Κατηγορία

In English

Thirst and Light (Metropolitan of Toronto Sotirios)

Κατηγορίες: In English

2020 NEW YEAR’S ENCYCLICAL “The fields thirst for water and the mountains for snow. The slave, she thirsts for freedom for so many years” (popular song). Our poor soul thirsts for the light of the God-Man. The year 2019 is over. Let us take a look at what happened. Unfortunately, the picture is not very encouraging. Wars. Disorder. Poverty. Troubles. Refuges drowning in the sea. They are trying to find a better life. Do they achieve this? Not always. Blood was spilled abundantly. Terrorists with knives slit the throats of the innocent. People lose their minds and kill indiscriminately with guns. Men. Women. Children. Students in school. So here it is: blood was shed abundantly in 2019. The year 2020 is upon us. We gaze at it ...

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On the new year († Dionysios, Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani)

Κατηγορίες: In English

My beloved brothers and sisters, Of all the wishes exchanged at the dawn of the New Year, the most appropriate for us Christians is the Church’s supplication: ‘May we spend the rest of our life in peace and repentance’. This is the most apt, the most true prayer, that we may pass whatever remains of our life peacefully and repentant. When the Church says ‘in peace’, it doesn’t mean only external, political peace, but first and very much foremost our inner, spiritual peace, on which the peace of the world depends. Because it’s true that the world won’t find peace unless each of us finds our own peace, one by one, opening up to and welcoming God’ grace. God isn’t outside the world ...

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‘And he did not know her…’ (Matth. 1, 25) (Georgios N. Manolis, Theologian)

Κατηγορίες: In English

In the passage 1, 25 in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew… ‘but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son’ many Protestant and other heretical interpreters consider the Greek εως ου to be a time limit, after which the married life of Joseph and Our Lady began. From these conjugal relations, they believe, were born siblings of Christ, or at least some of the siblings referred to in the Gospels. But, from a grammatical point of view, this interpretation is not necessarily correct, since the temporal conjunction εως is often used not to demote a time limit, but rather limitlessness within time. The passage is at the end of chapter 1 of the Gospel according to ...

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To the Horepiscopi (Saint Basil the Great)

Κατηγορίες: In English

(The epistle was probably written in about 372 and was addressed to the horepsicopi, that is the local bishops who each had pastoral responsibility for a small part of the Metropolis of Caesarea, on which they were canonically dependent. Saint Basil chastises them for not being careful enough regarding the people involved in their churches and for not seeking his advice. He reminds them of the consequences of failure to staff the Church with good priests). I am much distressed that the canons of the Fathers have been abandoned, and that the strict discipline of the Church has been banished from among you. I am apprehensive lest, as this indifference grows, the affairs of the Church should, little by little, fall ...

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