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.
The monastery was founded in 980 by the Iberian noble and distinguished general John Thornic, who essentially enlarged and renamed the old monastery of Clementos granted to him by the emperor Basil II. Of this earlier monastery’s only part of the katholikon seems to have survived, incorporated into the chapel of the Forerunner behind the present katholikon. The katholikon, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin and built between 980 and 983, contains the tombs of the founders and seems to be the oldest surviving katholikon among the mountain’s twenty ruling monasteries. The wonderful marble pavement is of the 11th century, and the church’s watt-paintings belong to various phases from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The chapel of the Portaitissa, ...
If ‘the death of the saints is precious and the memory of the righteous is blessed’, with how much greater praise should we keep the memory of the ‘saint of the saints’ through whom the whole of sanctity came to them, that is the memory of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God? This is what we do when we celebrate the anniversary of her holy dormition or transferal, in which, even though she is a little lower than the angels, she yet surpasses to an incomparable degree the angels and archangels and all the heavenly powers as regards her proximity to God and the marvels that were performed and written about from ancient times . Dormition of Theotokos, byzantine icon, 9th ...
If you’re not aware that you’re devoid of the virtues, this is a downward slope towards impiety. Because those who’ve become accustomed to the pleasures of the flesh and who ignore the voice of God will end up refusing to be moved and will prefer the pleasures of the flesh to God. They’ll think these pleasures are more important than God’s will.
‘And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “Faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said ...
The Abbot of Vatopaidi monastery, Archimandrite Efrem, spoke on the radio programme “Gisa somewhere else” of SKAI 100,3 FM on Saturday 14th August 2010, on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of our Lady, the Mother of God. Elder Efrem was celebrating the feast at the Vatopaidi Metochi at Porto Lagos. Here is the full text of the interview. Gisa: Geronta, you are in Porto Lagos to celebrate the feast of the Dormition and I was wondering why women cannot attend? Elder Efrem: Excuse me. This is the monastery’s metochi and women can visit as well. Gisa: Up to there, but what about further up? Elder Efrem: The Holy Mount Athos as you know is inaccessible to women and this is the tradition ...
The Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, who became a human person for us (though He was sinless), voluntarily underwent the crucifixion, death and burial so that our human nature, which the father of evil had caused to be cast out of paradise in olden times, could be elevated. Christ rose, however, and was elevated to His initial glory, and then sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to his disciples and apostles. After the God/Man/Word ascended into heaven, the eye-witnesses and servants of the Lord were in the upper room, as Saint Luke tells us, and after they had received the Holy Spirit they were unwilling to neglect preaching the Word of God in order to wait on tables. So ...
Prayer of the heart, the Jesus Prayer, occurs only for those who’ve been given the grace of God. It shouldn’t happen with the thought: ‘I must learn it; I have to know how to do it, to achieve it’, because that might lead us into pride and egotism. It needs experience, longing, but also a sound mind, vigilance and caution, if it’s to be pure and pleasing to God. If you have the thought: ‘I’ve really advanced in this’, that’ll spoil everything. What have we got to be proud about? Nothing we have belongs to us. These are delicate matters. Pray without forming images in your mind. Don’t imagine Christ. The Fathers stressed prayer without images. An image is a slippery ...
