Ξένες γλώσσες

When we fall, let’s fight above all against the demon of despair. Saint John the Sinaite

With joy, exultation and jubilation, the Church celebrates the mystery of the Incarnation of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in the lowly cave, in the manger of dumb beasts in Bethlehem. This is a ‘great and strange mystery’ but also an event of world-wide, spiritual and true importance. This event marks the first-fruits of the new creation, of the new world which God offers humankind. In doing so, he reveals the true knowledge both about the Triune God and about the free human person. The nativity of our Lord is a unique, unparalleled event: ‘Our Savior has visited us from on high, since God has appeared in the flesh. As a child he was born to us, a son who was given ...

Christ is the gift of God to man and the gift of man to God, but Christ is also the perfect gift of each man to his fellow. In Paradise, God was presenting Himself before man as an example for imitation and man lived thereby. Through the fall, however, he lost this direct contemplation of God’s Face. He hid himself ‘from the presence of the Lord God’ and became afraid that he would die if he saw His Creator. In the Book of Judges, we read that Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, because we have seen God.’ When Christ came and assumed the humble human nature from the Holy Virgin, He was able to approach men without ...

In Church hymnography, which in essence is a commentary on the Biblical message concerning the salvation of the world, the loveliness of creation is described in a clear and poetic manner, as is its participation in all the wondrous events of the divine incarnation. The natural environment exists for humankind and draws us to the Creator ‘The heavens declare the glory of the Lord; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands’ (Ps. 18, 1), writes the psalmist, while the Nobel Laureate Odysseas Elytis writes about ‘The Maker of the clouds and waves who sleeps within us’ (AxionEsti, The Passion, reading 2, 6). But for there to be a path from the perceptible beauty of created things to him who is ...

The incarnation of God is the most important event in human history. It was the second intervention by the divine Creator in the universe he made. The incarnation of the Word occurred for the re-creation of the world, its Christification  and, in the end, its deification. God created a world that was ‘very good’ (Gen. 1, 31) with humankind as the outstanding work, the crown and pinacle of his creatures. According to the Fathers of the Church, creation wasn’t the result of any need on the part of God, who is entirely dispassionate, but in order that he could share his bliss with other beings, in particular with the immaterial angels and with human beings. The created cosmos is the supreme ...

The essence of  Christmas is God’s love, the compliant nature of divine love, God’s sacrifice, the riches of God’s loving condescension towards us. ‘God’ does not mean some indifferent ruler sitting high up in the clouds, as some ancient people depicted him, but means him who comes to us, close to us, wraps us in his embrace, sets us on his shoulders. He comes to redeem lost people, to bring them close to him, to place them in a new life, to make for them a new state of grace, love and unity with himself. This is the great issue for us, not all the other things with which we concern ourselves. This is where the essence is, this is where everything ...

‘In your swaddling-clothes you have loosed the bonds of transgressions And by great poverty have filled everyone with riches, merciful one. Laid in the manger of dumb beasts, pre-eternal Word of God, You free mortals of irrational evil’. (Troparion Ode 9, Sunday of the Forefathers) The shackles fastened by the innumerable transgressions and crimes in which human history is swathed are loosed by a babe in swaddling-clothes. Real riches, which people generally look for in the wrong places and in the wrong way, are freely granted through extreme poverty. Absurd and destructive evil is not rooted out by rules of criminal justice, nor by seeking enemies in the faces of other people, but through the extreme humility of a manger, which prefigures the tomb of God the ...

I was once part of a group of pilgrims and we were talking to a great Elder, Saint Sophrony in Essex, who asked us which we thought was the greatest virtue. One said: ‘The virtue of love’. ‘No’, replied the Elder. ‘Although it’s the first and great commandment from God himself to us, it’s not the greatest virtue. Even love itself, which is rightly held to be the  crown, since God is love, is just a caricature of a kind of egotism unless we have what I asked about’. ‘Then perhaps faith’, the same person said. ‘Not that, either’, said the Elder, smiling kindly. ‘Because if you think about it, even faith can be an “attribute” of the devil. Scripture tells us ...

+ B A R T H O L O M E W BY GOD’S MERCY ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE-NEW ROME AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH TO ALL THE PLENITUDE OF THE CHURCH GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE FROM THE SAVIOR CHRIST BORN IN BETHLEHEM * * * Brother concelebrants and blessed children, Having once again arrived at the splendid feast of the Nativity in the flesh of our Savior Christ , who visited us from the heights, we glorify with psalms and hymns His all-heavenly name. The Incarnation of the pre-eternal Word of God is “the crowning of our salvation,” the “eternal mystery” of divine-human communion that transcends all reason. As St. Maximus the Confessor says so eloquently, “as a loving God, He truly became human assuming the essence of humankind, although ...

‘She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins’ (Matth. 1, 21). With these words, the Angel of the Lord revealed to righteous Joseph the purpose of the Nativity in the flesh of the Son and Word of God which we’re preparing to celebrate again this year, within the spiritual climate of our holy Church. Christmas, then, is approaching. First. In his infinite love, God became a human person in order to save us from the destructive mission of the devil and to raise our fallen nature. Therefore, with his incarnate dispensation he makes us his children again by grace, siblings and coheirs in his heavenly kingdom. This is ...

. The Iambic Katavasia is difficult to understand*, because it is written in iambic meter and is a poetic text, with all the difficulties such a text, particularly an ecclesiastical one, presents. The term ‘iambic’ originated in Ancient Greece and reflected the way words were pronounced then. By the time of Byzantium, pronunciation had changed greatly and  had become much more like that of today, and this was reflected in the composition of hymns. In the Byzantine period, we have a line consisting of twelve syllables, which retained the ancient name of iambic trimeter. In general, only the hymns of the Iambic Canons are written as poetry, while the hymns of the Prose Canons are written as prose. Ode 1 Of old the ...

The feast of Christmas, which is approaching, invites us to experience the mystery of God’s coming to earth. This advent is a fundamental starting-point  which deepens the meaning of our life and existence and renews our faith and hope in the living presence of God in and around us. The Church triumphantly proclaims that God has become human so that we can become gods. This truth shines a light on all the dark places in our life. This faith becomes a source of joy that opens the door of our existence to the transcendent world of God. In understated colors, the Gospels describe the strange birth of Christ, the expectation of it and the fulfilment of the prophecies. The Fathers ...

Saint John says: ‘Don’t make such a mistake, my good friend. Because if you do, you’re harming yourself. We know that everyone has the right to make their prayer at home. That’s true. But nobody ever prays at home as they do in church. What is it that makes prayer in church better? In church there are our fathers, the priests. And a crowd of people. And with one heart and voice we talk to our heavenly Father all together. Don’t be taken in by the idea that, if you sit at home and make your prayer there, in your own way, God will hear you better. You’re making a mistake. A grave error. God wants all of us to make ...

You should know that you’ll often feel troubled and won’t experience that holy peace, sweet solitude and beloved freedom within you. And sometimes, the movement of your heart may raise dust that hinders you in the course you’re set on. God grants you this for your greater good. Remember that this is warfare, which brought the saints crowns as their great reward.  Every time something is upsetting you, you should say: ‘Lord, you see here your servant; may your will be done to me and in me. I know and confess  that the truth of your words remains always sound, that your promises are sure and I hope in them. I wait only for you’. Certainly, the soul which offers itself ...