Ξένες γλώσσες

The 3rd Ecumenical Synod dealt with the heresy of Nestorios, the Patriarch of Constantinople. It condemned him and defined the faith as regards the theanthropic Christ and Our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God. This was after an agreement, known as the Formula for Reunion, was reached in 433 between Saint Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch. After the demise of these two Patriarchs, however, their fanatical disciples re-opened the issue, in the belief that both of them had retreated from their previously-held positions, and this caused a number of problems for the Church. One of the protagonists was Eftykhis (Eutyches) who taught that our Lord Jesus Christ did, indeed, have two natures, before they were unified, but recognized only ...

When you give yourself completely to the power and love of God, you’ll realize that everything happens because God wants it to, or that He allows it.

What is the greatest glory of Saint Paul the Apostle? What was the greatest of God’s gifts to him? Why should we call him blessed and envy him? Saint John Chrysostom answers: ‘I call Paul blessed not so much because he was caught up into Paradise as because he was imprisoned for Christ. I don’t call him blessed so much because he heard ineffable words as because he suffered in chains for Christ. Paul himself confirms this when he writes to the Ephesians. He doesn’t say: “I urge you as a person who has heard ineffable words”, but “I beg you as a prisoner in Christ”’. ‘The hands of Saint Paul weren’t so worthy when he cured the cripple in Lystra as they ...

It’s shameful to waste our time today and then to think back nostalgically on the past, when such sadness does us no good at all.

Through patience we arrive at humility and thereafter we enjoy God’s Grace. Boldness towards God is acquired through a clear conscience and works of virtue.

The root of every evil is vainglory and pleasure. If you don’t hate those passions, you won’t be able to get rid of any passion at all.

Listen to me, listen to me all you harsh judges of other people’s sins. If it’s true- and it really is- that ‘as you judge, so will you be judged’ (Matth. 7, 2), then you can be certain that, as many sins as we’ve condemned our neighbour for- be they physical or spiritual- we will also fall into them. It’s impossible for things to be otherwise.

We haven’t reached the bottom yet, we’ve still got some way to go, but, when we do, things will start to sort themselves out.

In its efforts to restrict the practice of self-mutilation, the Church adopted strict canons. According to the Apostolic Canons, a eunuch who had performed self-mutilation would be debarred from holy orders; for he is a self-murderer and an enemy of God’s creation (Canon 22). In the event that an active cleric were to castrate himself, he was to be defrocked, because he was considered a murderer of himself: ‘If anyone who is a clergyman should mutilate himself, let him be defrocked; for he is a murderer of himself’ (Canon 23). Finally, any Christian at all who commits this act was to be excommunicated for a period of three years: ‘A layman who mutilates himself shall be excommunicated for three years: ...

The Lord’s uncreated Grace supports us like a mother and not only saves us from every calamity, but also comforts our spirit with the sweetness of its presence inspiring us with courage for new defences and attacks. In sufferings and trials in general, our sprit grows and our spiritual knowledge expands. ‘In my sorrow you have saved me, giving respite to my soul’. (Ps.4, 1).

1. At the turn of the 19th century, German poet and mystical philosopher Novalis wrote his famous essay Christendom or Europe. Already the title of it was stating clearly the identity of the two historical phenomena; and though Novalis described the process through which Europe was gradually losing “the beautiful chief characteristics of these truly Christian times,” he was convinced that the original identity could not be lost. Europe and the Western World, could be Christianity, better or worse, but they could not be anything else at their core, since there is not (and there cannot be) another ultimate meaning of their historical existence. “Ultimate meaning cannot be annihilated, it can be just clouded, weakened, superseded by other meanings.” And we ...

‘They Brought a Paralytic to Him’ Today, our Lord performs a sign and a miracle in the Gospel reading. The miracle is that He forgave the sins of the paralytic and the sign is that He also cured him in the body. The miracle has to do with the soul, the sign with the body. Together they form the complete cure of the paralytic. The person of the paralytic The paralytic wasn’t some neurotic person who’d sinned deeply and was consumed by guilt to the point of paralysis, as a psychiatrist might tell us. The man wasn’t neurotic, but certainly a sinner and his illness was, indeed, the result and consequence of a particular sin. Efthymios Zigavinos says that many illnesses are the ...

If you wish to be governed by God, don’t wish to sin. Because if you sin, how will you be governed by God?

Three things are needful: to keep our mind in heaven; our heart as the throne of God; and our mouth as the Church.

Let us contemplate God as He is, not as our mind wants Him to be.

Like Christ’s love, His sufferings were so great that we can’t understand them, since we love the Lord so little. But those who love more can understand the Lord’s sufferings more deeply. There’s little love, average love and perfect love. The more perfect the love, the more perfect the knowledge.

The world wants to add the profits of death to the goods of life. Paul Valery Today a philosopher could say about his subject what prince Hamlet said about his time: Philosophy is out of joint. Philosophical discourse has lost its unity and integrity, it is fragmented and disconnected, and philosophy is now an archipelago, all the islands of which live by their own rules and laws. Political philosophy, linguistic philosophy, ethics, epistemology… there are many islands. May be, another anatomical metaphor is even more adequate here: Philosophy has no backbone. Trying to express the reasons of this, our philosopher might complement Shakespeare with Thomas Eliot: The centre does not hold. In the past all philosophical domains went back to their ...

Every day we should gaze upon the miracle of God.

Christ is everything.