll never physically get down on our knees. If you’ve begun to calm your intellect through repentance, you’ve already begun to cure your deeper wounds as well.
A Saint who passed through fire and iron* This saint lived at the time of Emperor Antoninus, about the year 140. She came from a village near Old Rome and was the daughter of Christian parents, called Agathon and Politeia. They were meticulous in their observance of the Lord’s commandments, but were childless and constantly entreated the Lord to give them a child. And God, Who grants the wishes of those who worship Him, gave them a daughter, who, at baptism, they named Paraskevi, since she was born on a Friday, which in Greek is called Paraskevi, the day of preparation . From the time when she was still young, the girl devoted herself to God. She was taught and ...
Mme Elisabeth Behr Sigel was, perhaps, the most significant Orthodox woman of the 20th century who delivered the 2003 Florovsky Lecture at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary. She was born in Alsace, France in 1907. Her father was Protestant and her mother Jewish. She studied theology at the Protestant Faculty in Strasbourg and then began a pastoral ministry. But it lasted only a year. She then went to Paris to study theology. During her studies she came into contact with the Russian Orthodox diaspora and joined the Orthodox Church through her friends and colleagues of the Russian emigration. She was influenced by some of the most important theological figures of the era (Metropolitan Evlogy, Vladimir Lossky, Paul Evdokimov, Lev Gillet, Maria Skobtsova, etc.). ...
Let me now mention some other teachings and advice the Elder gave. Regarding the so-called ‘enlightened’ laywomen who supposedly see revealing visions, apparitions of Saints, talk all the time with Our Most Holy Lady and so on, the Elder, generally speaking, didn’t have a good opinion (unless it was an exception, such as the devout ladies who had a vision of Saint Raphael, or the abbess who found Saint Vlasios in Aitoloakarnania and so on, then the Church decides accordingly). In any case, the opinion of the Church takes precedence. Until it reaches a decision, we would do well to have our reservations in such cases. A very long time ago, when I was still a student in primary school, the ...
The Holy Martyr Silouan, the disciple and biographer of Saint Maximos the Confessor, known as ‘the Greek’, of the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, was a saintly monk of the Lavra of Saint Sergius. He was imbued with the same spirit as his Elder and teacher and proved to be his rival in spiritual knowledge. Lavra of Saint Sergius, the place where the Holy Martyr Silouan was killed He himself considered his spiritual contact with Saint Maximos to be a godsend. In admiration of the Elder’s abilities, Saint Silouan rightly called him a treasury of wisdom, for his knowledge of three languages (Greek, Latin and Russian) and as the author of heroic, elegiac poems and because he stood out amongst his contemporaries ...
The fear of God is impassive. Because we don’t actually fear God Himself, but falling away from Him.
According to Saint Gregory, mourning is the most natural and spontaneous expression of the soul wounded by sin and coming to repentance. The saint uses a wonderful simile to prove that it is people’s wounds that cause the pain, not the fact of repentance itself, which brings only joy and comfort to the soul. Just as, if someone’s tongue has suffered damage, honey might seem tart to them and they need to be cured in order to taste the sweetness, the same is true of the fear of God: in souls where it is engendered, on hearing the message of the Gospels, it causes sorrow, since these souls are still surrounded by the wounds of their sins; but as soon ...
It’s of vast importance that somebody in the family should really pray. Prayer draws the Grace of God, and all members of the family feel it, even those whose hearts have hardened. Always pray.
Definition – Characteristics The purpose of mysticism is an experiential, existential quest, direct relationship and spiritual union with God or the divine. This is sought with concentration, prayer, dispassion, contemplation and ecstasy. Mysticism is usually the intuitive element in the religious experience and manifests itself in almost all religions, from the primitive to the most highly-developed. Sometimes it springs up in the stony regions of external piety, giving fresh impetus to religious sentiment. Because of the variety of forms it has assumed in the history of religions and the contradictory features it has been imbued with, there is no generally accepted definition. As a rule, mysticism, which expresses people’s immediate relationship with and experience of the Numinous, differs from the arcane occult ...
But there are two forms of birth: one according to the flesh and the other in the spirit. Christ said to Nicodemus: ‘What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I told you that all of you must be born from above’ (Jn. 3, 6-7). Since women today have lost this noble awareness, they’ve begun to give birth mostly according to the flesh. Our children have become incapable of faith. Often it’s impossible for them to believe that they’re an image of the Eternal God. The greatest sin of our times lies in the fact that people have sunk into despair and no longer believe in ...
Introduction In the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the disciples and, by extension, all Christians who desire to live in accordance with the word of God are called by the Lord, the light and salt of the earth, and also a city built on a hill which is visible on all sides. He stresses the world-saving dimensions of such a way of life, which arises from the connection of the life of the person with that of God and is the fruit of our free will and co-operation the Tri-Substantial God Who moves us- Who makes us like Him and changes us from mortals into gods by grace. Through this participation and their fine, virtuous lives filled with good works, Christians should ...
I am a Christian. I believe in God, the Creator from nothing of heaven and earth and of everything visible and invisible. This Creator-God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is also identically the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There was a man, born in Bethlehem of Judea, born of a virgin whose name was Mary, a virgin who did not know a man. This man's name was Jesus. He lived for about thirty years in a little town in Galilee, called Nazareth, with his mother and a man called Joseph who was espoused to his mother and who remained faithful to both of them, though Mary remained ever-virgin. He was a carpenter. Then, at about the ...
For those whose parents are seriously ill, the Elder advised that they should do whatever good and kind deed they can for their parents, to care for them lovingly, to give them affectionate attention and treat them with the tenderness they would a baby, to look after them in every possible way, and also even to ‘indulge their every whim’ so as to keep them happy. We must in every way alleviate the cross of sickness. ‘If you do this’, he said, ‘two things will happen to you. The first is that God, as He says in the Old Testament, will grant you a long life, and he will also give you a gift (that your days may be long ...
In the Gospel reading for the 7th Sunday of Matthew (9, 27-35) we have two events. The first is the cure of two blind men and thereafter that of the man who was both mute and possessed. Both cases are extremely tragic, as Saint Matthew presents them, not only because of the bodily suffering involved, but also because of the deeper, spiritual dimension given to their illnesses. The reading concludes by telling us that Jesus ‘went about all the cities and towns’ with one essential soteriological aim: teaching, preaching and curing every disease and every weakness. Christ’s work is composite and multi-dimensional. The meaning of ‘to cure’ The third feature of the Lord’s work was the cure of ‘every disease and every ...
The Fathers tell us that awareness of sinfulness is a great gift from God, greater than the sight of sublime visions. When we become aware of our inner darkness and see the infernal and repulsive form of sin, which leaves us feeling revolted, then divine Grace will bring us its own consolation.
The Orthodox Approach It is natural that the theological approach to contemporary problems should be measured against perfection, which is the measure of Christ. But this measure, which Christians should always have before them, should not be converted into a sword to overcome those who are weak in the faith. Certainly Christian perfection is for everyone and should not be concealed from any of the faithful. But human weakness is common to all and we are not allowed to condemn anyone because of it. The Church has unlimited respect for human freedom and exhausts all its stock of lenient understanding in order to preserve it. The explicit opposition of the Church begins from the moment that people’s freedom is ignored and ...
Artistic tradition on Mt Athos is usually connected to icons and religious murals. There is however another artistic practice, usually underrated and in general unknown to the majority, that is the art of printmaking mainly woodcuts and copper engravings. It is an art that flourished from the 17th c. until the end of the 19th, quite important for Athonite history, but also for contemporary Greek art history. Let us only mention that the first teacher of engraving in the school of Fine Arts (1843-1865), was an Athonite engraver, the monk Agathaggelos Triantafyllou. This tradition came gradually to an end with the introduction of lithography. Later on modern offset printing gave the final blow to the engraving tradition on Mt Athos. Part of ...
