In English

Christianity’s a strange life, a weird phenomenon. All the religions of the world are logical. Christianity’s the exception. It’s faith which Christ gave us once and for all, and this is proof that it alone is true. All the other religions are logical, but ours is beyond reason. It has to do with a fact which is revealed to us. We don’t judge that fact, but when we accept it, it informs us. This is why Christianity has always seemed foolish to the sages of this world. And monastic obedience confirms precisely this foolishness. May we be worthy of accepting and implementing Christ’s obedience.

At the same time, we know from the sources that both the state and the Church recognized the aesthetic value of the monuments of the ancient religion. Thus, for example, in an edict of the emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius, in 382, there is mention of a pagan temple in Mesopotamia, which was to remain open so that people could enjoy the aesthetics of the statues which were on display. In an edict of 399, Arcadius and Theodosius ordered that the decorations of public buildings be preserved, while another, by the same emperors, forbade any destruction of temples which were devoid of idols and, even if there were any idols there, no destruction of them was permitted unless sacrifices were still ...

Let our tongues sing and let our minds investigate what it is we’re singing, so that we sing with the spirit and the mind.

ALMIGHTY, all-merciful Queen, to whom all this world flees for succour, to have release from sin, sorrow and trouble, glorious Virgin, flower of all flowers, to you I flee, confounded in error! You mighty, gentle lady, help and relieve me, have mercy on my perilous sickness My cruel adversary has vanquished me. COMFORT is there none, but in you, dear lady, for, lo, my sin and confusion, which ought not to appear in your presence, have brought against me a grievous action, founded on strict justice and desperation. And as by right in justice they might well maintain that I would be worthy of my damnation were it not for your mercy, blissful queen of heaven. I hope readers will agree with me that these two stanzas would, in terms of vocabulary and style, ...

Saint Cyril of Alexandria wrote that the Mother of God sanctified the Holy Trinity! At first sight this is a scandalous statement. How could a human being sanctify the Holy Trinity? And if that statement’s challenging, there are people on the other side who doubt and deny that Our Lady gave birth to God at all. How can the created be born of the uncreated? In ancient Greek thought, this was impossible. Far beyond a state of doubt. Completely untenable, since, in Plato’s Symposium we read that ‘God doesn’t mix with people’ . So how does God, Who is perfect, commune with sinful people, a question found among the Neo-Platonists? In no way. There is no possibility of the perfect communicating ...

The nature of water is soft, while that of rock is hard. Yet if you suspend a pitcher over a rock and it drips onto it, it’ll slowly make a hole. In the same way, the word of God is soft and our hearts are hard. But if we hear the word of God often, our hearts will open to the fear of Him.

Above the entrance leading from the exonarthex to the narthex, in a semi-circular shallow lunette, is the scene of the Deisis (Fig. 184). Christ is shown in the middle, sitting on a backless throne and resting His feet on a richly decorated footstool. With His right hand He gives His blessing and with His left He holds an open Gospel book, which is resting on His knee. The pages of the Gospel have the words: “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD THE TRUTH THE LIFE THE RESURRECTION THE WAY THE SHEPHERD THE DOOR THROUGH ME IF ONE ENTERS IN HE WILL BE SAVED”. The text of this inscription, which is a compilation of phrases from the Gospel according to John (Jn. ...

If we see that some saints enjoy greater glory than others, this is due to the fact they have even a little bit more of Christ’s humility within them, nothing else. There are saints who have astonishing ascetic achievements to their name, but have less glory than others who performed fewer ascetic feats and this is due to the amount of the blessed divine raiment. Forgive me, but the more I write about the blessed raiment of the divinity, which the Mother of God had in its entirety, I’m overcome with fear, because my unworthiness causes my hand to falter and it’s perfectly possible- indeed, this is the most likely circumstance- that it’s my own pride that’s motivated me to ...

We should all tread the middle path: more philosophically than those who are completely uninvolved and more humanely than those who philosophize the whole time. If it’s difficult for you to turn to wickedness, you won’t suspect evil.

Typical of the ancient temples in this category (see part 1) is the case of the most important monument of Classical antiquity, the Parthenon. Its conversion into a Christian church possibly should be placed at the end of the 5th century or more likely to the period of Justinian. The ancient temple was converted into a three-naved basilica with the alterations necessary for Christian worship: to the west, the entry of the opisthonaos (rear inner porch) was the main entrance to the Christian church and the opisthonaos itself became the narthex; on the eastern side, the apse of the sanctuary was added to the pronaos (front inner porch) while the two-storey Doric colonnade of the sekos (interior) were used to ...

Faith, the ability to believe, doesn’t depend in the first place on the degree of our education. In fact, in our own times, when there’s widespread education, we see that faith is dwindling, whereas, in essence you’d expect the opposite to be true. In other words, the more we learn, the greater the opportunities are to recognize the deep wisdom of the Creator of the world.

Nowadays when science and technology are flying, when cultures converge and there is a crisis in values, even the word ‘death’ is avoided and anything reminiscent of it is ignored and discarded. Modern man views death as something negative and as a loss; we usually say for the departed: ‘We’ve lost him’. Whoever does not have the proper knowledge about this issue of death, he is trying to ignore it. Thus he lives an essentially neurotic life, drained of its true meaning. The arrest of cardiac function and or the death of the brain -namely the biological, clinical death- is not a natural state for man and it is not a condition which is in accordance with God’s pleasure. “God made ...

Every time we celebrate the Dormition of the Mother of God, it’s as if we’re having Easter – the Easter of the summer. Our Lady the Mother of God prepares Easter for us. A glorious crossing “from death to life”. A second Easter, holy spotless, life-giving for the human race, because today “the laws of nature are overcome”. “How the source of life goes towards life, passing through death”, says Saint John the Damascan. The death of the life-giving Mother of the Lord transcends the concept of death, so that it’s not even called death, but “dormition” and “divine transition” and an emigration and immigration towards the Lord. And even if it’s called death, it’s a life-bringing death, since it transports ...

One of the features of our society is a sense of lawlessness. It’s a belief common to all that certain people get treated in a preferential way, that, while laws exists, they aren’t applied- or at least not equally- to everybody. At the same time it’s seen as ‘reasonable’, only to be expected in practice, for us to exploit whatever ‘opportunities’ we’re presented with in order to gain some benefit by any means available, even if it’s illegal or immoral. Meanwhile, people talk about morality all the time, in a condemnatory way, purely and simply to put the blame on other people and to avoid criticism or the consequences of their own actions. The most common excused offered is: ‘Well, ...

It’s tremendously important that somebody in the family should pray. Prayer attracts God’s Grace, which is felt by all the members, even those with a cold heart. Always pray.

Nowadays when science and technology are flying, when cultures converge and there is a crisis in values, even the word ‘death’ is avoided and anything reminiscent of it is ignored and discarded. Modern man views death as something negative and as a loss; we usually say for the departed: ‘We’ve lost him’. Whoever does not have the proper knowledge about this issue of death, he is trying to ignore it. Thus he lives an essentially neurotic life, drained of its true meaning. The arrest of cardiac function and or the death of the brain -namely the biological, clinical death- is not a natural state for man and it is not a condition which is in accordance with God’s pleasure. “God made ...