Ξένες γλώσσες

If each of us did whatever good we could, there wouldn't be unhappy people in the world.

Strictly speaking, Lent ends on the Friday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent: the period of forty days is then over. The time of the Passion lasts from the end of Lent until the Resurrection, anticipated on Holy Saturday. It therefore comprises the Saturday which follows the fifth Sunday of Lent, called ‘Lazarus Saturday’, and the first six days of Holy Week. Lazarus Saturday has a very special place in the liturgical calendar. It is not included in the forty days of Lenten penitence; it is not included in the harrowing days of Holy Week – which are counted from the Monday to the Friday. Together with Palm Sunday, it forms a short and joyous prelude to the days of ...

Love of pleasure opens the door of our soul to the enemy. If you fight this with firm resolve, then it will be very difficult for any passion to overcome you.

I can remember jumping off the front porch steps in excitement as I hurried into the car to get to the church as quickly as possible to find out which group I was in.  Every year the Jr. Choir of Archangel Michael Church in Campbell, Ohio would split into groups and go to all the Orthodox homes in town to sing the kalanta or carols.  We did this three times a year, Christmas, St. Basil’s and Lazarus Saturday.   I can remember the smiles on the faces of the people we sang for and the lingering aroma of the freshly baked cookies many of the yiayias baked and stuffed into our pockets.  We’d collect money for the church in our neatly ...

St Joasaph was the son of the pious ruler of Epirus and Thessaly Symeon Sinisi, who was descended from the royal house of Nemanja and was proclaimed “tsar of the Greeks, the Serbs and the Albanians” under the name of “Symeon Uros Palaeologus”. His mother, Thomaïs, was the sister of the last Despot of Epirus, Nicephorus II. He was born around 1350 and christened Ioannes. Having been brought up in a devout family, Ioannes showed from an early age particular zeal for the spiritual life and an aversion for the things of this world. He paid frequent visits to churches and monasteries, and particularly the monasteries of the Holy Mountain and Meteora, constantly attending the Divine Liturgy and other services. When ...

In order to consider the question properly, it is necessary to review the doctrines of the Church on abortion and then define, as far as possible within this short study, the concept of oikonomia. The definitive work on the subject of abortion is a small book by Archpriest John Kowalczyk entitled "An Orthodox View of Abortion"1. Fr. Kowalczyk points out that, during the first two centuries of Christianity, the teachings on abortion along with other moral issues were set down primarily in two works, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and the Epistle of Barnabas. In the second chapter of the former we find the following proscriptions:2 Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; ...

Insults cleanse our soul of the passions. In Greek there's an expression for this: if somebody insults another person, they can say: 'I gave him or her a good washing down'. And so they did.

We often forget that we're merely visitors passing through this life and should therefore live in ceaseless prayer, because prayer is the breath of our soul. Prayer attracts energy from the source of life, the Lord, Who guards, preserves and nourishes all living things.

My dear friends, Thus spake, in a little book entitled A Collection of Thoughts, Kiki Dimoula, an outstanding poet to whom the Department of Theology at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki had the pleasure and honour last year to award an honorary degree. Exquisite words, threatening our certainty, which is linked to our everyday routine and everything that surrounds and shapes that, while ignoring the fact that this everyday life is not always connected to the mystery of our immediacy. In other words, with that reality which recognizes that ‘one thing is needful’. And, in the Orthodox tradition, that thing is none other than an encounter with the person of the incarnate Word, Christ. This is a statement which demonstrates from afar ...

We, Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, have met on the Greek island of Lesvos to demonstrate our profound concern for the tragic situation of the numerous refugees, migrants and asylum seekers who have come to Europe fleeing from situations of conflict and, in many cases, daily threats to their survival. World opinion cannot ignore the colossal humanitarian crisis created by the spread of violence and armed conflict, the persecution and displacement of religious and ethnic minorities, and the uprooting of families from their homes, in violation of their human dignity and their fundamental human rights and freedoms. The tragedy of forced migration and displacement affects millions, and is fundamentally a crisis of humanity, ...

Where people's confidence in themselves ends is where help from God begins.

In education, it's exceptionally dangerous to pay attention only to the development of the intellect and knowledge, ignoring the heart. We should look to the heart above all else, because the heart is life, but life which sin has corrupted. Society is corrupt precisely because we don't have Christian education.

This examination of the issue of abortion, the Orthodox concept of oikonomia and certain individual situations used to support and promote the "right" to an abortion has been undertaken primarily because there is a legally and culturally perceived "right to an abortion" in America. Fetus removed for mom's health reasons Young people growing up today cannot remember a time before the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973 legalized abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Should Roe be reversed by the High Court, legislative initiatives guaranteeing access to abortion presently exist in many states and at the federal level, strongly suggesting that the procedure has become institutionalized in our present culture and will not be either ...

Just looking at something isn't in itself a sin. What is a sin is looking at things with envy, pride and greed.

Warm and balmy weather is followed by thunderstorms and rain. A soul which finds relief from sorrow in mourning and which has been cooled by tears enjoys a special calmness and serenity which, like the scent of perfumes, emerge from and are released by pure prayer.