In English

Steam from warm mamaliga rises up and fogs my glasses as my mind slowly clears. “Why am I having corn mush for breakfast?” I ask myself. The day before slowly comes into focus, not a dream after all I guess. The pine plank of a bench provides me uncomfortable support but after the ride yesterday I’ll take anything. Gazing out the frosted window I find nearly half a metre of snow, quite a difference from what was in Bucharest when I left. “So, how ‘bout a cup of coffee?” cries out an accent I hadn’t heard in quite a while. An American accent. An American accent coming from a black bearded Orthodox Monk? No, I must still be dreaming. But, never being one ...

When people are empty of Christ, a thousand and one other things come and fill them up: jealousies, hatreds, boredom, melancholy, resentment, a worldly outlook, worldly pleasures. Try to  fill your soul with Christ so that it’s not empty.

Long ago, in the days when Arcadius and Honorius ruled the Roman Empire, a saint was born on the islanld of Cyprus. His parents were pious, humble islanders whose names are not recorded. The saint’s name was Tychon. Tychon’s father was a baker in a small Cypriot village. Each day, as he measured the flour, kneaded the dough and shaped the loaves of bread, he dreamed one dream, that someday his son would become a priest. Tychon’s gentle mother cherished the same dream. How happy and proud these good, simple people would  be when their son was a priest. Tychon spent the years of his boyhood in the village of his birth. He played in the fields around the village and helped ...

If you don’t see Christ with the eyes of your soul when you pray, you haven’t learned to pray. If only you knew what it is to see Christ with your eyes… As soon as you see Him, you’re filled with indescribable joy. Yet you’re overcome with an overwhelming feeling of awe, so that your legs fold involuntarily, you fall on your face before Him and you stay there, in ecstasy, sobbing unceasingly. What can you say there, in the presence of God? You simply wonder, you’re shattered and you weep constantly. I’m telling you, it wasn’t one day or two, it was three months I couldn’t stop my tears. That sweetest of yearnings just burns you up. Try as you will, you ...

People who belong to the Church of Christ belong to the truth, and those who don’t belong to the truth don’t belong to the Church of Christ. People who are very tall and those who are very short are both just as far away from the stars.

Avoid harmful dealings and your soul will always be very calm.

Give your heart to the Lord and He’ll supply all the vitamins and energy it needs to stop it collapsing.

When people are in a state of Grace, the soul is calm and mellow. It can’t be goaded into rage. Later, such people are expected consciously to reject evil. They have to overcome all the enemies of their soul while they’re still in this life. Our enemies aren’t made of flesh and blood. If they were, we’d be able to hide from them and escape them. But our spiritual enemies are everywhere.

Spiritual people know everything, because their mind is that of Christ. They know that what’s here is ephemeral and what’s there is permanent and immortal. They know that they themselves will be saved in the future and that, by the same token, unbelievers will not.

Before we depart for the heavens, we have to realize the value and meaning of this life: that it’s an arena in which we strive. We should remember that the saying is wise and true which tells us: ‘They had pain for a teacher and learned a lot’.

The passions are transmittable to our spiritual organism. Wickedness, for example. Even if it’s not expressed in words or deeds, it’s still hidden away in the heart and can just be discerned, maybe in the eyes and the face, and then it’s transmitted to the soul of the person it’s directed against.

Twenty years ago today His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was in Canada. Twenty years ago today His All-Holiness presided over the Divine Liturgy at the old Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario. The Liturgy included 17 bishops, 70 priests, and 19,000 faithful. It was a day for those who were present have and will never forget. It was the high point of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s remarkable nine-day, eight-city trip to Canada. To celebrate this milestone anniversary of the Patriarch’s visit, the Ecumenical Patriarchate Archons in Canada, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Sotirios, developed and have published an edited volume of works under the title, Bartholomew in Canada: A Twenty Year Celebration. The book begins with a foreword by Metropolitan Sotirios and ...

Fr. Nikolaos teaches Theology and Philosophy at the Orthodox Institute, Cambridge and at the Ecclesiastical Academy, Thessaloniki. He is well-acquainted with European thought and is one of the leading theologians in Greece. Interview with Yorgos Kiousis The real problem of our times isn’t atheism, but polytheism, which appears, in fact, in the form of idolatry. This creates a danger, because, in the place of Christ, the loving and sacrificed God, we set the bellowing monster of our narcissistic fabrications concerning power and domination. How do people today experience the event of Easter? Beyond the emotional and festal investment, there’s also an astonishing existential revelation: that God descended into the condition of my chaos and irrationality, loving me, at the expense of being crucified by ...

Callous people are stupid philosophers. They explain God’s will to their own condemnation. They’re blind and they teach others how to see. They praise silence and laud it with loquacity. They teach meekness and often become angry while doing so. They praise prayer and avoid it like the plague.

The Grace which comes from repentance snatches up the soul and wings it towards God, Whose light attracts it. At the beginning, He isn’t so apparent, but His warmth, which is love, starts to soften the heart. Then, strangely, a dichotomy appears in people. On the one hand, they’re overcome with fear, or rather horror, at their dreadful sinfulness; and on the other, they’re overwhelmed by the grace of God’s hitherto unknown presence. The fear side of the dichotomy is superfluous, because, with the presence of Grace, the eyes of the mind are opened and it sees for itself its defilement.

Unawareness of lack of the virtues is a downward slide into impiety. Because those who are accustomed to the pleasures of the flesh and disobedience to God will end up denying Him when the opportunity arises and will prefer the life of the flesh to Him. They’ll believe that the pleasures are more important than God.

‘And He said this about the Spirit’ On the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles, Christ revealed that He Himself is the source of life. Because people were about to leave to go back home, Christ’s words were ‘provisions’ for their salvation. The Lord said that those who are thirsty should come to Him and rivers of living water will flow from their bellies (Jn. 7, 38). The word ‘belly’ here means ‘heart’. Clearly the water is the Grace of the Holy Spirit. The Lord is the ever-flowing source of the grace of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes to settle in our heart, His gifts and abilities constantly well up. As He said to the Samaritan ...

Say the prayer internally, with the mind, not with the lips, so that there’s no distraction, with your mind going all over the place. We should place Christ gently in our mind, saying ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me’, very gently. Nothing else. Nothing. Don’t think of anything except the words: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me’. Turn to Christ calmly, with attention and devotion, with open eyes, so that you’re in no danger from fantasies and illusions. Say the prayer gently, not all the time, but whenever you’re disposed to do so and when you feel compunction, which is a gift of divine grace. Without grace, you’re hypnotizing yourself and you may descend into lights and delusions ...

The lives of the saints are the ‘Gospel in action’, according to the modern Serbian saint, Justin Popović. Through them, we see their struggles and strivings, their longing and their love, their blessings and grace. We realize that the Word of God is attainable, though applying it seems difficult. However, if one person has managed to do something difficult, this means that others can do so, too. It’s nevertheless the case that, when we read about the ascesis they performed, we’re tempted to wonder whether it is all true. Because, for us today, with the comforts and the relaxed attitudes which characterize us, we think that such ascesis is excessive, if not impossible. How did they manage it? I think that, if ...

Gossip is condemnation, it’s slander. Gossips are people who condemn and slander their neighbours and take away their honour in the same way as a murderer takes away their life. Both of them are guilty of manslaughter.