In English

So humility which comes as a natural result after we sin, especially when these are mortal sins, is one thing, and the humility of Christ is another. For sinful people, humility’s absolutely necessary for them to stay alive, so that they won’t be swallowed up by the devil. The humility of Christ, on the other hand, is a divine garment, it’s magnificence, it’s power. And Our Lady had this divine raiment in its entirety, which is why the whole of creation bows down before her, even the heavenly powers. According to Saint Matthew the Evangelist, when the Lord went to the Jordan to be baptized by the Honourable Forerunner, the most formidable of our saints, after Our Lady, John would ...

The devil has lots of traps he sets to catch people. So love, concord and peace are absent from the world, and, in their place pride, anger envy viciousness and prodigality dominate, with people having become lecherous. They tear each other to pieces, kill each other tell lies, and exploit others. And all this because enlightened teachers haven’t been found to teach them that it’s worth the effort to walk in the path of the Lord and thus become an example for others to follow in life.

. So if you have something to say, if you’re a good speaker, if you know how to present things and so on, then use this for the benefit and instruction of others, in all humility. And if you have the power of prayer, because you’ve got a pure heart, then, with lots of tears, put this at the disposal of those who are weaker than you. For the assistance of everybody. This is what Saint John tells us in his analysis of the Lord’s Beatitude, where He says ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy’. What Saint John is saying is that the merciful (charitable) aren’t only those who give material goods, but also those who offer words of salvation, with ...

When, in the fifth century, the space in Hadrian’s Library in Athens was divided equally between pagans and Christians, the relations between what appeared to be the two flourishing communities in the city were defined both in practice and symbolically. The renovated wings were given to the pagan Sophists and the courtyard to the Christians to build an important church, the well-known Christian tetraconch (fig.1). The church was probably the first metropolitan church in Athens, later called “The Great Panayía (Mother of God). An act certainly of political diplomacy, directed and funded either by the eparch of Illyricum, Herculius (408-12), or by the native Athenian empress Evdokia, doubtless led to everyday co-existence and symbiosis for the two groups on a ...

Our minds are clouded by three passions: avarice, vainglory and sensual pleasure. In order to counter these passions, we have the commandment not to love the world and the things in it. It’s not, of course, that we should unthinkingly hate things created by God, but rather that we should cut off opportunities to succumb to these three passions.

D. Findings-Conclusions 1) Life and death transcend us as an instant, as a process and as events. 2) The closer we get to actually creating life purely through artificial means, the easier it makes it for us to take it away, to decide its end. We consider it our own responsibility. 3) In the end, the problem of the value of life refuses to go away. When does life acquire value. Is it a value in itself? If it’s of value because God gives and takes it, when we now intervene crucially at the beginning and drastically at the end- often changing its form- how does this impact on its value? 4) Our love is expressed either as the aspiration to spare our neighbour ...

When the most glorious and richest kings on earth have in mind to build their throne and their royal palace as a whole, they don’t leave a stone unturned until they find the most precious material that nature is able to offer, so that the palace won’t lack the slightest thing in terms of luxury goods. And if they themselves were able to make material goods more precious than those which nature has to offer, they’d jump at the chance, with no thought to expense, trouble or anything else. They couldn’t do this, of course, because human powers are limited and under the control of our Creator and Maker, the Triune God. So kings have to be satisfied with whatever precious ...

If a doctor gives us a diet, for the good of our health, we follow it religiously. What’s a diet? It’s fasting, or abstention from various foods. But we don’t follow the diet set by God. We listen to the doctor, but not to Christ. The doctor’s more important to us than Christ!

Don’t take undue care of your body. Don’t spoil it and give it pride of place over the spirit. Otherwise, when you want to do spiritual work, such as prayer, for example, you’ll see that the flesh has become dominant over the spirit and has it bound hand and foot. It won’t set it free to regain its own strength.

“I’m aware that many of you have been deeply upset by the sudden rise in anti-religious propaganda and that this saddens you. But don’t worry… Tell me please. You remember the words of Christ from Saint Luke’s Gospel: ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom’. Our Lord Jesus Christ has repeatedly told us about His little flock. His little flock has been holding up since the Apostles. And then it grew more and more… The little flock is everywhere, despite the outbreak of anti-religious propaganda. And it still exists in our own day. All of you who are listening make up the little flock. Archbishop Luke, Shepherd and Surgeon So understand and ...

The miracle of the resurrection of Tabitha by the Apostle Peter is told in Acts, 9, 36-41. She lived in Joppa, was a Christian and ‘was devoted to good works and acts of charity’. With her practical love, she had won the hearts of all the Christians in the region, who called Saint Paul to come to them when she died suddenly. ‘All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorkas had made while she was with them’. They showed him the works of her hands, which were acts of Christian love and philanthropy. And the Apostle Peter responded with another act of charity: he raised Tabitha from the dead. Let’s look now at ...

After the Lord’s Resurrection, it was Our Most Holy Lady who was the support of the Apostles and the newly-founded Church of Christ. It was she who taught the new Christians, guided them and comforted them in their sorrows. In the longer version of her Life, we read that, three days before her dormition, she was visited by the Archangel Gabriel, just as she had been at the Annunciation, and he told her of her imminent, glorious transition from death to life. Thereafter, in a wondrous manner, the Holy Spirit gathered all the Apostles in Gethsemane, in the house of the Mother of God, so that could get her blessing and be present at her sacred burial. Once they had ...

Callous people are foolish philosophers. They explain the will of God to others, to their own condemnation. They’re blind and tell others how to see. They praise silence and laud it with verbosity. They teach meekness and are often angry while doing so. They praise prayer and avoid it like the plague.

Every time we celebrate the Dormition of the Mother of God it’s as though we have Easter again. The summer Easter. Our Lady the Mother of God prepares Easter for us. A glorious crossing ‘from death to life’. A second Easter, holy, spotless, giving life to the human race, because today, in truth ‘ the laws of nature are overcome’. Saint John the Damascan declares: ‘How the source of life goes to life, passing through death’. The death of the ‘life-giving Mother’ of the Lord surpasses the notion of death, so that it’s not even called death, but rather ‘dormition’, and ‘divine transition’ and a departure towards or arrival in the Lord. And even if it’s called death, it’s still a ...

Decades ago, when I was in seminary (Anglican), a professor told me that he did not believe in angels. I was surprised and asked him why. He responded that he “did not think they were necessary… that anything angels did could be done by the Holy Spirit…” While this is obviously true, I noted that angels are found throughout Scripture, and that “necessary” was not a theological category – and that he himself was not necessary for that matter. The story had a happy ending…but has always remained with me as an example of how people sometimes go wrong theologically. The Virgin Mary is among those theological matters that many Christians find “unnecessary.” She is not only unnecessary to them, but ...

Grace, which comes from repentance, snatches the soul up towards God, Whose light attracts it. In the beginning it’s not so obvious, but its warmth, which is love, begins to soften the heart. Then strangely, a dichotomy appears: on the one hand the person is overcome by fear, or rather horror, when they feel their dreadful guilt; on the other, they’re filled with the hitherto unknown grace of the presence of God. The fear part of the dichotomy is the greater, because, through the presence of grace, their eyes are opened and they clearly see their uncleanness.