Ιούνιος 2016

The door to repentance is open to everybody and we don’t know who’ll go through it first, you who are judging another person, or the person that you’re judging.

Monk Efraim Lavriotis carrying the icon of the Mother of God the Dread Protection (photo. Monk Païsios Karyotis) Emmanouïl Fotios Passalis, this kind, very simple, very humble man of God, was born in the village of Maritsa, Rhodes in 1926. While he was in the world , his spiritual father was the late Amfilohios Makris (†1970). He came to the Holy Mountain and went first to the skete of Kavsokalyvia, to the Elders Mihaïl (†1979) and Ierotheos (†1968). He came to the Monastery of the Great Lavra in 1957 and was tonsured a monk in 1958. He had great reverence for the founder of the Monastery, Saint Athanasios the Athonite. He was a willing and conscientious servant of the monastery ...

Within the Church, oikonomia is supposed to be applied with utmost care and with an eye toward the perfection to which we are called as followers of Christ. It is also (properly) invoked with the intent of making a bad situation better, not worse. However, this practice means that possibly and under certain circumstances there can be a departure from the seemingly unchangeable position of the Church on matters which include morality. And because we no longer live in a Christian culture and many things which in the past would have been considered crimes are now presented as acceptable and even preferable, the practice of oikonomia is fraught with moral and spiritual perils. Any deviation however slight from the moral ...