In English

C. Providence No matter how many turbulences we face in life, we ought to remain steadfast and peaceful. The more these difficulties go beyond our strength the more the Lord’s providence overcomes them on our behalf. Nietzsche declared that ‘if couples lived apart, more marriages would remain intact’. Yet Psalm 133 says: “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity”. In the original language, Hebrew, the word ‘together’ does not just mean ‘one with the other’ but ‘each for the other’. In other words, we ought to work in unity and peace for a common future. Contrary to Nietzsche, the Christians believe that “if we live for each other and we remain united, there is no discord or disagreement or disparity ...

What is the root of disbelief? In the first place, we should say that this matter is primarily one for parents, for fathers and mothers. If the parents approach the act of giving birth to a new person seriously, aware that the child to be born can truly be ‘a son of man’, in the image of the Son of God, that is Christ, then they’ll prepare for the act in a way that’s different from the usual. If mothers and fathers are fully conscious of the extreme importance of what they’re doing when they bring children into the world, these children will be full of the Holy Spirit, even in their mother’s womb. Faith in God, the Creator of ...

As the universities became more and more powerful, ecclesiastical authorities sought to limit their scope — particularly the authority of the scholars. The Latin Church eventually condemned many of the leading scholars in the universities for their "vain search for knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge," and this condemnation rings down to us in words we still hear from neo-Scholastics and fundamentalists. Moreover, in the "school" not only clearly religious ideas which varied from legally defined doctrine were considered heresy, but the idea was conceived that authorities could judge heresy in all fields and establish "correct belief" in art, science, law, religious philosophy, and thought in general. This prerogative was eventually taken over by the hierarchy when they struggled ...

A sinful soul, a prisoner of the passions, can’t have peace and joy in the Lord, even if it has all the riches of the earth.

Vsevolod Krivoshein, as he was in the world, was born in Saint Petersburg 1900. His father served as a minister and vice-president of the Russian government. Vsevolod studied philology at the universities of Petrograd and Moscow. During his military service he suffered frostbite. He left Russia to go abroad in 1920, visiting Egypt, Constantinople and Paris. He continued his philosophical studies at the Sorbonne and in Munich. He learned excellent Greek and dedicated himself to the study of the Fathers of the Church. In the autumn of 1925, he went to the Holy Mountain, to the Holy Monastery of Saint Panteleïmon, where he was tonsured in 1927. He became spiritually attached to Saint Silouan († 1938) and the ...

A.  DIVINE DELIGHT AND HUMAN LOVE “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”  “The Lord is God and has revealed Himself to us, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. During the feast of Epiphany the church flock chants this hymn, which praises two events: The revelation of the Triune Lord to us and the coming of the God-Man Jesus Christ ‘in the name of the Lord’. During Epiphany the Triune Lord was revealed to man and man was revealed to the Lord, namely, the man who pleased the Lord’s heart. These are the beloved Son and Man ‘in whom the Lord was well pleased’.   It was also revealed to us how the Lord’s delight is realized. ...

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has, in his venerable letter of May 24, 2017, recognized the successes of our Theological Academy, which begins its twentieth year of operations this year. Together with the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, His All-Holiness has honoured our Academy by naming it a Patriarchal Institution. (Note: The venerable letter of His All-Holiness can be seen below.) It is the greatest honour our Theological Academy could receive. With immense respect, the professors, the Dean, along with the Board of Directors and its President, Metropolitan Sotirios, humbly express our abundant thanks to His All-Holiness. It is our pledge that we will make every effort – both now and in the future – to continue to ...

When God gives, envy has no power, and, when He doesn’t give, effort has none.

‘No matter how bad pain is, it has no meaning other than the cleansing of the soul which longs for salvation’ (Valeriu Gafencu). The prison in the town of Târgu-Ocna was an oasis in the desert of pain. Not that there was no pain there. On the contrary. Pain, sickness in all its hideousness, and death all had their home there. Even though it was a sanatorium with slightly better living conditions and arrangements, it was still a prison. But I believe that God’s mercy overflowed there onto the pain. The Cross was considered the gate to heaven. Into this atmosphere something greater than a community was born. There was a thirst for culture and, in particular, a thirst for Christ, which ...

        It is here that we must defend some aspects of the Scholastic movement. Our criticism of it is limited to the theological and spiritual problems that it caused, not to its overall gift of a systematic way of thinking and exploring, nor of its opening up of the knowledge and method that could lead to authentic science — something that simply did not develop in the Byzantine East. After the 600s is it likely that there could have been little advance toward modern science and medicine  in the East. The remaining centuries of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire were filled with an all consuming struggle for survival. The vital and energetic intellectual movement in the West resulted ...

Over the centuries preachers and hymnographers have declared that the shedding of a single drop of Christ's blood – una stilla, wrote St. Thomas Aquinas – would have sufficed for our Redemption. It is important, I believe, to bear in mind the metaphorical and poetic quality of this image. Though it serves to emphasize the excellence of the Lord's precious blood, the image should not suggest something quantitative about the price of our Redemption. Nor should this image suggest that God could have redeemed us in some way other than the way He did, in fact, redeem us. Concerning our Redemption, sound Theology limits itself to what God has revealed. Hypothesis is no proper path to Theology. Nor does it suffice to speak, as one ...

Our treasure, our hope, what is it? The Church, which isn’t there just to give us material things, though it does that as well. It’s true that, in the difficult trial which the Greek people is undergoing, the Church has proved to be our mother and people have no hesitation in seeking the help of the clergy. This is why the parishes are always the refuge of the poor, the refuge of those in need. But it’s not just that. The Church of Christ also gives the treasure of the Grace of God.

It has become a commonplace to hear someone say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Most people have a general understanding of what is meant. I usually assume that the person holds to a number of ideas that are considered “spiritual” in our culture, but that they are not particularly interested in “organized religion.” I understand this, because organized religion can often be the bane of spiritual existence. I am an Orthodox Christian – which is not the same thing as saying that I have an interest in “organized religion.” There is much about organized religion that I dislike in the extreme, and I occasionally see its shadow seep into my experience within Orthodoxy. But I repeat unashamedly that I am an Orthodox ...

Agathangelos Theokharoudis, as he was known before becoming a monk, was born in 1876 to his parents, Dimitrios and Anastasia, in Gomati, Halkidiki. In 1892, he arrived at the ancient and beautiful Vatopedan Kelli of the Great Martyr Prokopios, whose hand was kept there as a treasured relic. Agathangelos was given his monastic tonsure in 1899 by the Elder Neofytos the First. He was ordained deacon in 1907 and then priest in 1909.   He was an excellent and well-known spiritual father of great discernment. He was regularly invited to Halkidiki to confess the faithful. Indeed, no other spiritual father had so many people coming to him for confession.  Elder Gavriïl of Dionisiou wrote the following regarding him: “The well-disposed and devout ...

Don’t believe you have any virtue if it hasn’t caused you pain to acquire it. That’s a false virtue, since it was born out of comfort.

A miracle performed by Saint David on Evia and Elder Iakovos Tsalikis (Attested by Fr. Ioannis Niryianakis) At the hospital where I was working, a student was admitted with a high temperature. This student was called Stylianos Steryianos, was the son of Christos and Evangelia, and lived in Patisia. His parents were my spiritual children, very devout people and their son was a fine young man. Well, Stelios had a very high temperature for a very long period of time and nothing would lower it past 39.5 (103). He was undiagnosed and in the end the consultant, Professor Militadis Samartzis, together with his assistants, came to the conclusion that Stelios’ illness was, in all likelihood, some form of ‘macrocytic anaemia’. They used ...

The Scholastic Paradox The dualistic conception of reality as consisting of abstract, disembodied ideas existing in a domain separate from and superior to that of sensible objects and movements became the most characteristic feature of Western philosophical and by a curious confluence of events, the last vestiges of Orthodox Christianity were snuffed out in Western Europe at a time when the only alternative sources of intellectual influence there were nascent in Spain: the Moslem schools of philosophy which would arise in the Iberia of the Saracens. The great Aristotelian scholars of Islam — such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the royal librarian of Bokhara, and his Iberian born disciple Ibn Roshd (Averroës) — were still in the future, but the foundations for ...

Always remember that even the Son of God and all His friends entered His kingdom through thorns and crosses.

The inspiration for this brief study was a question about the sign of the cross in the signatures of bishops ‘as a symbol of episcopal authority’. The results of our research were unexpected. We found that, for many centuries, the cross was used not only in the signatures of hierarchs, emperors and officials, but also in those of all ordinary Christians, even in the cases of the illiterate, who, instead of a signature, made a ‘mark’, the cross, and someone else filled in the name. It’s clear from this that the cross in hieratic signatures has nothing to do with the authority of bishops, nor with any other human authority, but was simply part of the general usage of the cross in ...

Father Ilarion Felea (March 21, 1903 – September 18, 1961) How I love Your law, O Lord; It is my meditation all day long. (Psalm 118:97) The son of a priest from Hunedoara, Father Ilarion Felea was a profound theologian and a practitioner of incessant prayer. Through a life of hardship, he climbed the road to Tabor, where he found the bright and uncreated light of Christ. Father Ilarion held undergraduate degrees in theology from the University of Sibiu and in literature and philosophy from Cluj, and a Ph.D. in theology from Bucharest. He diligently put his talents to use as a teacher of dogmatics and apologetics, as a rector of the Theological Academy of Arad, and as a father confessor at the ...