Ξένες γλώσσες

A new year is upon us, my dear friends, the year 2019. May Christ and Our Lady bless it, and may it bring us joy and happiness. But, as we’ve had occasion to mention before, these two, real joy and happiness, are only to be found if we’re close to God. This is why I pray that you, my Christian friends, will be rooted in faith in Christ and will live in accordance with His holy commandments. Then, I promise you, you’ll find spiritual peace and joy, such joy that no-one can ever take away from you, no matter how hard they fight against you and hound you. We know, my brothers and sisters, because we see and experience it, that ...

Bodily effort and study of the divine Scriptures ensure purity of the mind. The world, meanwhile, is strengthened by hope and the fear of God. Hope and fear are supported within us by avoiding worldly people and by unceasing prayer.

Unexpected things keep cropping up for us, because we have a will and hunger. These unexpected things are in conflict with our will and wishes, which is why they seem to be unexpected, though, in fact, they’re not. Because people who love God expect anything and everything and always say: ‘May your will be done’.

Soon the sun will be extinguished for us. Wrapped in the dark veil of death, we’ll be hidden away from it. But, while we live, why shouldn’t the sun see us as children who are like their heavenly Father. Let’s promise to give such pleasure to the sun and, even more so, to ourselves and our friends. And may our heavenly Father be our support in this, now and unto the ages.

Why shouldn’t Christianity change with the times? Saint Theophan wrote this on the Sunday after the Nativity, 29 December 1863 and his words are as apposite today as they were then. The times have changed! How happy I was to hear this. This means that you’re listening carefully to what I say, and not only that you’re listening, but also that you’re determined to abide by it. What more could we desire, those of us who preach as we were ordered to and what we were ordered to? Aside from all this, I can in no way agree with your opinion and I consider it my duty to comment on and correct it, because (despite the fact that it perhaps goes against your will ...

The inner purity of the beautiful soul of the real person also enhances their external appearance, and that divine tenderness of God’s love even sweetens their countenance. Apart from making people beautiful spiritually, and sanctifying them, the internal beauty of the soul also betrays them externally with divine Grace. It adorns and sanctifies even ugly clothing, provided it’s worn by one of God’s people.

Today’s sermon, the last of the year, deals with the martyrdom of twenty thousand Christians, whose sacred memory the Church celebrates today. They were martyred in 304 A.D. in Nicomedia, during the great persecution of Diocletian. The latter was augustus in the East, with his headquarters at Nicomedia, while Maximian was augustus in Rome. These two emperors ruled the Roman state, one in the West, the other in the East, from 285-305. These years were associated with the last great persecutions of the Church. Seven years later, in 312/313, Constantine the Great, who had grown up in Nicomedia as a hostage at Diocletian’s court, put a stop to the persecutions. In 305, after Maximian’s victorious campaign in Ethiopia, the whole of ...

We shouldn’t be sad when our weaknesses are exposed… In temptations, we’re taught to see all sides of our soul, both the good and the bad. Experience often shows us how to distinguish the good from the bad, and it takes not a little time to acquire this.

In a festal atmosphere, with twinkling lights, the giving and receiving of gifts, with parties and food, with everything our consumer society and secularized Christian life dictates, we celebrate Christmas. The rather more ‘spiritual’ view sees Christmas as the event of ‘peace on earth’ which God brought with His advent, with a nod towards His failure, since we know that, from the time He came until today, very few years have been without war somewhere in the world. And then again, the more ‘spiritual’ view, with a theological foundation, will say that Christ became human ‘in order to save us from our sins’, making sin the basis for the astonishing fact of God’s incarnation. In other words, something negative. Amid all this secular, ...

It needs repentance such as that shown by the Ninevites to change the Lord’s decisions. Otherwise many tribulations come into the world.

At this time of year, people often talk about the ‘spirit of Christmas’. But are we all talking about the same thing? I think not. It seems to me that if the ‘spirit of Christmas’ is only the presents, shopping in general, family meals, gatherings and relaxation, then Christmas, especially these days, must be very depressing for a lot of people. It causes depression, because many of us don’t have the means to shop, to go out and to enjoy themselves. But the issue’s more serious than we think, because it has another dimension. Even those who do live with all the above, still experience a different kind of unhappiness; they aren’t full of joy, either. It’s obvious from their ...

Like every virtue, love must live in the heart. Unless it does so, it doesn’t exist, in practice. Because God didn’t say ‘Love’, ‘Be humble’, ‘Be merciful’ , ‘Pray’ and so on for our ears but for our heart. So we have to have love, humility, kindness, prayer and all the other virtues. And when they’re in our heart, they’ll certainly find external expression, just as a fire gives off heat and myrrh exudes fragrance.

The road to perfection is long. Pray that God will give you strength. Bear your lapses with patience and, when you’ve quickly regained your feet, start running. Don’t stand there, at the place where you fell, crying your heart out and sobbing unconsolably, like a little child.

The Feast of Christmas today, my Christian brothers and sisters. We celebrate the dogma of our faith, that God became human, a real human person, with flesh, bones, blood and a heart. A person like us in every way, except, of course, as regards sin. This is a very great feast, the mother of feasts, since all the other feasts follow it: the baptism, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is why it’s been called the mother of feasts. At this feast, we see the Son of God, Who formerly, in heaven, had only a divine nature, take on human nature at His incarnation. He is now God and human. Perfect God and perfect human. So, with ...

Christ came to earth in two capacities, the human and the divine. At His Passion, His body suffered. He was crucified, and, despite knowing that He would rise, He overcame the temptation to descend from the Cross so that people would know He’s God. We today are saved through the Cross. Through prayer. A woman said to me: ‘I don’t know how to pray’. ‘Take a komboskini and say the Jesus Prayer’, I advised. And her mind was enlightened.

Christmas Encyclical Despair is everywhere. Deep darkness envelops the entire earth. A black veil covers everything. There is no hope. Some voices are heard. The prophets of Israel and the wise men of Greece cry out. The prophets say: the Messiah is coming. He is the Redeemer. He is the Savior. And the wise men explain: If the mighty will not descend from the heavens, there is no salvation. The Messiah came. He is the Son of the Virgin. The God-Man Christ. The only Redeemer and Savior of the world. He requested a place for lodging and we refused Him. We did not recognize Him. We forced Him to be born in a manger for animals. He did not take offense. He did not ...

What we call ‘kalanda’ (carols) are the songs of praise and goodwill which are sung on the eve of the great Christian feasts and which belong, in anthropological terms, to what we call good luck rituals. The carols for the Twelve Days of Christmas are still remembered, though those for the other feasts of the year are almost forgotten. One good custom in the past was for the carol-singers to go out at night. Some would take lanterns with a paper surround and they’d also have little sticks with which to knock at people’s doors. The musical instruments which accompanied the carollers varied, depending on the tradition of the region. In Kastoria, there are many carols for the master and mistress ...

Pastoral Message for the Nativity of our Lord of H.E. Metropolitan Silouan of Byblos, Botris and dependencies While we celebrate the feast of the Incarnation of our Lord, I feel ashamed for not being able to find in me an answer to the question: “Where the Christ was to be born?” (Matthew 2: 4), however, I found it and I find it in your love and in your apostolic service, a service carried out with dedication, self-denial and sacrifice. I found it and I find it in the faces bathed by the tears of abandonment, of loneliness, of need, especially in a distant land, but who stand firm in goodness, in truth and in prayer. I found it and I also find it ...

The Sunday before Christmas is full of names. Both in the Epistle, but particularly in the Gospel reading, there are long lists presented of people who preceded the Lord Jesus, and who, despite the variety in their ways of life, are all characterized by the common denominator of the anticipation of the Saviour, Redeemer and Benefactor of humankind. And this expectation, which of all of them shared, had common ground on which it grew: faith. This is why today’s Epistle reading begins with the words ‘By faith’, proclaiming that which should dominate our progress towards Christmas. This is because you can’t meet Christ, can’t celebrate Christmas, without faith. At every feast of the Church, the war is cunningly fought, with subtle ...

The Gospel reading today is the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew and, of course, of the whole New Testament. At first sight, the first page of this Holy Book seems to be the most tedious and perhaps the most off-putting page in world literature, consisting as it does of a tiresome list of Hebrew names. But a more careful examination reveals that it contains the glad fore-tidings of our salvation since it’s the family tree of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. It records Christ’s ancestors by name, beginning with Abraham and ending with the righteous Joseph, the apparent ‘husband of Mary’, but whose mission (duty) it was, in reality, to protect the Ever-Virgin. ‘Glory to your condescension’ We have ...