Ξένες γλώσσες

Over the course of the centuries there have been many who’ve sought some kind of sign, a miracle, either to convince them to believe in God or to strengthen their existing faith. This is certainly still true today: we want to confirm God’s existence and think we can do so if another world is revealed through the senses via a miracle or some other spiritual experience. The revelation of this other world would bring us to certain faith in God*. Of course, in the Orthodox Church, this is not the way we discover God and are united to Him. In the Church, there’s the path of asceticism, that is cleansing, enlightenment and glorification. Nevertheless, there are also a good number ...

Watch Fr Jonah’s from Taiwan sermon on the parable of talents.

To avoid becoming upset, being worried, being anxious and over-reflective, expect just anything, put up with anything that comes along. Always say: ‘Welcome, illness’, ‘welcome failure’, ‘welcome suffering’. This brings meekness, without which there can be no spiritual life.

Our relations are more difficult when the ‘I’ stands above the ‘You’.

Our sins are like snakes that eat away at our heart and innards. They don’t allow us to find solace. They’re sharp thorns that pierce the soul continuously. Sins are spiritual darkness.

When Saint Maxim fell asleep in the Lord, he was buried at the north-eastern corner of the church of the Holy Spirit, which ‘had been erected by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich IV in commemoration of the conquest of Kazan’, within the Lavra of Saint Sergei. After Saint Maxim’s death, many people paid their respects to his holy relics. According to a chronographer of old, he was called a great teacher and prophet. The people of Russia considered him ‘a new confessor and martyr for the truth’. They honoured him as a saint, ignoring the condemnatory judgements of the Synods of 1525 and 1531. In honouring Saint Maxim, Metropolitan Platon of Moscow writes that ‘he died at a great age and was ...

Until we receive the grace of the Comforter, we have to study the sacred scriptures, so that the recollection of good is imprinted within us and that, through continuous reading, the motion of the soul towards the good is renewed. This is a way of protecting our soul from the dangerous paths of sin.

We humans find ourselves on the road between paradise and hell, between God and the devil. All our thoughts and reflections, and every one of our feelings, bring the soul a little closer to paradise or hell. If a thought or reflection is rational (that is Godly) and brings us to the Divine Word, Who is beyond comprehension and conception, then that is already paradise for us. But if the thought lacks the Divine Word and is not in accord with Him, it inevitably brings us to absurdity and folly, to the devil, and this is already hell. What is true of thought also holds good for feelings. So, for us, everything begins here on earth, paradise or hell. Our ...

We need to think constantly about the fact that this life, this mortal life in which all of us have different plans, different concerns and different dreams, one day will pass away and depart. We’re all witnesses to the fact that our life is passing so imperceptibly. Each of us will wonder about the years of our life, will see from the experience we have, from getting to grips with the whole situation, that our life flies by so quickly.

1. What are the talents? ‘Talents’ are the various qualities, gifts and endowments which we have received from God. All kinds of things. Different in quality and in quantity. One person receives a lot, another receives less. One spiritually and intellectually, another materially. A talent is wealth, an ecclesiastical or civil office, social position, the various spiritual and intellectual abilities, the gift of speaking, academic accomplishment, literary technique, every kind of art, health, youth, a melodic voice, an attractive appearance and innate politeness. As we’ve said, we don’t all have the same gifts. What’s important, though is that nobody is without any ‘talent’. Even if it’s only one, they still have it. If they’ve got nothing else, they’ve still got their soul, ...

Saint John Chrysostom is commemorated twice in January: on 27th, the translation of his relics, and 30th, as one of the Three Hierarchs. When he was nominated, without his knowledge, to become Patriarch of Constantinople, he had to be smuggled out of Antioch under armed guard, because he was so popular that the authorities feared civil unrest over his removal. Constantinople was a different matter. The clergy had quickly become accustomed to the prominent role the Church now played in public affairs and lived in inappropriate luxury. Saint John’s efforts to curb their lavish lifestyle were not welcomed. As an ascetic, he didn’t attend entertainments and didn’t throw sumptuous feasts, which was another way of commenting on the state of ...

We shouldn’t be like flies, but like bees, flitting from flower to flower, collecting honey. We, too, should collect honey, paying attention only to what’s good in other people. Concerning those who condemn and criticise others, the psalmist and prophet, David, declared: ‘Their throat is an open sepulchre’ (Ps. 5, 10). Open a grave and you’ll see what rottenness and stench there is in there. The same reek, a spiritual stench, comes from our mouth when we condemn other people.

In today’s passage from his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle reminds the people of Corinth of the abundant Grace that they have received from God. Such great blessings they had been granted since the time they received baptism, which include: being cleansed from all sins they had committed personally, and of Original Sin itself; becoming united with Christ and having received the Holy Spirit inside them; and they are born again spiritually! Furthermore, he urges the Christians of Corinth to earnestly retain this beneficial grace they have received from Christ, which they are enjoying infinitely as members of the Church. The God-inspired Apostle knows that various temptations, both external and internal ones, can lead faithful people ...

‘You sanctified the virgin womb by Your birth’… The Holy Church celebrates the Reception of the Lord in the Temple of Solomon, a feast of the Lord and of His mother. It’s a feast of the Lord because the person being honoured is Jesus Christ, Who, as a forty-day old infant manifests His utter humility and total obedience to the will of God in order to achieve the salvation of the human race. It’s a feast of His mother because it’s she, Mary, the Mother of God, who presents the infant Christ to the venerable Symeon. It’s a feast with a long pre-history, beginning in the time of Moses and the Pharaoh of Egypt. ‘Ypapanti’, the Greek name of ...

Why are you mistrustful when there’s no grounds for suspicion? What wickedness could you ever find by studying or listening to the word of God; when you read or sing in church; or when you pray? God is truth, the devil is a liar, a slanderer and a disputant. That’s all you need to know.

We should feel that Christ’s our friend. He Himself confirms this when He says: ‘You’re my friends…’ (Jn. 15, 14). We should look on Him and approach Him as a friend. Have we fallen? Have we sinned? We should run to Him with love, familiarity and confidence. Not with fear that He’ll punish us, but with the courage that comes from the feeling of being His friend.

In the good old days, our children were raised by their parents who also educated them along with the teachers. Furthermore, a significant role in our children’s education was played by the wise philosophers of ancient Greece, the Fathers of the Church, the Three Hierarchs, and society at large. Unfortunately, our children today are being raised by contemporary society with all its problems. The mother works. The father works. The children grow up at home with a maid or are confined to a daycare facility. Today’s society does not help to raise and educate children. Today’s society does not promote the values that it should. The family is mostly facing extinction. According to statistics, more than fifty percent (50%) of children grow ...

Atheists Today I’m addressing you. Don’t your realize that you’re being fed garbage? Have you ever looked to see what atheist literature consists of? *** It’s not the last word in science. It’s a distortion of the facts. An aberration of thought. A perversion of who we are. Take a look at the boundless Russian steppes. Once there were wonderful churches on them. Today only ruins. Don’t these holy ruins tell you anything? The monuments of the past have now been destroyed. What our fathers built has been razed by godless hands. Take a look at your homes. The family is in ruins, the children know nothing: neither the worth of their mother nor the manly courage of their father. Education in schools is utterly useless. Teachers spout ...

All our knowledge is useless, unless we know Christ. The soul which is a stranger to God, far away from Him Who is the Source of Life, the Author of all good things, dreams in vain that it’s making progress and going forward.

It seemed to me that nothing was worth so much as the mortification of my feelings, distancing myself from a carnal and worldly view. Then, when I’d turned in on myself, not allowing anything human to touch me. Talking only to God, I wanted to live beyond the goings-on of the world, to experience divine revelations, to really become an untarnished mirror of God, taking light from the Light and being illumined in my darkness. Even in this life, I wanted to harvest the fruits of the hoped-for, future blessings, leaving behind the earth and consorting with the angels.