joypeacehope

What Should A Christian Call The End Of This Life?

2011-12-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

"I do not think the the end of this present life is rightly called death. More accurately, it is deliverance from death, separation from corruption, liberation from slavery, cessation of turbulence, destruction of wars, dispelling of darkness, rest from suffering, calming of turmoil, eclipsing of shame, escape from passions and, to sum it up, the termination of all evils. The saints who have achieved these things through voluntary mortification live as strangers and pilgrims in this life (Heb.11:13), fighting bravely against the world and the body and the assaults stemming from them. And, having stifled the deceit which both of these engender because of the close connection existing between the senses and sensible objects, they keep the dignity of their soul unenslaved."

The Philokalia Vol 2 pg 278

If It Isn't Truth, It's A House Of Cards!

2011-12-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

The Sadducees had an objection to the resurrection, which seemed to them irresolvable; but the Lord resolved it so clearly in several words that everyone understood and acknowledged the Sadducees as conquered by the truth of His word (Luke 20:27–40). What then were [called] Sadducees are now unbelievers of all sorts. They have heaped up for themselves a multitude of fantasised suppositions, set them forth as irrefutable truths, and magnify themselves with them, supposing that there is nothing to say against them. In reality they are so empty, that there is no point in speaking against them. All of their philosophizing is a house of cards: blow on it and it will scatter. There is no need to refute them in each part; it is enough to relate to them as to dreams. When speaking against dreams, people do set not about proving any incongruity in composition or in the parts of a dream; they simply say, “It is a dream”—and that says it all. Such precisely is the theory of the formation of the world from cloudy spots, with its props—the theory of spontaneous origination, of the Darwinian origin of genus and species, with his latest fantasy about the origin of man. It is all like the delirium of a sleeping man. Reading them, you walk in the midst of shadows. And scientists? What can you do with them? Their motto is: do not listen if you do not want to, but do not hinder us from telling lies.

St, Theophan the Recluse

A Picture of Evil

2011-12-19T17:05:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a king. This king wished that his people know what evil was, so that his people could learn to recognize and flee from it. He issued a summons, that, in a year, all of his artists should come to him with one picture, to show what was evil. The best picture would be displayed to the people.

In a year, they all appeared at the king's palace. There were very few artists in the kingdom, but those who were there were very skillful, and worked as they had never worked before. Each brought a picture beneath a shroud.

The king turned to the first artist who had come. "Jesse, unveil your picture, and tell us its interpretation."

Jesse lifted the cloth. Against a background of blackened skulls was a dark green serpent, the color of venom and poison, with eyes that glowed red. "Your Majesty, it was the Serpent whose treacherous venom deceived man to eat of the forbidden fruit. The eye is the lamp of the body, and the Serpent's eye burns with the fires of Hell. You see that beyond the Serpent are skulls. Evil ensnares unto death and outer darkness."

The court murmured its approval. The picture was striking, and spoke its lesson well. The king, also, approved. "Well done, Jesse. If another picture is chosen, it will not be because you have done poorly. Now, Gallio, please show us your work."

Gallio unveiled his painting. In it was a man, his face red and veins bulging from hate. In his hand, he held a curved dagger. He was slowly advancing towards a woman, cowering in fear. "Your Majesty, man is created in the image of God, and human life is sacred. Thus the way we are to love God is often by loving our neighbor. There are few blasphemies more unholy than murder. You have asked me for a picture to show what evil is, that your subjects may flee from it. This is evil to flee from."

The court again murmured its approval, and the king began to shift slightly. It was not, as some supposed, because of the repellent nature of the pictures, but because he had secretly hoped that there would be only one good picture. Now, it was evident that the decision would not be so simple. "Gallio, you have also done well. And Simon, your picture?"

Simon unveiled his picture, and people later swore that they could smell a stench. There, in the picture, was the most hideous and misshapen beast they had ever seen. Its proportions were distorted, and its colors were ghastly. The left eye was green, and taller than it was wide. The right eye was even larger than the left, red, bloodshot, and flowing with blood; where there should have been a pupil, a claw grotesquely protruded. It was covered with claws, teeth, fur, scales, blood, slime, tentacles, and bits of rotted flesh; several members of the court excused themselves. "However it may be disguised, evil is that which is sick, distorted, and ugly."

There was a long silence. Finally, the king spoke again. "I see that there are three powerful pictures of evil, any one of which is easily a masterpiece and well fit to show to the people. Barak, I know that you have been given artistic genius, and that perhaps your picture will help me with this difficult decision. Unveil your picture."

Barak unveiled his picture, and an awestruck hush fell over the court. There, unveiled, was the most beautiful picture they had ever seen.

The picture was in the great vault of a room in a celestial palace. It was carved of diamond, emerald, ruby, jasper, amethyst, sardonyx, and chrysolite. Through the walls of gem, the stars shone brightly. But all of this was nothing, compared to the creature in the room.

He carried with him power and majesty. He looked something like a man, but bore glory beyond intense. His face shone like the sun blazing in full force, his eyes flashed like lightning, and his hair like radiant flame. He wore a robe that looked as if it had been woven from solid light. In his left hand was a luminous book, written in letters of gold, and in his right hand was a sharp, double edged sword, sheathed in fire and lightning.

The king was stunned. It took him a long time to find words, and then he shouted with all of his might.

"You fool! I ask you for a picture of evil, and you bring me this! It is true that fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and that, like unthinking beasts, they do not hesitate to slander the glorious ones. What do you have to say for yourself and for this picture? I shall have an explanation now, or I shall have your head!"

Barak looked up, a tear trickling down his cheek. "Your Majesty, do you not understand? It is a picture of Satan."

HoHum - Two Thousand Years Of Miracles

2011-11-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

What is relevant about the yearly commemoration of the following events in the history of the Orthodox Church?

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

What yearly miraculous events are associated with these locations?

JORDAN RIVER

MOUNT TABOR

HOLY SEPULCHER

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING FOR ANSWERS

RIVER REVERSES FLOW

CLOUD RAINING DEW

HOLY FIRE

The Antichrist Will Be Jewish And That's Not All...

2011-11-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

The Antichrist who will be a Jew is initially going to win the hearts of virtually all of humankind, (possibly even some of the elect). Matt 24:24

but Jesus assures us, "I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her" Matt 16:18

But two churches have evolved during the past two thousand years, the Church that Christ has built and is building (the true Church) and the church that the devil has built and is building, (the false church).

The gates of Hell will indeed prevail against the thousands of counterfeit religious organizations that falsely claim to be of the universal church or serving the one true god and these groups basically fall under the four general categories of Protestants, Romans, Jews and Muslims.

For those of you who believe in Christ, have you ever really tested the spirits to determine whether or not they are of God? Do you really believe that Christ came in the flesh? 1 John 4:1

If you do indeed believe in the incarnation of Christ, then you wouldn't call worshiping an image of Christ, idol worship. Why? Because Christ is God in the flesh and thus He can be portrayed as such and consequently worshiped not only in spirit but in flesh. Before God became incarnate, God was indeed invisible and impossible to portray, but Christ became for us, both God and man. To deny the concept of worshiping an icon of Christ is to deny that Christ indeed came in the flesh and although you may have good intentions, taking this stand against icons may very well put you on a slippery slope that will land you in the embrace of the devil.

One strategy of the enemy is to do whatever is necessary to weaken the opponent before going in for the kill. It is only the fullness of riches present within the Orthodox Church that will properly strengthen a believer to be able to stand firm against the powerful forces of the Antichrist. Satan knows this and thus will exert tremendous energies to keep the masses in delusions, distractions and deceptions until he can enter the city walls to take captive his prisoners.

And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. Matthew 19:29

Fasting And Endtime Preparations - Yet One Of The Multitude Of Blessings Of The Orthodox Faith.

2011-11-08T16:32:00.000-08:00

..."Those who will run and hide in the mountains with three crosses will find shelter and will be saved. But not for long times, since the great famine will appear. Food will be plentiful all over the cities and villages, but all will be poisoned… Many in order to feed themselves will eat everything and will die immediately. Those who will fast and endure fasting, those are the ones who will survive, because the Holy Spirit will preserve them; those will also be the ones closer to God in the time of great famine and perdition."

From the prophecies of the Righteous Dimitri Tarabicz

The fullness (darkness) of times are upon us and only the fullness (light) available to us within the walls of Orthodoxy will be sufficient to gird us up for what is coming. There is only one true Church, the Orthodox Church; all other so-called churches are false and filled with men, women and children inundated with delusions, distractions and deceptions. These false churches are all overseen by one powerful warden, a spiritual beast who portrays himself as an Angel of Light. As the end of the age quickly approaches and the spirit of the Antichrist prepares the world for his rule, we must be girded and ready to stand firm in a manner that can only be accomplished by enjoying the holy mysteries which are available to us only within the confines of the Holy, Apostolic, Catholic, Orthodox Church.

Your Television Is Seducing You...Eventually All Digital Technologies Will Seduce And Betray

2011-11-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

CONCERNING ANTICHRIST’S PERSON IN THE HOLY PLACE

“Blessed and thrice-blessed is the man who will not desire to do so and, hence, will not see the God-abominated person of antichrist. Whosoever will see him and hear his blasphemous words promising all earthly blessings, the same will be seduced and will go forth to worship him. And they will perish, along with him, as far as eternal life is concerned; they will burn in eternal fire!” We asked the venerable one, “How shall this be?” And he answered us with tears, [saying]:”The abomination of desolation will stand in the holy place and will show-forth the foul seducers of the world who, working false miracles, will deceive all such men as have fallen away from God. And, after them, antichrist will appear! The entire world will see him at one and the same time.” To the question “Where in the holy place -- in church?” venerable Lavrentii said; “Not in church, but in the home! Beforetimes, a table used to stand in the corner wherein the holy icons were. Then, however, that space will be occupied by seductive instruments for the deception of men. Many who have departed away from the Truth will say, ‘we need to watch and hear the news.’ And it is in the news that antichrist will appear; and they will accept him.”

St. Paphnutius the Confessor, bishop in the Egyptian Thebaid (4th c.).

2011-09-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

Commemorated on September 11

"A bishop of the Egyptian Thebaid, he suffered greatly for the Orthodox faith: heretics put out one of his eyes and broke his left leg. He took part in the First Ecumenical Council, refuting the Arian heresy with great power. The Emperor Constantine valued him greatly and often kissed him on the missing eye, lost for the truth of Orthodoxy. At the council, he stood in opposition to the western representatives, who proposed that secular priests be completely forbidden to marry. He was chaste throughout the whole of his life."

THE INTERCESSION OF THE MOST HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

2011-09-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

The news reached Moscow that moving from the south to the city was Tamerlane's army—the army of an invincible and cruel conqueror. He was literally invincible—throughout his long life, he never suffered a single defeat. Tamerlane had conquered Persia, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, Georgia, India, and Syria. By the end of his life in 1405, his territory stretched east to west from the Black sea to the banks of the Ganges, and north to south from the Aral Sea to the Arabian Sea.

In the summer of 1395, an event occurred which left a deep mark in the spiritual and historical life of the Russian people, and which became an eternal example of faith and hope in the Providence of God, and in the intercession of the Most Pure Mother of God.

In 1395, this terrible conqueror of nearly all of Asia Minor and the Caucasus was advancing upon Russia, had reached the borders of Riazan, razed the town of Yelets, and turned towards Moscow, nearing the upper Don River. Grand Prince Vasily Dimitrievich courageously went out with his Muscovite army to Kolomna to meet the enemy, but everyone knew that their forces were not equal.

At that great and decisive moment in history, not only was the continued existence of Moscow under question, but also of the entire Russia nation. Metropolitan Cyprian of Kiev and All Russia, the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, understood this better than anyone did. After blessing Prince Vasily to go to war, he called all the Muscovites to repentance, fervent prayer, and fasting. Then, by divine inspiration, he sent ambassadors—priests and boyars to Vladimir for the greatest sacred shrine of Russia—the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God.

The icon was carried to Moscow in a grandiose procession that lasted ten days. During the entire way, the icon was surrounded by a huge crowd of people, who knelt before it with continual cries of "Mother of God, save the Russian land!" The people of Moscow with the Metropolitan at the head, the entire family of the Grand Prince, clergy and boyars met the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos on Kuchkova field.

Today that road upon which the procession came from Vladimir is called Sretensky, (from the Slavonic word meaning "meeting"), and the gates that were erected later on the site of Kuchkova field were called the Sretensky Gates.

All of Russia prayed during those days before the icon of the Mother of God to be saved from inevitable destruction.

And a miracle happened.

Tamerlane reached the town of Yelets, and for a reason unknown to historians did not go further to Moscow, although a nearly unprotected city lay before him—easy loot and military glory. This happened on August 26, 1395.

The Chronicles, however, explain this strange move thus: in the same hour that the inhabitants of Moscow met the icon and prayed before it, Tamerlane was dozing in his tent. Suddenly in a dream, a Majestic Lady appeared surrounded by a radiant light, who threateningly told him to leave the threshold of Muscovy. Awakening in terror, Tamerlane called his advisors and inquired what this vision meant. They answered him that the Majestic Lady is the Mother of God, the great intercessor for Christians. That is why, according to the Chronicles, the frightened Tamerlane turned toward the south the next day.

On the place of the meeting of the Vladimir Mother of God, Metropolitan Cyprian founded the Sretensky Monastery, and on August 26 (September 8 according to the civil calendar), this event is still celebrated as the day that Moscow and Russia were saved from Tamerlane.

This dramatic event is well known to the Orthodox, but the rest of the story is less known, although the outcome was also the result of the people's prayers, and amazingly influenced the whole course of Russian history. Turning from Moscow to the south, Tamerlane began his grandiose crushing of the Golden Horde. All the cities of the steppe, at enmity with Russia at the time, were looted and destroyed over the course of the year. Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382 had burned Moscow out of revenge for his defeat at Kulikovo, and run off to Lithuania. After their total defeat the Golden Horde in fact cease to exist as a steppe civilization and united nation. For Russia, these events were of colossal significance.

Alexei Artemev

Translated by OrthoChristian.com

THE DORMITION OF OUR MOST HOLY LADY THEOTOKOS AND EVER VIRGIN MARY

2011-08-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

After the Lord’s Ascension, the Mother of God remained under the care of the Apostle John the Theologian, and when he was absent, she lived in the house of his parents, near the Mount of Olives. For all the Apostles and all the faithful, she was a consolation and edification. Talking with them, the Mother of God told them of the wondrous events of the Annunciation, the conception without seed, and her birth of Christ without corruption, His childhood and earthly life. Like the Apostles, she instructed and strengthened others in the Christian Faith by her very presence, words, and prayers. The Apostles’ reverence for the Most Holy Virgin was extraordinary. Upon receiving the Holy Spirit on the remarkable day of Pentecost, they remained in Jerusalem for about ten years, serving for the salvation of the Jews and wishing to see and hear her divine words as often as possible. Many of the newly-enlightened in the faith even came from distant lands to Jerusalem in order to see and hear the Most Pure Theotokos.

During the persecutions brought by Herod against the young Christian Church (Acts. 12:1–3), the Most Holy Virgin Mary, together with the Apostle John the Theologian, departed in the year 42 for Ephesus, where the lot fell to the Apostle John to preach the Gospel. She was also in Cyprus at the home of St. Lazarus the Four Days Dead, who was acting Bishop there, and on the Holy Mountain of Athos, concerning which, according to St. Stephen the Hagiorite, the Mother of God said prophetically, “This place shall be the portion given me by my Son and God. I will be the Protectress of this place, and an Intercessor for it before God.”

The reverence of the ancient Christians for the Mother of God was so great that they preserved everything about her life that they could note from her words and deeds, and even left us a description of her appearance.

According to tradition based upon the words of the Holy Hieromartyr Dionysius the Aeropagite (†December 20, 107), St. Ambrose of Milan wrote in his work On Virginity about the Mother of God, “She was a virgin not only in body but also in mind, who stained the sincerity of its disposition by no guile, who was humble in heart, grave in speech, prudent in mind, sparing of words, studious in reading, resting her hope not on uncertain riches, but on the prayer of the poor, intent on work, modest in discourse; wont to seek not man but God as the judge of her thoughts, to injure no one, to have goodwill towards all, to rise up before her elders, not to envy her equals, to avoid boastfulness, to follow reason, to love virtue. When did she pain her parents even by a look? When did she disagree with her neighbours? When did she despise the lowly? When did she avoid the needy? Being wont only to go to such gatherings of men as mercy would not blush at, nor modesty pass by. There was nothing gloomy in her eyes, nothing forward in her words, nothing unseemly in her acts, there was not a silly movement, nor unrestrained step, nor was her voice petulant, that the very appearance of her outward being might be the image of her soul, the representation of what is approved." Click on link to read the rest.

On Sobriety and Prayer

2011-08-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ukrainian nuns.

Pray without ceasing—and pray without anger or thinking. Know that every thought that distances the mind from God, no matter how good it might seem in and of itself, is from the devil, who constantly sows high-sounding and irrational dreams only in order to distract the mind from God, from His commandments and His good works. The attention must not attach itself to any such thing, but rather it should firmly tear itself away and cleanse the heart in every way from evil suggestions. The devil tries very hard to distance the mind from God and enmesh it in worldly delights. But the soul should try in every way to struggle and not comingle with unclean thoughts; and in order to do this it should not fix its gaze upon that which the ancient and ever cunning seducer paints inside the head; that is, the images of things, faces and deeds into which the evil devil transforms himself. The poor person who has been drawn into this stands in one place, thinking that he is somewhere else; he sees, it seems to him, various faces, talks to them and carries on affairs with them, meanwhile this is none other than diabolical prelest.
Thus, having contained yourself within, bind the mind and cut off all unrelated thoughts with the name of Jesus Christ, who took away the sins of the world. Wherever you body stands, let your mind stand there also, so that there might be nothing between God and your heart that, like some cloud or curtain, might darken the heart and hide the face of God from it. If the mind should be sometimes distracted, it must not linger with those thoughts, so that its comingling with them would not be counted as deeds before God in the Day of Judgment, when God will judge the secret thoughts of men and every human thought will be confessed before Him. This podvig is bound up with many tempations both interior and exterior, but be brave. Blessed is the man who endures temptations, for having been tested, he will receive the incorruptible crown and become the temple of the great King—Christ, Who having built an abode within him, will settle into him and move him.... Having such a promise, let everything go and attend unceasingly to the Lord God; ask nothing more from Him that mercy, and that will be sufficient for you. In asking for mercy, ask for it with humility and contrition of heart, from morning till evening, and if possible, call out to Him all night also:
Lord Jesus Christ and Word of the Living God, through the prayer of the Theotokos have mercy on me.
Force yourself, and I repeat: force yourself, for this work requires great force. It is a narrow and sorrowful path that leads to the door of life, and only those who force themselves will enter in. (The Kingdon of God suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force) (Mt. 11:12). Do not distance yourself from God in your mind, and may your heart preserve the remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. The same sweet name repeat and repeat until it makes its resting place in your heart, and Christ will become magnified you.
Watch, and never abandon the rule of this holy prayer, for I have heard from the holy fathers who said: she who abandons this rule is no nun. Whether a nun be eating, drinking, walking or serving, she should ceaselessly call out: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Through the remembrance of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the heart warms itself for the battle against the enemy; through the remembrance of the Lord the laboring soul seeks out everything, the evil and the good: it routes out the evil and implants the good. This remembrance triumphs over all the power of the devil in the heart and catches him, overcomes him and sunders him in half. Tirelessly call on the name of Jesus Christ, and having descended into the depths of the heart, it will burn up all the roots of sin and enliven the soul. Ceaselessly call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and your heart will swallow the Lord, and the Lord will swallow the heart, and the two will be one. By the way, this is not the work of one day or even two, but sometimes of many years and a long period of time. Much labor and time is required before the enemy is expunged and Christ comes to dwell.
St. Theophan the Recluse
On the Jesus Prayer
The prayer which the holy fathers call the Jesus Prayer, is pronounced thus:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. The holy fathers teach us this prayer in many different ways. Saint John of the Ladder says: "Labor to enclose your mind in the words of the Jesus Prayer—pray aloud and attentively with the mind—the heart cannot help but participate in attentive prayer. Thus, whoever prays in this way will pray with his lips, his mind and his heart. Progressing in prayer, he will acquire prayer of the mind and heart, and thus attract Divine grace to himself." This method of St. John of the Ladder is the simplest, most understandable and best.
St. Nilus of Sora, one of our Russian ascetics, instructs us to be silent in thought—not to think during prayer, not of anything bad, nor even of anything good. Instead of any thought, he says to gaze ceaselessly into the depths of the heart and say: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner! According to the teaching of St. Nilus of Sora, one may pray standing, sitting, or lying down, not constraining the body so that the spirit can work freely, only regulating the breath, breathing quietly and frequently.
St. Seraphim of Sarov instructs the beginner to do the Jesus prayer without ceasing. While praying, he says, attend to yourself, that is, collect your mind and unite it with the soul. At first, for a day or two or more, say the prayer with the mind only, separately, attending to every word particularly. When the Lord will warm your heart with the warmth of His grace and unite you in one spirit, then this prayer will flow within you ceaselessly, and will be with you always, delighting you and nourishing you. And at first, you should say the prayer with your voice, that is with the lips, the tongue and speech—aloud to yourself alone. When the lips, the tongue and the feeling of prayer are satiated with pronouncing it aloud, then voiced prayer is ceased, and the prayer is prounounced in a whisper.

If It's Not Your Time, It's Not Your Time! Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear

2011-08-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Martyrs Anicetas and Photios

Commemorated on August 12

The Martyrs Anicetas and Photios (his nephew) were natives of Nicomedia. Anicetas, a military official, denounced the emperor Diocletian (284-305) for having set up in the city square an implement of execution for frightening Christians. The enraged emperor ordered Saint Anicetas to be tortured, and later condemned him to be devoured by wild beasts. But the lions they set loose became gentle and fondled up to him. Suddenly there began a strong earthquake, resulting in the collapse of the pagan temple of Hercules, and many pagans perished beneathe the crumbled city walls. The executioner took up a sword to cut off the saint's head, but he himself fell down insensible. They tried to break Saint Anicetas on the wheel and burn him with fire, but the wheel stopped and the fire went out. They threw the martyr into a furnace with boiling tin, but the tin got cold. Thus the Lord preserved His servant for the edification of many. The martyr's nephew, Saint Photios, saluted the sufferer and turn to the emperor, remarking: "O idol-worshipper, thine gods – be nothing!" The sword, held over the new confessor, instead struck the executioner himself. Then the martyrs were thrown into prison. After three days Diocletian began to urge them: "Worship our gods, and I shalt give ye glory and riches". The martyrs answered: "Perish thou with thine honour and riches!" Then they tied them by the legs to wild horses, but the saints, dragged along the ground, remained unharmed. They did not suffer either in the heated up bath-house, which tumbled apart. Finally Diocletian ordered a great furnace to be fired up, and many Christians, inspired by the deeds of Saints Anicetas and Photios, went in themselves with the words: "We are Christians!" They all died with prayer on their lips. The bodies of Saints Anicetas and Photios were not harmed by the fire, and even their hair remained whole. seeing this, many of the pagans came to believe in Christ. This event happened in the year 305.

A Sacred Place - The Solovki Monastery

2011-08-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

This monastery is located on an island in the White Sea just 165km from the Artic Circle in the far north of Russia and was founded in 1429 by two hermits. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet authorities closed down the monastery and incorporated many of the buildings into Solovki, one of the earliest forced-labor camps of the GULAG during the 1920s and 1930s. The camp was mainly used for cutting trees, and when the trees were gone, the camp was closed. It is again a monastery. No weapon formed against the Lord shall prevail...

Fifty six years and still haven't got the first step figured out.

2011-08-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

What Are We Doing Here?

2011-08-19T09:06:00.000-07:00

"The Lord said of the future life that people there do not marry and are not given in marriage—that is, our everyday earthly relationships will have no place there. It would follow that none of the norms of earthly life will either. Neither science, nor art, nor governments, nor anything else will exist. What will there be? God will be all in all. And since God is spirit, He unites with the spirit and acts on what is spiritual, all life there will be a continuous flow of spiritual movements. There can be only one conclusion drawn from this: since our goal is the future life, and what is here is only a preparation for it, then to spend all the time of one’s life only on what is appropriate in this life alone and has no relevance to the future life means to go against our purpose, and to prepare ourselves for a bitter, most bitter lot. We are not absolutely required to drop everything; but while working as much as is necessary for this life, we must direct our main concern toward preparation for the future life, trying wherever possible to turn even earthly menial labour into a means for achieving this goal." St. Theophan the Recluse of Russia

WRITTEN FOR NUNS BUT BENEFICIAL FOR ALL

2011-08-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

The following text is from Counsels and Instructions of a Spiritual Father To The Nuns of The Moscow Joy of All Who Sorrow Monastery, From the Guidance Of The Great Ascetics and Teachers of Monastic Life,compiled by the spiritual father of the Moscow Joy of All Who Sorrow Convent, Hieromonk Joseph (Moscow 1913). The book was written at the request of the nuns, who asked him for ongoing guidance in the monastic life. As is written in the preface, it is "addressed to the inhabitants of women's monasteries, to all who wish to step upon the path of monastic life, as well as to pious laywomen, who will find here a multitude of soul-saving counsels, and draw from it great profit for their souls." Fr. Joseph slightly changed the texts he cited in order to apply them to nuns, but these instructions are aimed at all spiritual strugglers, regardless of gender.

St. Elizabeth - A Convert From The Protestant Faith

Monastic Life

What is expected of those who desire to dedicate themselves to monastic labors:

1. First of all, to pray greatly and fervently to God and to ask His help in this matter.

2. To test yourself: are you firmly resolved to endure anything grievous [all difficulties] until your very death?

3. To ask God with all your soul that He would show you the monastery, the place of your ascetic struggle, and the mother abbess—your instructress and guide in the monastic life.

4. To ask and learn, to gather the necessary information from other people.

5. Having found what you are seeking, to commit yourself in perfect obedience to your superior, for this virtue—sincere obedience—is the main, most necessary and good fruit-bearing virtue in the life of a nun.

In this way, by making requests in prayer, and not by self-willed wandering in trackless lands, a nun may achieve success in the interior life and escape the deceptions, attacks and snares everywhere laid by the invisible enemies of our salvation.

Archbishop Juvenaly
Monastic Life

The Fundamental Rule of Monastic Life

The entire ranks of Godly-wise fathers and holy ascetics assures us by their counsels that whosoever desires to undoubtedly save herself in monasticism and to pass through the field of this struggle with profit for her soul, it is necessary, especially at the beginning, to have obedience; that is, to submit her will to the superior, who is experienced in the spiritual life—to do everything and to strive to think in agreement with her counsels and instructions, and also with the instructions of her spiritual father, but at the same time to diligently study the Holy Scriptures and works of the holy ascetical fathers.

This is the beginning of a correct monastic life. But this whole life, encompassing at times many years and even decades, should consist of an uninterrupted succession of spiritual labors—external ones performed by the body, and internal ones, by the powers of the soul. It is not sufficient for a nun to have only physical prayers, that is, prostrations, long psalmody and so on in this vein; interior work is also necessary—attention to oneself, guarding of the heart.

Archbishop Juvenaly
Monastic Life

Physical Labors of a Nun: Fasting Vigil and Physical Prayer

Fasting

1. Fasting and temperance are absolutely necessary for a struggler.

2. Fasting is not a virtue in and of itself, but rather only an instrument of virtue, that is a means and aid toward the acquisition of the virtues of purity and chastity.

3. A fast should be kept in mind and soul; the second, as guarding yourself from all that is unpleasing to God, is necessary for everyone at all times, while physical fasting should be conducted with great care and at the advice of those more experienced. This fast should not be beyond measure, but moderate and in accordance with a person's physical strength, so that the ascetic labor may be brought to its completion.

A young, sturdy and strong woman should wear herself out with appropriate fasting, according to the advice of her eldress or spiritual father, for otherwise it is difficult and even impossible to preserve physical purity. An older person who is sickly and altogether weak in body should, avoiding any excess, moderately strengthen her powers, and exchange the severity in fasting that is inaccessible to her due to bodily weakness for abstinence from all evil deeds, words and thoughts. The true podvig of a nun actually consists in this. The inability to fast severely because of one's physical weakness does not prevent one from achieving spiritual progress.

In our sad times, zeal for labors of fasting is apparently waning, and an inclination towards slackness is noticeable in the majority; but perhaps such zealots of labor and podvig may be found who might ask: "How is it that many of the saints, perhaps almost all of them, undertook great labors of fasting—for long periods of time eating nothing at all, and receiving great gifts from God: clairvoyance, healing and various miracles? Why shouldn't we emulate them with whatever strength we can find, and fast often and severely?"

The Holy Hierarch Basil the Great said: "One must exercise oneself in abstinence, which serves as an indispensable guardian of chastity and a sovereign over the mind, not allowing it to lunge here and there. But we think to determine abstinence not only as abstinence from foods, but first of all as abstinence from the roaming of the eyes. For what advantage is there if while abstaining from food, you devour with your eyes the lust of fornication, or eagerly listen with your ears to vain and devilish talk? There is no profit in abstaining from food without abstaining also from boasting, high-mindedness, vainglory and other passions."

Elder Basil of Moldavia writes: "Authentically it is not by fasting alone, but by fasting with humility that people are victorious over the invisible enemies of our salvation."

Vigil

St. John Climacus writes of vigilance: "The vigilant eye cleanses the mind, but long sleeping hardens the soul.

Vigilance is the quenching of fleshly fires, the deliverance from dreams, the filling of the eyes with tears, the softening of the heart, the preservation from thoughts, the best furnace for burning the food consumed, the subjection of evil spirits, the binding of the tongue, and the expulsion of daydreaming.

Excessive sleep is the cause of forgetfulness; while vigilance purifies the memory." (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Homily 20.)

Vigilance, or physically keeping vigil, according to the words of the holy fathers, is essential to the nun. It cleanses the mind, refreshes and strengthens the memory and comprises the inevitable conditions for preserving chastity and conquering the passion of sloth.

But vigilance, like fasting, should also not be beyond measure, but in moderation and according to a person's physical strength.

Half the night, six or five hours a day—that is the amount of sleep designated by the holy fathers for a healthy person, as a general rule for moderate podvig and preserving one's strength and health. They also allow a short rest in the afternoon of about one hour.

It is necessary for a woman in a monastery who is laboring for the salvation of her soul to pray at night or attend the nightly praise of God—that is, Matins, for this is the best time for prayer. The rest and sleep needed by the body should be designated so that she receives before and after Matins about six hours per day, and if she be in strength, a little less. But undoubtedly in this, just as along every step in monastic life, except for one's own labor and zeal, the counsel of experienced eldresses or a spiritual father is needed.

Physical Prayer

Man is composed of soul and body, and therefore when he prays he should pray not only with his spirit, but with his body. Bodily prayer, or the bodily labor of prayer, should express itself in patient standing during church services and during prayers in the cell with prostrations. Bodily prayer is inseparable from spiritual prayer, and therefore its order is determined by the rules described below for spiritual prayer in various instances.

Archbishop Juvenaly
Monastic Life

Translation by Nun Cornelia (Rees)

Signs and Wonders Have Never Ceased

2011-08-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God

A Summary of the Ecumenical Councils

2011-07-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

1st Council - 325 - Convened in Niacea against Arian heresy, which stated that Christ wasn't divine but created. The Nicene Creed was adopted stating in part: "light of light, true God of God, begotten not made of one essence with Father...".

2nd Council - 381 - Convened in Ephesus against Macedonian heresy which stated the Holy Spirit was created by the Son and subordinate to the Father and Son. The Nicene Creed stated: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified...".

3rd Council - 431- Convened at Ephesus against the heresy of Nestorius, which stated that Christ two distinct natures and that God's Mother wasn't the Mother of God or Theotokos or (God-bearer) but Mother of Christ (Christ-bearer). Nestorians tried to rationalize the incarnation of the Divine Logos.

4th Council - 451 - Convened at Chalcedon against the Monophysite heresy which stated that Christ had only one nature.

5th Council - 553 - Convened at Constantinople to reinterpret the Chalcedonian decrees, to explain more constructively the two natures of Christ and to anathematize parts of Origen's teachings.

Chalcedonian decrees addressed the Monophysites who stated that "Christ was in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably" and also at the followers of Nestorius who proclaimed "One and the same Son...indivisibly, inseparably".

But Chalcedon was more than a defeat for Alexandrian theology: it was a defeat for Alexandrian claims to rule supreme in the east. Canon XXIII of Chalcedon confirmed Canon III of Constantinople, assigning to New Rome the place next in honour after Old Rome. The council also freed Jerusalem from the jurisdiction of Caesarea and gave it the fifth place among the great sees. The system later known among Orthodox as the Pentarchy was now complete, whereby five great sees in the Church were held in particular honour, and a settled order of precedence was established among them: in order of rank, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. A11 five claimed Apostolic foundation. The first four were the most important cities in the Roman Empire; the fifth was added because it was the place where Christ had suffered on the Cross and risen from the dead. The bishop in each of these cities received the title Patriarch. The five Patriarchates between them divided into spheres of jurisdiction the whole of the known world, apart from Cyprus, which was granted independence by the Council of Ephesus and has remained self-governing ever since.

6th Council - 680 - Convened at Constantinople against the Monothelites, who argued that although Christ has two natures, yet since He is a single person, He has only one will. The Council replied that if He has two natures, then He must also have two wills. The Monothelites, it was felt, impaired the fullness of Christ's humanity, since human nature without a human will would be incomplete, a mere abstraction. Since Christ is true man as well as true God, He must have a human as well as a divine will.

7th Council - 787 - Convened at Nicea against the Iconoclast heresy which condemned all religious art of humans or God but deeper issues were involved: the character of Christ's human nature, the Christian attitude towards matter, the true meaning of Christian redemption.

The Iconoclasts may have been influenced from the outside by Jewish and Muslim ideas, and it is significant that three years before the first outbreak of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim Caliph Yezid ordered the removal of all icons within his dominions. But Iconoclasm was not simply imported from outside; within Christianity itself there had always existed a 'puritan' outlook, which condemned icons because it saw in all images a latent idolatry. When the Isaurian Emperors attacked icons, they found plenty of support inside the Church.

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir

2011-07-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir

Commemorated on July 15

Few names in the annals of history can compare in significance with the name of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir, the Baptiser of Rus', who stands forever at the onset of the foreordained spiritual destiny of the Russian Church and the Russian Orthodox people. Vladimir was the grandson of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga, and he was the son of Svyatoslav (+ 972). His mother, Malusha (+ 1001) – was the daughter of Malk Liubechanin, whom historians identify with Mal, prince of the Drevlyani. Having subdued an uprising of the Drevlyani and conquered their cities, Princess Olga gave orders to execute prince Mal, for his attempt to marry her after his murder of her husband Igor, and she took to herself the children of Mal, Dobrynya and Malusha. Dobrynya grew up to be a valiant brave warrior, endowed with a mind for state affairs, and he was later on an excellent help to his nephew Vladimir in matters of military and state administration.

The "capable girl" Malusha became a Christian (together with GreatPrincess Olga at Tsar'grad), but she preserved in herself a bit of the mysterious darkness of the pagan Drevlyani forests. And thus she fell in love with the austere warrior Svyatoslav, who against the will of his mother Olga made her his wife. The enraged Olga, reckoning as unseemly the marriage of her "housekeeper" and captive servant with her son Svyatoslav, heir to the Great Kiev principality, sent Malusha away to her own native region not far off from Vybut'. And there in about the year 960 was born the boy, called with the Russian pagan name – Volodimir, meaning peaceful ruler, ruling with a special talent for peace.

In the year 970 Svyatoslav set out on a campaign from which he was fated not to return. He had divided the Russian Land amongst his three sons. At Kiev Yaropolk was prince; at Ovrucha, the centre of the Drevlyani lands, there was Oleg; at Novgorod there was Vladimir. His first years as prince we see Vladimir as a fierce pagan. He heads a campaign, in which the whole of pagan Rus' is sympathetic to him, against Yaropolk the Christian, or in any case, according to the chronicles, "having given great freedom to the Christians", on 11 July 978 he enters into Kiev, having become the "sole ruler" of the Kiev realm, "having subdued the surrounding lands, some – by peaceful means, and the unsubmissive ones – by the sword". Young Vladimir indulged himself in a wild sensuous life, though far from being the libertine that they sometimes portray him. He "shepherded his land with truth, valour and reason", as a good and diligent master, of necessity he extended and defended its boundaries by force of arms, and in returning from military campaign, he made for his companions and for all Kiev liberal and merry feastings. But the Lord prepared him for another task. Where sin increases, there – in the words of the Apostle, – grace abounds. "And upon him did come visitation of the MostHigh, and the All-Merciful eye of the Good God didst gaze upon him, and shine forth the thought in his heart, of understanding the vanity of idolous delusion, and of appealing to the One God, Creator of all things both visible and invisible". The matter of the acceptance of Baptism was facilitated through external circumstances. The Byzantine empire was in upheaval under the blows of the mutinous regiments of Bardas Skliros and Bardas Phokas, each of which sought to gain the imperial throne. In these difficult circumstances the emperors – the co-regent brothers Basil the Bulgar-Slayer and Constantine, turned for help to Vladimir. Events unfolded quickly. In August 987 Bardas Phokas proclaimed himself emperor and moved against Constantinople, and in Autumn of that same year the emissaries of emperor Basil were at Kiev. "And having exhausted his (Basil's) wealth, it compelled him to enter into an alliance with the emperor of the Russes. They were his enemies, but he besought their help, – writes one of the Arab chronicles of events in the 980's. – And the emperor of the Russes did consent to this, and did make common cause with him". In reward for his military help, Vladimir besought the hand of the emperors' sister Anna, which for the Byzantines was an unheard of audacity. Princesses of the imperial lineage did not go off to marry "barbarian" rulers, even though they be Christian. At this same time the emperor Otto the Great was seeking the hand of this Anna for his son, and he was refused, but herein regarding Vladimir Constantinople was obliged to consent. An agreement was concluded, according to which Vladimir had to send in aid to the emperors six thousand Varangians, to accept holy Baptism, and under these conditions he would receive the hand of the imperial daughter Anna. Thus in the strife of human events the will of God directed the entering of Rus' into the graced bosom of the OEcumenical Church. GreatPrince Vladimir accepted Baptism and dispatched the military assistance to Byzantium. With the aid of the Russians, the mutineers were destroyed and Bardas Phokas killed. But the Greeks, gladdened by their unexpected deliverance, were in no hurry to fulfill their part of the agreement. Vexed at the Greek duplicity, Prince Vladimir "hastened to collect his forces" and he moved "against Korsun, the Greek city", the ancient Chersonessus. The "impenetrable" rampart of the Byzantine realm on the Black Sea fell, and it was one of the vitally important hubs of the economic and mercantile links of the empire. This blow was so much felt, that its echo resounded throughout all the regions of Byzantium. Vladimir again had the upper hand. His emissaries, the voevoda-commanders Oleg and Sjbern soon arrived in Tsar'grad for the imperial daughter. Eight days passed in Anna's preparation, during which time her brothers consoled her, stressing the significance of the opportunity before her: to enable the enlightening of the Russian realm and its lands, and to make them forever friends of the Romanoi-Byzantine realm. At Taurida Saint Vladimir awaited her, and to his titles there was added a new one – Caesar (tsar', emperor). It required the haughty rulers of Constantinople to accede also in this – to bestow upon their new brother-in-law the Caesar (i.e. imperial) insignia. In certain of the Greek historians, Saint Vladimir is termed from these times as a "mighty basileios-king", he coins money in the Byzantine style and is depicted on it with the symbols of imperial might: in imperial attire, and on his head – the imperial crown, and in his right hand – the sceptre with cross. Together with the empress Anna, there arrived for the Russian cathedra-seat metropolitan Michael – ordained by holy Patriarch Nicholas II Chrysobergos, and he came with his retinue and clergy, and many holy relics and other holy things. In ancient Chersonessus, where each stone brings to mind Saint Andrew the First-Called, there took place the marriage-crowning of Saint Vladimir and Blessed Anna, both reminiscent and likewise affirming the oneness of the Gospel good-news of Christ in Rus' and in Byzantium. Korsun, the "empress dowry", was returned to Byzantium. In the Spring of 988 the greatprince with his spouse set out through the Crimea, Taman' and the Azov lands, which had come into the complexion of his vast realm, on the trip of return to Kiev. Leading the greatprincely cortege with frequent moliebens and incessant priestly singing they carried crosses, icons and holy relics. It seemed, that the OEcumenical Holy Church was moving into the spacious Russian land, and renewed in the font of Baptism, Holy Rus' came forth to meet Christ and His Church. There ensued the unforgettable and quite singular event in Russian history: the morning of the Baptism of the Kievans in the waters of the River Dneipr. On the evening beforehand, Saint Vladimir declared throughout the city: "If anyone on the morrow goeth not into the river – be they rich or poor, beggar or slave – that one be mine enemy". The sacred wish of the holy prince was fulfilled without a murmur: "all our land all at the same time did glorify Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit". It is difficult to overestimate the deep spiritual transformation – effected by the prayers of Saint Vladimir, effected within the Russian people, in all the entirety of its life and world-outlook. In the pure Kievan waters, as in a "bath of regeneration", there was realised a mysteried transfiguration of the Russian spiritual element, the spiritual birth of the nation, called by God to yet unforeseen deeds of Christian service to mankind. – "Then did the darkness of the idols begin to lift from us, and the dawn of Orthodoxy appear, and the Sun of the Gospel didst illumine our land". In memory of this sacred event, the renewal of Rus' by water and the Spirit, there was established within the Russian Church the custom of an annual church procession "to the water" on 1 August, combined afterwards with the feastday of the Bring-Forth of the Venerable Wood of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord, in common with the Greek Church, and likewise the Russian Church feastday of the All-Merciful Saviour and the MostHoly Mother of God (established by Saint Andrei Bogoliubsky in the year 1164). In this combination of feasts there is found a precise expression of the Russian theological consciousness, for which both Baptism and the Cross are inseparable. Everywhere throughout Holy Rus', from the ancient cities to the far outposts, Saint Vladimir gave orders to tumble down the pagan sanctuaries, to flog the idols, and in their place to chop along the hilly woods for churches, in which to consecrate altars for the Bloodless Sacrifice. Churches of God grew up along the face of the earth, at high elevated places, and at the bends of the rivers, along the ancient trail "from the Variangians to the Greeks" – figuratively as road signs, and lamps of national holiness. As regards the famed church-building activity of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir, the Kiev Metropolitan Saint Ilarion (author of the "Word about the Law and Grace") exclaimed: "They demolished the pagan temples, and built up churches, they destroyed the idols and produced holy icons, the demons are fled, and the Cross hath sanctified the cities". From the early centuries of Christianity it was the custom to raise up churches upon the ruins of pagan sanctuaries or upon the blood of the holy martyrs. Following this practise, Saint Vladimir built the church of Saint Basil the Great upon an hill, where a sanctuary of Perun had been located, and he situated the stone church of the Uspenie-Dormition of the MostHoly Mother of God (Desyatinnaya) on the place of the martyrdom of the holy Varangian-Martyrs (Comm. 12 July). The magnificent temple intended to become the place of serving for the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus' – and hence the primal-altar of the Russian Church, was built in five years: it was richly adorned with wall-fresco painting, crosses, icons and sacred vessels, brought from Korsun. The day of the consecration of the church of the MostHoly Mother of God, 12 May (in some manuscripts 11 May), was ordered by Saint Vladimir to be inserted as an annual celebration in the Church-kalendar lists. This event was tied in with other previous happenings for the celebration of 11 May, and it provided the new Church a twofold sense of succession. Under this day in the Saints is noted the churchly "renewal of Tsar'grad" – dedicated by the holy emperor Saint Constantine as the new capital of the Roman Empire, the Constantine-city Constantinople, dedicated to the MostHoly Mother of God (330). And on this same day of 11 May, under holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga, there had been consecrated at Kiev the church of Sophia – the Wisdom of God (in the year 960). Saint Vladimir, having had the cathedral church consecrated to the MostHoly Mother of God, followed the example of Saint Constantine in dedicating the capital city of the Russian Land, Kiev, to the Queen of Heaven. And then there was bestown on the Church a tithe or tenth; and since this church had become the centre of the All-Russian gathering of churchly tithes, they called it the Desyatinnaya (Tithe) church. The most ancient text of the deed-grant document, or churchly ustav-rule by holy Prince Vladimir spoke thusly: "For I do bestow this church of the Holy Mother of God a tenth of all mine principality, and likewise throughout all the Russian Land from all the princely jurisdiction a tithe of squirrel-pelts, and from the merchant – a tithe of the week, and from households each year – a tenth of every herd and every livelihood, to the wondrous Mother of God and the wondrous Saviour". The ustav likewise specified "church people" as being free from the jurisdictional power of the prince and his "tiuni"-officials, and placed them under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan. The chronicle has preserved a prayer of Saint Vladimir, with which he turned to the Almighty at the consecration of the Uspensky Desyatin-Tithe church: "O Lord God, look Thou down from Heaven and behold, and visit Thine vineyard, which Thy right-hand hath planted. And make this new people, whom Thou hast converted in heart and mind – to know Thee, the True God. And look down upon this Thine church, which Thy unworthy servant hath built in the name of the Mother Who hath given birth to Thee, She the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. And whosoever doth pray in this church, let his prayer then be heard, on account of the prayers to the All-Pure Mother of God". With the Desyatin-Tithe church and bishop Anastasii, certain historians have made a connection with the beginnings of Russian chronicle writing. At it were compiled the Vita-Life of Saint Ol'ga and the account of the Varangian-Martyrs in their original form, and likewise the "Account, How in the Taking of Korsun, Vladimir came to be Baptised". Here also there originated the early Greek redaction of the Vitae-Lives of the holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb. The Kiev Metropolitan cathedra-seat during the time of Saint Vladimir was occupied successively by the Metropolitan Saint Michael (+ 15 June 991, Comm. 30 September), Metropolitan Theophylakt – transferred to Kiev from the see of Armenian Sebasteia (991-997), Metropolitan Leontii (997-1008), and Metropolitan John I (1008-1037). Through their efforts the first dioceses of the Russian Church were opened: at Novgorod (its first representative was Sainted Joakim the Korsunite – + 1030, compiler of the Joakimov Chronicle), Vladimir-Volyn (opened 11 May 992), Chernigov, Pereslavl', Belgorod, and Rostov. "And thus throughout all the cities and villages there were set up churches and monasteries, and the clergy did increase, and the Orthodox Faith did blossom forth and shine like the sun". To advance the faith amongst the newly enlightened people, learned people and schools were needed for their preparation. Saint Vladimir therefore with holy Metropolitan Michael "did command fathers and mothers to take their young children and send them to schools to learn reading and writing". Saint Joakim the Korsunite (+ 1030) set up such a school at Novgorod, and they did likewise in other cities. "And there were a multitude of schools of scholars, and of these were there a multitude of wisdom-loving philosophers". With a firm hand Saint Vladimir held in check enemies at the frontiers, and he built cities with fortifications. He was the first in Russian history to set up a "notched boundary" – a line of defensive points against nomadic peoples. "Volodimir did begin to set up cities along the Desna, along the Vystra, along the Trubezha, along the Sula and along the Stugna. And he did settle them with the Novgorodians, the Smol'yani, the Chuds and the Vyatichi. And he did war against the Pechenegs and defeated them". But the actual means was often the peaceful Christian preaching amongst the steppe pagans. In the Nikol'sk Chronicles under the year 990 was written: "And in that same year there came to Volodimir at Kiev four princes from the Bulgars and they were illumined with Divine Baptism". In the following year " there came the Pecheneg prince Kuchug and accepted the Greek faith, and he was baptised in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and did service to Vladimir with a pure heart". Under the influence of the holy prince there were baptised also several apparent foreigners, as for example, the Norwegian "koenig" (king") Olaf Trueggvason (+ 1000) who lived several years at Kiev, and also the reknown Torval'd the Wanderer – founder of a monastery of Saint John the Precursor along the Dneipr near Polotsk, among others. In faraway Iceland the poet-skalds called God the "Protector of the Greeks and Russians". Amidst the Christian preaching was also the reknown feastings of Saint Vladimir: after Liturgy on Sundays and Church Great-Feasts there were put out abundant feasting tables for the Kievans, they rang the bells, choirs sang praise, the "transported infirm" sang bylini-ballads and spiritual verses. On 12 May 996, for example, on the occasion of the consecration of the Desyatin-Tithe church, the prince "made a bright feast", "distributing goods to many of the poor, and destitute and wanderers, and through the churches and the monasteries. To the sick and the needy he delivered through the streets casks and barrels of mead, and bread, and meat, and fish, and cheese, desiring that all might come and eat, glorifying God". Feasts were likewise arrayed in honour of the victories of Kievan bogatyr-warriors, and the regiments of Vladimir's retinue – of Dobrynya, Aleksandr Popovich, Rogda the Bold. In the year 1007 Saint Vladimir transferred the relics of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Ol'ga to the Desyatin-Tithe church. And four years later, in 1011, there was also buried there his spouse and companion in many of his undertakings, the Blessed Empress Anna. After her death the prince entered into a new marriage – with the young daughter of the German Graf Kuno von Enningen, grand-daughter of the emperor Otto the Great. The era of Saint Vladimir was a crucial initial period for the state formation of Orthodox Rus'. The unification of the Slavic lands and the formation of state boundaries under the domain of the Riurikovichi resulted from a strenuous spiritual and political struggle with neighbouring tribes and states. The Baptism of Rus' by Orthodox Byzantium was a most important step in its state self-definition. The chief enemy of Vladimir became Boleslav the Brave, whose plans included the extensive unification of the West-Slavic and East-Slavic tribes under the aegis of Catholic Poland. This rivalry arose still back in the times, when Vladimir was still a pagan: "In the year 6489 (981). Volodimir went against the Lakhs and took their cities, Peremyshl', Cherven', and other cities, which be under Rus'". The final years of the X Century are likewise filled with the wars of Vladimir and Boleslav. After a short lull (the first decade of the XI Century), the "great stand-off" enters into a new phase: in the year 1013 at Kiev a conspiracy against Saint Vladimir is discovered: Svyatopolk the Accursed, who is married to a daughter of Boleslav, yearns for power. The instigator of the conspiracy is the clergyman of Boleslav – the Kolobzheg Catholic bishop Reibern. The conspiracy of Svyatopolk and Reibern was an all-out threat to the historical existence of the Russian state and the Russian Church. Saint Vladimir took decisive measures. All the three involved were arrested, and Reibern soon died in prison. Saint Vladimir did not take revenge on those that "opposed and hated" him. Under the pretense of feigned repentance, Svyatopolk was set free. A new misfortune erupted in the North, at Novgorod. Yaroslav, still not so very much "the Wise" – as he was later to go down in Russian history, in the year 1010 having become ruler of Novgorod, decided to defect from his father the greatprince of Kiev, and he formed his own separate army, moving on Kiev to demand the customary tribute and tithe. The unity of the Russian land, for which Saint Vladimir had struggled all his life, was threatened with ruin. In both anger and in sorrow Saint Vladimir gave orders to "secure the dams and set the bridges", and to prepare for a campaign against Novgorod. His powers were on the decline. In the preparations for his final campaign, happily not undertaken, the Baptiser of Rus' fell grievously ill and gave up his spirit to the Lord in the village of Spas-Berestov, on 15 July 1015. He had ruled the Russian realm for thirty-seven years (978-1015), and twenty-eight of these years had been spent since holy Baptism. Preparing for a new struggle for power and hoping for Polish help in it, and to play for time, Svyatopolk attempted to conceal the death of his father. But patriotically inclined Kievan boyar-nobles, secretly by night, removed the body of the deceased sovereign from the Berestov court, where Svyatopolk's people were guarding it, and they conveyed the body to Kiev. At the Desyatin-Tithe church the coffin with the relics of Saint Vladimir was met by Kievan clergy with Metropolitan John at the head. The holy relics were placed in a marble crypt, set within the Clement chapel of the Desyatin Uspenie church alongside the marble crypt of Empress Anna... The name and deeds of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir, whom the people called the Splendid Sun, is interwoven with all the successive history of the Russian Church. "Through him we too have come to worship and to know Christ, the True Life, – testified Saint Ilarion. His deeds were continued by his sons, and grandsons and descendants – rulers of the Russian land over the course of almost six centuries: from Yaroslav the Wise with the taking of the first steps towards the independent existence of the Russian Church – down to the last of the Riurikovichi, tsar Feodor Ioannovich, under whom (in 1589) the Russian Orthodox Church became the fifth independent Patriarchate in the dyptich-lists of Orthodox Autocephalous Churches. The feastday celebration to holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir was established under Saint Alexander Nevsky, in memory of the intercession of Saint Vladimir on 15 May 1240, for his help in gaining the reknown victory by Nevsky over Swedish crusaders. But the first reverencing of the holy prince began in Rus' rather earlier. The Metropolitan of Kiev Saint Ilarion (+ 1053), in his "Word on Law and Grace", spoken on the day of memory of Saint Vladimir at the saint's crypt in the Desyatin-Tithe church, calls him "an apostolic sovereign", "like" Saint Constantine, and he compares his apostolic evangelisation of the Russian Land to that of the evangelisation by the holy Apostles.

HOLY EQUAL TO THE APOSTLES - PRINCESS OLGA

2011-07-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

In the year 862, the Novgorod Slavs asked Rurick to be their prince. Two of his comrades-in-arms, Askold and Dir, left Novgorod to try their luck in the south of the country. They saw Kiev on the bank of the Dniepre and conquered it. In 866 they launched a campaign moving the Russian army from Kiev against Tzargrad (Constantinople). In Constantinople, the Emperor Mikhail the III and the Patriarch Photios prayed to God and after the night service in the Vlakhern Cathedral they carried the cross to the shore of the Bosphorus bay. They dipped the chasuble of the Theotokos into the waters of the bay. The sea that had been calm before that, became suddenly stormy and wrecked the ships of the Russians. Many of them died, and the ones who survived came home impressed and awed by the wrath that the Lord sent upon them. (Later that event began to be celebrated as the Protection of the Most-Holy Theotokos).

Father Alexander.org

SHE GAVE BIRTH TO HOLY RUS! THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN EARLY RUS. ANOTHER AMAZING STORY!

2011-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga

Commemorated on July 11

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga was the spouse of the Kiev GreatPrince Igor. The struggle of Christianity with paganism under Igor and Olga, who reigned after Oleg (+ 912), entered into a new phase. The Church of Christ in the years following the reign of Igor (+ 945) became a remarkable spiritual and political force in the Russian realm. The preserved text of a treaty of Igor with the Greeks in the year 944 gives indication of this: it was included by the chronicler in the "Tale of Bygone Years", under the entry recording the events of the Biblical year 6453 (945).

The peace treaty had to be sworn to by both the religious communities of Kiev: "Baptised Rus'", i.e. the Christian, took place in the cathedral church of the holy Prophet of God Elias (Comm. 20 July); "Unbaptised Rus'", i.e. the pagans, in turn swore their oath on their weapons in the sanctuary of Perun the Thunderer. The fact, that Christians are included in the document in the first place, indicates their significant spiritual influence in the life of Kievan Rus'.

Evidently at the moment when the treaty of 944 was being drawn up at Tsar'grad (Constantinople), there were people in power in Kiev sympathetic to Christianity, who recognised the historical inevitability of conjoining Rus' into the life-creating Christian culture. To this trend possibly belonged even prince Igor himself, whose official position did not permit him personally to go over to the new faith, nor at that time of deciding the issue concerning the Baptism of the whole country with the consequent dispersal throughout it of Orthodox Church hierarchs. The treaty therefore was drawn up in the circumspect manner of expression, which would not hinder the prince to ratify it in either the form of a pagan oath, or in the form of a Christian oath.

But when the Byzantine emissaries arrived in Kiev, conditions along the River Dneipr had essentially changed. A pagan opposition had clearly emerged, at the head of which stood the Varangian voevoda (military-leader) Svenel'd (or Sveinald) and his son Mstislav (Mtsisha) to whom Igor had given holdings in the Drevlyani lands. Strong also at Kiev was the influence of the Khazar Jews, who could not but be displeased with the thought of the triumph of Orthodoxy in the Russian Land. Unable to overcome the customary inertia, Igor remained a pagan and he concluded the treaty in the pagan manner – with an oath on his sword. He refused the grace of Baptism and was punished for his unbelief. A year later, in 945, rebellious pagans murdered him in the Drevlyanian land, cut down betwixt two trees. But the days of paganism and the lifestyle of the Slavic tribes basic to it were already numbered. The burden of government fell upon the widow of Igor – the Kiev Great-princess Olga, and her three year old son Svyatoslav. The name of the future enlightener of the Russian Land and of her native region is first to be met with in the "Tale of Bygone Years", – in the phrase where it speaks about the marriage of Igor: "and they brought him a wife from Pskov, by the name of Ol'ga". She belonged, so specifies the Joakimov Chronicle, to the lineage of the Izborsk princes, – one of the obscure ancient-Russian princely dynasties, of which in Rus' during the X-XI Centuries there numbered no less than twenty, but who were all displaced by the Rurikovichi or merged otherwise with them through marriage. Some of them were of local Slavic descent, others – Varangian new-comers. It is known, that the Scandinavian Viking "koenigs" (kinglets) called to become princes in the Russian cities – invariably assimilated to the Russian language, and often, they soon became genuinely Russian with Russian names and lifestyle, world-outlook and even physical appearance of attire. The spouse of Igor thus also had the Varangian name "Helga", which in the Russian "rendering" of pronunciation, is Ol'ga, Vol'ga. The feminine name Ol'ga corresponds to the masculine name "Oleg" (Helgi), which means "holy" [from Germanic "heilig" for "holy"]. Although the pagan understanding of holiness was quite different from the Christian, it also presupposed within man a particular frame of reference, of chasteness and sobriety, of mind and of insight. It reveals the spiritual significance of names, that people termed Oleg the Wise-Seer ("Veschi") and Ol'ga – the Wise ("Mudra"). Rather later traditions regard her a native of a village named Vybuta, several kilometers from Pskov up along the River Velika. They still not so long ago used to point out at the river the Ol'ga Bridge, the ancient fording place, Where Olga was met by Igor. The Pskov geographic features have preserved not a few names, connected with the memory of this great descendent of Pskov: the village of Ol'zhinets and Ol'gino Pole (Ol'ga Field); the Ol'ga Gateway – one of the branches of the River Velika; Ol'ga Hill and the Ol'ga Cross – near Lake Pskov; and the Ol'ga Stone – at the village of Vybuta. The beginning of the independent rule of Princess Olga is connected in the chronicles with the narrative about her terrible revenge on the Drevlyani, who murdered Igor. Having sworn their oaths on their swords and believing "only in their swords", the pagans were doomed by the judgement of God to also perish by the sword (Mt. 26: 52). Worshipping fire amongst the other primal elements, they found their own doom in the fire. And the Lord chose Olga to fulfill the fiery chastisement. The struggle for the unity of Rus', for the subordination to the Kievan centre of mutually divisive and hostile tribes and principalities paved the way towards the ultimate victory of Christianity in the Russian Land. For Olga, though still a pagan, the Kiev Christian Church and its Heavenly patron saint the holy Prophet of God Elias [in icons depicted upon a fiery chariot] stood as a flaming faith and prayer of a fire come down from the heavens, and her victory over the Drevlyani – despite the severe harshness of her victory, was a victory of Christian constructive powers in the Russian realm over the powers of a paganism, dark and destructive. The God-wise Olga entered into history as a great builder of the civil life and culture of Kievan Rus'. The chronicles are filled with accounts of her incessant "goings" throughout the Russian land with the aim of the well-being and improvement of the civil and domestic manner of life of her subjects. Having consolidated the inner strengthening of the might of the Kiev great-princely throne – with the consequent weakening of the influence of the jumbled hodge-podge of petty local princes in Rus', Olga centralised the whole of state rule with the help of the system of "pogosti" (administrative trade centres). In the year 946 she went with her son and retinue through the Drevlyani land, "imposing tribute and taxes", noting the villages, inns and hunting places, liable for inclusion in the Kiev great-princely holdings. The next year she went to Novgorod, establishing administrative centres along the Rivers Msta and Luga, everywhere leaving visible traces of her activity. "Her lovischa (hunting preserves) were throughout all the land, the boundary signs, her places and administrative centres, – wrote the chronicler, – and her sleighs stand at Pskov to this very day, as are her directed places for snaring of birds along the Dneipr and the Desna Rivers; and her village of Ol'zhicha stands to the present day". The "pogosti" established by Olga, as financial-administrative and law-court centres, represented sturdy props of great-princely power in these places. Being first of all, and in the actual sense of the word, centres of trade and exchange (the merchant as "guest") gathered together and became organised around the settlements (and in place of the "humanly arbitrary" gathering of tribute and taxes, there now existed uniformity and order with the "pogosti" system). Olga's "pogosti" became an important network of the ethnic and cultural unification of the Russian nation. Later on, when Olga had become a Christian, they began to erect the first churches at the "pogosti"; from the time of the Baptism of Rus' the "pogost" and church (parish) became inseparably associated. (It was only afterwards with the existence of cemeteries alongside churches that there developed the current meaning of the Russian word "pogost" to nowadays signify "parish graveyard".) Princess Olga exerted much effort to fortify the defensive might of the land. The cities were built up and strengthened, Vyshgorod (or Detintsa, Kroma) they enclosed with stone and oak walls (battlements), and they bristled them with ramparts and pallisades. Knowing how hostile many were to the idea of strengthening the princely power and the unification of Rus', the princess herself lived constantly "on the hill" over the Dneipr, behind the trusty battlements of Kievan Vyshgorod ("Verkhna-gorod" or "Upper-city"), surrounded by her faithful retainers. Two thirds of the gathered tribute, as the chroniclers testify, she gave over for the use of the Kiev "veche" (city-council), and the remaining one third went "to Olga, for Vyshgorod" – for the needs of building fortifications. And to the time period of Olga, historians note the establishment of the first state frontiers of Russia – to the west, with Poland. Heroic outposts to the south guarded the peaceful fields of the Kievans from the peoples of the Wild Plains. Foreigners hastened to Gardarika ("the land of cities"), as they called Rus', with merchandise and craftwares. Swedes, Danes, Germans all eagerly entered as mercenaries into the Russian army. The foreign connections of Kiev spread. This furthered the developement of construction with stone in the city, the beginnings of which was initiated under Olga. The first stone edifices of Kiev – the city palace and Olga's upper enclosure – were discovered by archaeologists only but in this century. (The palace, or more properly its foundations and remains of the walls were found in excavations during the years 1971-1972). But it was not only the strengthening of the civil realm and the improvement of domestic norms of the manner of life for people that attracted the attention of the wise princess. Even more urgent for her was the fundamental transformation of the religious life of Rus', the spiritual transfiguration of the Russian nation. Rus' had become a great power. Only two European realms could compare with it during these years in significance and might: in Eastern Europe – the ancient Byzantine empire, and in the West – the kingdom of Saxony. The experience of both empires, connected with the exaltation in spirit of Christian teaching, with the religious basis of life, showed clearly, that the way to the future greatness of Rus' lay not through military means, but first of all and primarily through spiritual conquering and attainment. Having entrusted Kiev to her teenage son Svyatoslav, and seeking grace and truth, Great-princess Olga in the Summer of 954 set off with a great fleet to Tsar'grad. This was a peaceful "expedition", combining the tasks of religious pilgrimage and diplomatic mission, but the political considerations demanded that it become simultaneously a display of the military might of Rus' on the Black Sea, which would remind the haughty "romanoi" [Byzantine Greeks] of the victorious campaigns of Askol'd and Oleg, who in the year 907 advanced in their shields "to the very gates of Tsar'grad". The result was attained. The appearance of the Russian fleet in the Bosphorus created the necessary effect for the developing of Russo-Byzantine dialogue. In turn, the southern capital struck the stern daughter of the North with its variety of beauty and grandeur of architecture, and its jumbled mixture of pagans and peoples from all over the world. But an especial impression was produced by the wealth of Christian churches and the holy things preserved in them. Tsar'grad-Constantinople, "the city of the imperial Caesar-tsar", the Byzantine Greek empire, strove in everything to be worthy for its Heavenly Mediatrix. At its very foundation (or more precisely, restoration), the city had been consecrated in the year 330 by the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine the Great (Comm. 21 May) to the MostHoly Mother of God (this event occurred in the Greek Church on the date of 11 May and from there passed over into Russian commemoration). The Russian princess was present at Divine-services in the finest churches of Constantinople – Saint Sophia, the Mother of God Blakhernae, and others. In her heart the wise Olga found the desire for holy Orthodoxy, and she made the decision to become a Christian. The sacrament of Baptism was made over her by the Constantinople Patriarch Theophylaktos (933-956), and her godfather was the emperor Constantine Porphyrigenitos (912-959). At Baptism there was entrusted to her the name Elena (Helen) in honour of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen (Comm. 21 May), the mother of Saint Constantine, and she also had been the discoverer of the Venerable Wood of the Cross of the Lord. In an edifying word spoken at the conclusion of the sacramental rite, the patriarch said: "Blessed art thou amongst Russian women, in that thou hast forsaken the darkness and hast loved the Light. The Russian people shalt bless thee in all the future generations, from thy grandson and great-grandson to thine furthermost descendants". He instructed her in the truths of the faith, the churchly rules and the rule of prayer, he explained the commands about fasting, chastity and charity. "She however, – says the Monk Nestor, – bowed her head and stood, literally like a sponge absorbing water she hearkened to the teaching, and bowing down to the Patriarch, she did say: By thine prayers, Vladyka, let me be preserved from the wiles of enemies". It is precisely thus, with a slightly bowed head, that Saint Olga is depicted on one of the frescoes of the Kiev Sophia cathedral, and likewise on a Byzantine miniature contemporary to her, in a manuscript portrait of the Chronicles of John Scilitius in the Madrid National Library. The Greek inscription, accompanying the miniature, terms Olga "Archontessa (i.e. ruler) of the Russes", "a woman, Helga by name, who came to the emperor Constantine and was baptised". The princess is depicted in special head attire, "as a newly-baptised Christian and venerable deaconess of the Russian Church". Alongside her in the same attire of the newly-baptised – is Malusha (+ 1001), the mother later on of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Saint Vladimir (Comm. 15 July). For one who had originally so disliked the Russians as did the emperor Constantine Porphyrigenitos, it was no trivial matter for him to become the godfather to the "Archontessa of Rus'". In the Russian chronicles are preserved narratives about this, how resolutely and on an equal footing Olga conversed with the emperor, amazing the Greeks by her spiritual depth and wisdom of governance, and displaying that the Russian nation was quite capable of accepting and assimilating the highest attainments of the Greek religious genius, the finest fruition of Byzantine spirituality and culture. And thus by a peaceful path Saint Olga succeeded in "taking Tsar'grad", something which no other military leader before her had ever been able to do. According to the witness of the chronicles, the emperor himself had to admit, that Olga "had given him the slip" (had outwitted him), and the popular mind, jumbling together into one the traditions about Oleg the Wise and Olga the Wise, sealed in its memory this spiritual victory in the bylina or folk-legend entitled "Concerning the Taking of Tsar'grad by Princess Olga". In his work "About the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court" – which has survived to the present-day in but one copy, Constantine Porphyrigenitos has left us a detailed description of the ceremony surrounding the stay of Saint Olga at Constantinople. He describes a triumphant reception in the famed Magnaura palace, beneathe the singing of bronze birds and the roars of copper lions, where Olga appeared with an impressive retinue of 108 men (not counting the men of Svyatoslav's company). And there took place negotiations in the narrower confines of the chambers of the empress, and then a state dinner in the hall of Justinian. And here during the course of events, there providentially met together at one table the four "majestic ladies": the grandmother and the mother of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Saint Vladimir (Saint Olga and her companion Malusha), and the grandmother and the mother of Saint Vladimir's future spouse Anna (the empress Helen and her daughter-in-law Theophano). Slightly more than half a century would pass, and at the Desyatin church of the MostHoly Mother of God at Kiev would stand aside each other the marble tombs of Saint Olga, Saint Vladimir and "Blessed Anna". During the time of one of these receptions, – relates Constantine Porphyrigenitos, – the Russian princess was presented a golden plate inset with jewels. Saint Olga made an offering of it at the vestry of the Sophia cathedral, where at the beginning of the XIII Century it was seen and described by the Russian diplomat Dobrynya Yadeikovich (who afterwards was to become the Novgorod archbishop Antonii): "The large golden official plate of Ol'ga of Russia, when she took it as tribute, having come to Tsar'grad; upon the plate be precious stones, and upon it is written in these stones the name Xpictoc-Christ". Moreover, the wily emperor, having reported such details as would underscore how "Olga had given him the slip", likewise presents a difficult riddle for historians of the Russian Church. The matter involves this, – that the Monk Nestor the Chronicler relates in the "Tale of Bygone Years" that the Baptism of Olga took place in the Biblical year 6463 (955 or 954), and this corresponds to the account of the Byzantine chronicles of Kedrinos. Another Russian Church writer of the XI Century, Yakov Mnikh, – in his work "Eulogy and Laudation to Vladimir... and how Vladimir's Grandmother Ol'ga was Baptised", speaks about the death of the holy princess (+ 969) and he notes, that she lived as a Christian for fifteen years, and he places the actual date of Baptism as the year 954, which likewise corresponds within several months to that indicated by Nestor. In contrast to this, describing for us the stay of Olga at Constantinople and providing the precise dates of the receptions given in her honour, Constantine Porphyrigenitos has us to understand in no uncertain terms that all this occurred in the year 957. To reconcile the cited chronicles, on the one hand, with the testimony of Constantine on the other hand, Russian Church historians are led to suppose either one of two things: either Saint Olga journeyed a second time to Constantinople in the year 957 to continue negotiations with the emperor, or that either – she was in no wise baptised at Constantinople, having previously been baptised at Kiev in 954, and that she was merely making pilgrimage to Byzantium, being already a Christian. The first supposition is the more credible. As for the immediate diplomatic outcome of the negotiations, there were basic matters for Saint Olga that had been left unsettled. She had gained success on questions concerning Russian trade within the territories of the Byzantine empire, and also the reconfirmation of the peace accord with Byzantium, concluded by Igor in the year 944. But she had not been able to sway the emperor on two issues of importance to Rus': the dynastic marriage of Svyatoslav with a Byzantine princess, and the conditions for restoring an Orthodox metropolitan to Kiev as had existed at the time of Askol'd. The evidently inadequate outcome of her mission is detected in her answer, when she had already returned home, which was given to emissaries sent out by the emperor. To the emperor's inquiry about promised military aid, Saint Olga through the emissaries curtly replied: "If thou hadst spend a time with me similarly at Pochaina, as I did at the Court, then would I give the soldiery in aid". Amidst all this, in spite of her failed attempts at establishing the Church hierarchy within Rus', Saint Olga in having become a Christian zealously devoted herself to efforts of Christian evangelisation amongst the pagans, and also church construction: "demanding the distressing of demons and the beginning of life for Christ Jesus". She erected churches: of Saint Nicholas and Saint Sophia at Kiev, of the Annunciation of the MostHoly Mother of God at Vytebsk, and of the Holy Life-Originating Trinity – at Pskov. Pskov from that period has been called in the chronicles the Domicile of the Holy Trinity. The church, built by Olga at the River Velika at a spot pointed out to her from on high, – according to the chronicler, – by a "light-beam of the Thrice-Radiant Divinity", stood for more than one and an half centuries. In the year 1137 holy Prince Vsevolod-Gabriel (+ 1138, Comm. 11 February) replaced this wooden temple with one made of stone, which in turn in 1363 was rebuilt and replaced finally with the presently existing Trinity cathedral. Another verymost important monument of Russian "Monument Theology", – a Church architecture frequently is termed, – connected with the name of Saint Olga, is the temple of Sophia Wisdom of God at Kiev, which was started soon after her return from Tsar'grad, and consecrated on 11 May 960. This day was afterwards observed in the Russian Church as a special Church feastday. In the Mesyatseslov (calendar supplement)of a parchment Epistle-book from 1307, under 11 May is written: "On this day was consecration of Saint Sophia at Kiev in the year 6460". The year-date of memory is indicated in the so-called "Antioch" rather than generally-accepted Constantinople manner of chronology, and it corresponds to the year 960 from the Birth of Christ. It was no mere co-incidence that Saint Olga received in Baptism the name of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen (Elena), who was the one to find the Venerable Wood of the Cross at Jerusalem. The foremost sacred item in the newly built Kiev Sophia temple was a piece of the Holy Cross, brought by this new Helen from Tsar'grad, and received by her in blessing from the Constantinople Patriarch. The Cross, by tradition, was hewn out from an entire piece of the Life-Creating Wood of the Lord. Upon the Cross-Wood was inscribed: "The Holy Cross for the Regeneration of the Russian Land, Received by Noble Princess Ol'ga". Saint Olga did much to eternalise the memories of the first Russian confessors of the Name of Christ: over the grave of Askol'd was erected the Nikol'sk (Nicholas) church, where according to certain accounts, she herself was afterwards interred. Over the grave of Dir – was built the afore-mentioned Sophia cathedral, which stood for half a century and burned in the year 1017. On this spot Yaroslav the Wise later on built a church of Saint Irene in 1050, but the sacred items of Olga's Sophia temple were transferred into a stone church of the same name – standing at present as the Kiev Sophia, started in 1017 and consecrated in about the year 1030. In the Prologue account of the XIII Century, it said about the Olga Cross: "for It be now at Kiev in Saint Sophia in the altar on the right side". The plundering of Kiev's holy things, which after the Mongols was continued by the Lithuanians who captured the city in 1341, did not spare even this. Under Jagiello in the period of the Liublin Unia, which in 1384 united Poland and Lithuania into one state, the Olga Cross was snatched from the Sophia cathedral and carried off by the Catholics to Liublin. Its further fate is unknown. But even in Olga's time there were at Kiev amongst the boyar-nobles and retinue-retainers no few people who, in the words of Solomon, "hated Wisdom", and also Saint Olga, for having built Wisdom's temple. Zealots of the old paganism became all the more emboldened, viewing with hope the coming of age of Svyatoslav, who decidedly spurned the urgings of his mother to accept Christianity, and even becoming angry with her over this. It was necessary to hurry with the intended matter of the Baptism of Rus'. The deceit of Byzantium, at the time not wanting to promote Christianity in Rus', played into the hands of the pagans. In search of a solution, Saint Olga turned her gaze to the west. No contradiction here yet existed. Saint Olga (+ 969) belonged still to the undivided Church (i.e. before the Great Schism of 1054), and she had scant possibility to study the theological points involved between the Greek and Latin faith-confessions. The opposition of West and East presented itself to her first of all as a political rivalry – of secondary importance in comparison with her pertinent task – the establishing of the Russian Church and the Christian enlightenment of Rus'. Under the year 959, the German chronicler named "the Continuant of Reginon", records: "to the king came emissaries of Helen, queen of the Russes, who was baptised in Constantinople, and which did seek for their nation to have bishop and priests". King Otto, the future founder of the German empire, willingly acceded to the request of Olga, but he bid the matter not be in haste, in quite German the ponderence. It was only on Nativity of the following year 960, that there was established a Russian bishop Libutius, from the monastery brethren of Saint Alban am Mainz. But he soon died (15 March 961). In his place was ordained Adalbert of Trier, whom Otto "generously furnishing all needs" dispatched, finally, to Russia. It is difficult to say, what would have happened, had the king not delayed for so long a while, but when in 962 when Adalbert showed up at Kiev, he "did not succeed in the matter for which he had been sent, and did consider his efforts to be in vain". Furthermore, on the return journey "certain of his companions were murdered, and the bishop himself escaped not mortal danger". It turned out that after the passage of years, as Olga indeed had foreseen, matters at Kiev had twisted ultimately in favour of paganism, and Rus' – having become neither Orthodox nor Catholic, had second thoughts altogether about accepting Christianity. The pagan reaction thus produced was so strong, that not only did the German missionaries suffer, but also some of the Kiev Christians who had been baptised with Olga at Tsar'grad. By order of Svyatoslav, Saint Olga's nephew Gleb was killed and some of the churches built by her were destroyed. It seems reasonable, that this transpired not without Byzantium's secret diplomacy: given the possibility of a strengthened Rus' in alliance with Otto, the Greeks would have preferred to support the pagans, with the consequent intrigues against Olga and various disorders. The collapse of the mission of Adalbert had providential significance for the future Russian Orthodox Church, escaping papal dominion. Saint Olga was obliged to accede to the humiliation and to withdraw fully into matters of personal piety, handing over the reigns of governance to her pagan-son Svyatoslav. Because of her former role, all the difficult matters were referred over to her in her wisdom of governance. When Svyatoslav absented himself from Kiev on military campaigns and wars, the governance of the realm was again entrusted to his mother. But the question about the Baptism of Rus' was for the while taken off the agenda, and this was ultimately bitter for Saint Olga, who regards the good-news of the Gospel of Christ the chief matter in her life. She meekly endured the sorrow and grief, attempting to help her son in civil and military affairs, and to guide matters with heroic intent. The victories of the Russian army were a consolation for her, particularly the destruction of an old enemy of the Russian state – the Khazar kaganate. Twice, in the years 965 and 969, the armies of Svyatoslav went through the lands of "the foolish Khazars", forever shattering the might of the Jewish rulers of Priazovia and lower Povolzhia. A subsequent powerful blow was struck at the Mahometan Volga Bulgars, and then in turn came the Danube Bulgars. Eighteen years were spent on the Danube with the Kiev military forces. Olga was alone and in worry: it was as though, absorbed by military matters in the Balkans, Svyatoslav had forgotten about Kiev. In the Spring of 969 the Pechenegs besieged Kiev: "and it was impossible to lead out the horses to water, for the Pechenegs stood at the Lybeda". The Russian army was far away, at the Danube. Having sent off messengers to her son, Saint Olga herself headed the defense of the capital. When he received the news, Svyatoslav rode quickly to Kiev, and "he hugged his mother and his children and was distressed, with what had happened with them from the Pechenegs". But after routing the nomads, the warrior prince began anew to say to his mother: "It doth not please me to sit at Kiev, for I do wish to live at Pereslavl' on the Dunaj (Danube) – since there be the centre of my lands". Svyatoslav dreamed of creating a vast Russian holding from the Danube to the Volga, which would unite all Rus', Bulgaria, Serbia, the Near Black Sea region and Priazovia (Azov region), and extend his borders to those of Tsar'grad itself. Olga the Wise understood however, that all the bravery and daring of the Russian companies could not compare against the ancient empire of the Byzantine Romanoi, and that the venture of Svyatoslav would fail. But the son would not heed the admonitions of his mother. Saint Olga thereupon said: "Thou dost behold, that I am ill. Why wishest thou to forsake me? When thou buriest me, then set out whitherso thou dost will". Her days were numbered, and her burdens and sorrows sapped her strength. On 11 July 969 Saint Olga died: "and with great lament they bewept her, her son and grandsons and all the people". The final years, amidst the triumph of paganism, for her as once haughty ruler transpired with having a priest secretly by her, so as to not evoke new outbursts of pagan fanaticism. But before death, having found anew her former firmness and resolve, she forbade them to make over her the pagan celebration of the dead, and she gave final instructions to bury her openly in accord with Orthodox ritual. Presbyter Gregory, who was with her at Constantinople in 957, fulfilled her request exactly. Saint Olga lived, died, and was buried as a Christian. "And thus having lived and well having glorified God in Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, having worshipped in the blessed faith, she did end her life in the peace of Christ Jesus, our Lord". As her prophetic testament to succeeding generations, with deep Christian humility she confessed her faith concerning her nation: "God's will be done! If God be pleased to have mercy upon my native Russian Land, then shalt they be turned in heart towards God, as for me also wast this gift". God glorified the holy toiler of Orthodoxy, the "initiator of faith" in the Russian Land, by means of miracles and incorrupt relics. Yakov Mnikh (+ 1072), an hundred years after her death, wrote in his work "Memory and Laudation to Vladimir": "God hath glorified the body of His servant Olena, and her venerable body be in the grave, incorrupt to this day". Saint Olga glorified God with good deeds in all things, and God glorified her. Under holy Prince Vladimir, ascribed by some as occurring in the year 1007, the relics of Saint Olga were transferred into the Desyatin church of the Uspenie (Dormition) of the MostHoly Mother of God and placed within a special sarcophagus, into suchlike as was customary to enclose the relics of saints in the Orthodox East. "And hear ye concerning a certain miracle about her: the grave of stone is small in the church of the Holy Mother of God, this church built by blessed Prince Vladimir, and in the grave is Blessed Ol'ga. And atop the grave was an opening wrought – for to behold the body of Blessed Ol'ga lying there whole". But not everyone was given to see this miracle of the incorrupt relics of the saint: "For whosoever with faith did come, the aperture opened up, and there was beheld the venerable body lying intact, and one would marvel at such a miracle – the body lying there for so many years without decay. Worthy of all praise be this venerable body: in the grave whole, as though sleeping at rest. But for another, who not in faith shouldst approach, the grave aperture would not open up, and they would not catch sight of this venerable body, but only the grave". Thus even after death Saint Olga espoused life eternal and resurrection, filling believers with joy and confounding non-believers. She was, in the words of the Monk Nestor the Chronicler, "a precursor in the Christian land, like the dawn before sunrise or light the twilight before the light". The holy Equal-to-the-Apostles GreatPrince Vladimir, himself giving thanks to God on the day of the Baptism of Rus', witnessed before his countrymen concerning Saint Olga with the remarkable words: "The sons of Rus' do bless thee, and also the generations of thine ultimate lineage".

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL STORY!

2011-07-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Remembrance of the Miracle of Saint Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy

Commemorated on July 11

The holy GreatMartyress Euphemia (the account about her is located under 16 September) suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and an half centuries later, – at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy should again be an especial witness and confessor of the purity of the Orthodox teaching.

In the year 451 in the city of Chalcedon, in the very church wherein rested the glorified relics of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia – there took place the sessions of the Fourth OEcumenical Council (the account about it is under 16 July). The Council was convened for determining the precise dogmatic formulae of the Orthodox Church concerning the nature-composition of the God-Man Jesus Christ. This had been necessitated because of the widely-dispersed heresy of the Monophysites ["mono-phusis" meaning "one nature"], who opposed the Orthodox teaching about the two natures in Jesus Christ – the Divine and the Human natures [but in one Divine Person as Son of God within the Holy Trinity of three Divine Persons]. The Monophysites falsely affirmed that within Christ was only one nature – the Divine [i.e. that Jesus is God but not man, by nature], causing discord and unrest within the Church. At the Council were present 630 representatives from all the Local Christian Churches. On the side of the Orthodox in the conciliar deliberations there participated Sainted Anatolios, Patriarch of Constantinople (Comm. 3 July), Sainted Juvenalios, Patriarch of Jerusalem (Comm. 2 July), and representatives of Sainted Leo, Pope of Rome (Comm. 18 February). The Monophysites were present in large numbers, headed by Dioscoros, the Alexandrian patriarch, and the Constantinople archimandrite Eutykhios.

After prolonged discussions the two sides could not come to a decisive agreement. The holy Patriarch of Constantinople Anatolios thereupon proposed that the Council submit the decision of the Church dispute to the Holy Spirit, through His undoubted bearer Saint Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy, whose wonderworking relics had been discovered during the Council's discussions. The Orthodox hierarchs and their opponents wrote down their confessions of faith on separate scrolls and sealed them with their seals. They opened the tomb of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia and placed both scrolls upon her bosom. Then, in the presence of the emperor Marcian (450-457), the participants of the Council sealed the tomb, putting on it the imperial seal and setting a guard to watch over it for three days. During these days both sides imposed upon themselves strict fast and made intense prayer. After three days the patriarch and the emperor in the presence of the Council opened the tomb with its relics: the scroll with the Orthodox confession was held by Saint Euphemia in her right hand, and the scroll of the heretics lay at her feet. Saint Euphemia, as though alive, raised her hand and gave the scroll to the patriarch. After this miracle many of the hesitant accepted the Orthodox confession, while those remaining obstinant in the heresy were consigned to the Council's condemnation and excommunication. After an invasion by the Persians during the VII Century, the relics of Saint Euphemia were transferred from Chalcedon to Constantinople, into a newly built church dedicated in her name. Many years later, during the period of the Iconoclast heresy, the reliquary with the relics of the saint was cast into the sea – by order of the Iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian (716-741). The reliquary was rescued from the sea by the ship-owning brothers Sergios and Sergonos, who gave it over to the local bishop. The holy bishop ordered that the relics be preserved in secret, beneathe a crypt, since the Iconoclast heresy was continuing to rage. A small church was built over the relics, and over the reliquary was put a board with an inscription stating whose relics rested therein. When the Iconoclast heresy was finally condemned at the holy Seventh OEcumenical Council (in the year 787), – during the time of Sainted Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople (784-806) and the emperor Constantine VI (780-797) and his mother Saint Irene (797-802), – the relics of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia were once again solemnly transferred to Constantinople.

WHO IS CITY OF BOSTON NAMED AFTER?

2011-06-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

St. Botolph, abbot and confessor, of Boston (England) (680)

Commemorated on June 17

'Saint Botolph was born in Britain about the year 610 and in his youth became a monk in Gaul. The sisters of Ethelmund, King of East Anglia, who were also sent to Gaul to learn the monastic discipline, met Saint Botolph, and learning of his intention to return to Britain, bade their brother the King grant him land on which to found a monastery. Hearing the King's offer, Saint Botolph asked for land not already in any man's possession, not wishing that his gain should come through another's loss, and chose a certain desolate place called Ikanhoe. At his coming, the demons inhabiting Ikanhoe rose up against him with tumult, threats, and horrible apparitions, but the Saint drove them away with the sign of the Cross and his prayer. Through his monastery he established in England the rule of monastic life that he had learned in Gaul. He worked signs and wonders, had the gift of prophecy, and "was distinguished for his sweetness of disposition and affability." In the last years of his life he bore a certain painful sickness with great patience, giving thanks like Job and continuing to instruct his spiritual children in the rules of the monastic life. He fell asleep in peace about the year 680. His relics were later found incorrupt, and giving off a sweet fragrance. The place where he founded his monastery came to be called "Botolphson" (from either "Botolph's stone" or "Botolph's town") which was later contracted to "Boston."' (Great Horologion)

The Decrees Of The Church Will Stand Until The Return Of Christ And Cannot Be Dismissed By The Mere Whims Of Men Acting Like Idiots!

2011-05-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

“I venerate the first four Ecumenical Councils equally with the Four Gospels (sicut quatuor Evangelia),”

St. Gregory the Great is recognized as one of the three great theologians of the church. Born 540Ad Died 604AD

St. Paul “says of Jacob (Heb. xi. 21), ‘He worshipped the top of his staff,’ and like to this is that said by Gregory, surnamed the theologian, ‘Revere Bethlehem and worship the manger.’ But who of those truly understanding the Divine Scriptures would suppose that here was intended the Divine worship of latria? Such an opinion could only be entertained by an idiot or one ignorant of Scriptural and Patristic knowledge. Would Jacob give divine worship to his staff? Or would Gregory, the theologian, give command to worship as God a manger!”

The Seventh Council defined that the worship of “latria “was never to be given to any but God alone, it cut off all possibility for idolatry, mariolatry, iconolatry, or any other “latry” except “theo-latry.” If therefore any of these other “latries” exist or ever have existed, they exist or have existed not in accordance with, but in defiance of, the decree of the Second Council of Nice.

Comment:
Americans are an insolent breed indeed, expressing great disdain for all monarchies including that particular one of a heavenly sort and it shows in our negligent and impious attitude and constraint of right worship of the King of all kings. Yet, we arrogant Americans are more prone to hypocritically consider ourselves each a king and this is revealed corporately by the manner in which we habitually and historically impose ourselves with force, cunning and deception upon each other and all nations of the world.

What Is Invisible, Induces Death And Destruction On An Unprecedented Scale While The General Population Is Oblivious To It's Presence? Either Answer Is Correct.

2011-05-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

FUKUSHIMA? This is old news folks, don't even bother with it...Idaho rain measures 14,000% above normal...no big deal, really.

by Gary Greenfield on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 8:00pm

Hey this is old news but wait a second, if the radiation was that bad then what is it now? Nobody knows because the EPA doesn't think there's a problem; I mean you've seen one meltdown, you've seen them all, what's another here and another there and maybe another one over there. See, if the EPA doesn't tell us there's a problem, then hey! there's no problem! Just like those nasty demons, you can't see them so of course they don't exist, now do they? Don't worry, be happy and forget about those quaint sayings like, "if you have your health, you have everything". Hey, I'm here to tell you, money is much more important than health and actually, you see the saying really goes like this, "If you don't have your health, you don't have your money either" because they figured how to steal both of them from you, as a matter a fact you're better off dead as far as "they" are concerned; population control is very serious issue you know...

Scientists - Blind Leading The Blind

2011-05-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

"What means, do you think, did the Lord use to explain to the Jews the reason for their not believing in Him? The means he used was to tell them the truth. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not (John 8:45). The lie became, as it is said, their flesh and blood, and made them unable to receive the truth. Why do people not believe today? For the same reason; the Lord speaks the truth; this is why they do not believe. But how can this be? Are they not all scientists, and don’t they talk only about the truth? They have many words, but no deeds. They spin their systems as a spider spins its web, only they don’t notice the flimsiness. The principles of their systems are groundless, and their conclusions cannot be proved; but they are satisfied with them nevertheless. There has become such a demand for hypotheses that it seems they alone make up the entire content of their minds, and this is reputed to be solid education. They apply the fog of their dreams to the few facts they have procured; and these facts appear in this fog totally different from what they are in reality. Nevertheless, this is all reputed to be the sphere of immutable truth. So their mind has gone rotten, and its taste has been ruined! How can it contain the truth? And so they do not believe the Lord, Who speaks only the truth." St. Theophan the Recluse

2011-05-16T00:28:00.000-07:00

Sainted Athanasias the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria 376AD

2011-05-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

There was a moment in time in the church when St. Athanasias remained the only bishop faithful to Christ, whereas all the other bishops had devieated into heresy. Just as God remained faithful and preserved His church then, He will remain faithful and preserve us lowly ones now. He always has and always will.

The Producer Of This "60 Minutes" Documentary Is Orthodox

2011-05-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

Part 2

2011-05-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

IS A DEMOCRACY THE BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT?

2011-04-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

"So all generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." Matthew 1:17

In his homily on this verse, St. Chrysostom succinctly states, "He has divided all the generations into three portions, to indicate that not even when their form of government was changed did they become better, but alike under an aristocracy, and under a king, and under an oligarchy, they were in the same evil ways, and whether popular leaders, or priests, or kings controlled them, it was no advantage to them in the way of virtue"

St. Chrysostom goes on to say that Matthew was showing us this genealogy, "in order that from everything His coming may be shown to be necessary."

Considering these words makes one wonder, "Will a democracy fare any better?" When Christ does finally return, it will be with but one breath of His mouth that all the kingdoms of the world will perish and that one kingdom that shall last forever will once and for all time be established. O Lord Jesus, come quickly!

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

2011-04-14T22:52:00.000-07:00

Don't turn away from this; it's reality, it's humanity, it's the consequences of our brokenness. No man is an island; we are all connected and if we think we can turn away, walk on the other side of the street, or be distracted with the evening news, the most recent movie release or another thriller novel; it will only prolong what we need to face right now. If we avoid suffering, if we cover up the unpleasantness, the pain, the heartache; what good will it do? If will only prolong the inevitable. Jesus didn't turn away and in His strength we needn't turn away either. Our modern culture hides from death, from deformity, from ugliness and all that is real. We want the plastic, the sterile, the painted and the digitized for it covers up the sin, the brokenness, the aching heart and reality of what we as a human race have done to ourselves. God have mercy on us and O Lord Jesus, come quickly and rescue us!

ORTHODOX CHURCH OF JAPAN NEEDS OUR HELP!

2011-04-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

METROPOLITAN DANIEL ENTHRONED IN THE YEAR 2000

As of this writing, it is known that at least 4 out of 150 Orthodox churches in the country have been completely destroyed, some damaged, others severely. Parishioners are missing but fortunately, no clergymen are yet known to have perished. Once again, the Lord God, through tragedy, provides us with an opportunity to do His work and rush to the aid of the unfortunate. We ask your help in raising funds for the suffering Orthodox Christians in Japan. (From the ROCA website)

The Iversk Icon of the Mother of God

2011-04-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Iversk Icon of the Mother of God (which at present is preserved on Athos) was in the IX Century situated with a certain pious widow, living near Nicea. During the time of the emperor Theophilos, the Iconoclasts in their attempts to abolish the veneration of holy icons, came to the house of this Christian, and one of the soldiers struck the image of the Mother of God with a spear. Where it was struck, there immediately flowed out blood. The widow, fearing its destruction, promised the imperial soldiers money and implored them not to touch the icon until morning. When the soldiers departed, the woman together with her son (later to be an Athos monk), sent the holy icon away upon the sea to preserve it. The icon, standing upon the water, floated off to Athos. The Athos monks, having for several days seen a fiery pillar rising up to the heavens upon the sea, came down to the shore and found there the holy image, standing upon the waters. After a molieben of thanksgiving for the monastery having been granted the holy image that thus had appeared, a pious monk of the Iveria monastery had a sleep vision in which the Mother of God appeared to him and gave him orders, and so he went to the water and taking up the holy icon he placed it in the church. On the following day, however, the icon was found not within the church, but on the gates of the monastery. This was repeated several times, until the MostHoly Mother of God revealed to Saint Gabriel Her will, saying, that She did not want the icon as something protected by the monks, but rather She intended to be their Protectress. After this, the image was installed atop the monastery gates. And therefore this icon came to be called "Portal–Keeper" or "Gate-Keeper"

ENCOURAGING WORDS IN THE FINAL DAYS OF THE GREAT FAST - THE MONK JOHN OF THE LADDER (CLIMATICUS)

2011-04-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

"The content of one of the steps of "The Ladder" (the 22nd) discusses the ascetic deed of the destruction of vainglory. The monk John writes: "Vanity springs out in front of each virtue. When, for example, I keep a fast – I am given over to vanity, and when I in concealing the fasting from others permit myself food, I am again given over to vanity – by my prudence. Dressing up in bright clothing, I am vanquished by love of honour and, having changed over into drab clothing – I am overcome by vanity. If I stand up to speak – I fall under the power of vanity. If I wish to keep silence, I am again given over to it. Wherever this thorn comes up, it everywhere stands with its points upwards. It is vainglorious..., on the surface to honour God, and in deed to strive to please people rather than God... People of lofty spirit bear insult placidly and willingly, but to hear praise and feel nothing of pleasure is possible only for the saints and for the unblameworthy... When thou hearest, that thy neighbour or friend either afront the eyes or behind the eyes slandereth thee, praise and love him... Does this not shew humility, and who can reproach himself, and be intolerant with himself? But who, having been discredited by another, would not diminish in his love for him... Whoever is exalted by natural gifts – a felicitous mind, a fine education, reading, pleasant elocution and other similar qualities, which are readily enough acquired, that person might yet never obtain to supernatural gifts. Wherefore whoever is not faithful in the small things, that one also is not faithful in the large, and is vainglorous. It often happens, that God Himself humbles the vainglorious, sending a sudden misfortune... If prayer does not destroy a proud thought, we bring to mind the leaving of the soul from this life. And if this does not help, we threaten it with the shame of the Last Judgement. "Rising up to humble oneself" even here, before the future age. When praisers, or better – flatterers, start to praise us, immediately we betake ourselves to recollection of all our iniquities and we find, that we are not at all worth that which they impute to us"."

BLESSED ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM IS ONE OF THE GREATEST TEACHERS THE CHURCH HAS EVER KNOWN AND WHAT HE PREACHES CANNOT BE DISMISSED!

2011-04-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Church Fathers have a way of grounding us, keeping us centered, focused and balanced regarding how to think, how to live, how to worship and how to understand the world we live in and even though their homilies were delivered in the early years of the church they have as much significance for us in these modern times as they did when they were delivered. This series of homilies delivered by the blessed St. Chrysostom, the Golden Mouth are quite unnerving, unsettling and brutally scathing yet the message is quite clear and understandable if read with an attentive and dispassionate spirit that remains open to the Holy Spirit to enlighten. They are not easy reading! If you are an Orthodox Christian, these sermons will most likely do one of two things; humble, enlighten and equip, providing the discernment needed to face the end times that are unfolding before us or else they will embarrass the reader resulting in dismissal and ignorance. Note: These sermons are only for the bride of Christ.

IF YOU AREN'T FASTING, YOU WILL NOT BE PREPARED FOR THE RETURN OF CHRIST

2011-04-11T07:02:00.000-07:00

"..."The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days (Luke 5:35)." This is very significant for Orthodox Christians. For it is here that Christ makes a direct connection, a direct relationship between the discipline of fasting and His promised return.

Fasting, therefore, is not only for one's self-discipline and preparation for receiving higher spiritual benefits, it is also basically a preparation for the return of Christ, as the five wise virgins prepared themselves in the Parable of the Ten Virgins...."

click on the title for the rest of the story

ST MARY OF EGYPT WAS A PROSTITUTE YET THE GREATEST OF SAINTS!

2011-04-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

"Born in Alexandria in Egypt in the middle of the fifth century, as a young girl Mary fell into the vice of prostitution. For seventeen years, from the age of 12 until the age of 29, she lived the life of a harlot. However, once finding herself in Jerusalem, out of curiosity, she went to see the Precious Cross of Christ. She found that she was unable to enter the church where St Helen had placed the Cross, for some invisible force prevented her from entering in. So frightened was she at this that she asked the Mother of God through an icon at the entrance to the church, why this was. The Mother of God replied to her that Mary first needed to repent and obey her. Only after promising to do this was Mary allowed to enter the church in Jerusalem. After then entering and venerating the Cross, Mary heard the Mother of God telling her: 'If you cross the Jordan, you will find true peace'.

So shaken was Mary by these events that she did indeed forsake all her old life and, having taken communion, she crossed the Jordan, and went to live there in the desert. We do not know the exact details of her day-to-day life, but we do know that she dwelt there as a hermitess, eating plants, living in torments and struggle with passionate thoughts, and eventually obtaining the grace to work miracles, crossing the Jordan as if on dry land. She lived naked and became withered and emaciated, as we can see in the icon of her, but nevertheless she survived there for some forty-eight years. Then she was discovered by a pious monk, Zosimas, who is portrayed in the icon together with her. It was to him that she related her life which we have today."...

EXPOSED AS A HOME GROWN TERRORIST!

2011-04-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

Here's my homegrown terrorist story. In the summer of 2009, while temporarily living in the country on a ranch outside of Bonners Ferry, Idaho only a few miles from where the Randy Weaver incident took place, I was visited by a well groomed older gentleman in western dress who knocked on my apartment door, introducing himself as an out-of-towner from Nevada, explaining that he was visiting the area and considering investing his money into a building in town that he would like to use as a meeting place for a church and low and behold he wanted me to be the pastor! (I am not making this up). Now there was a time in my life many years ago (1982-1995) while living in another Idaho community that I had embraced many idealistic American christian concepts, speaking out against "community evils", being involved in social justice issues and even going so far as to establish an independant christian church which I actually did pastor for thirteen years. Now mind you, I left all this behind me fifteen years ago and yet this man somehow knew about my past (why else would he be seeking me out?) and he was innovative enough to actually hunt me down and find me in the middle of nowhere in an obscure little town in the northern woods of Idaho! Now what's wrong with this story? I will tell you. In 2007, I started the blog you are now reading and in this blog I occasionally wrote scathing articles about the great evil American empire (uh, oh, did I say that?). Now, this gentleman didn't mention my blog and he didn't mention my past but somehow he was motivated enough to seek me out to involve me in what I to this day believe was an effort to establish a church that would draw in all the malcontented 'home grown terrorists' for the purpose of either corralling us or/and manipulating us to become implicated in some false flag operation that would serve in the best interests of the political, governmental and corporate neo-nazis (oh, bad word!) that control our country. After having spent perhaps forty five minutes with this gentleman, quizzing him about his past and turning down his multiple efforts to woo me with money and prestige, he finally gave up and excused himself telling me I was missing out on a great opportunity. After he left, I sat stunned, contemplating how bizarre this incident was and what do you know but that the next day, I recieved an email from this man seeking to convince me yet again to become a part of his plan. Of course, I turned him down and again (I'm not making this up), the very next day I received an email in broken english from a Muslim terrorist who was supposedly the master mind behind the Bali nightclub bombing (another false flag operation) and he was bragging that he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and he was going to kill me if I didn't stop writing inflammatory articles. That in itself was over the top bizarre and what was even odder is that my writings were more against Zionists and American fascists (dang, forgive me) than they were against Muslims. It has been years since that incident and this is the first time I have shared it publicly. Now that my memory has been jogged, I think I will do a email search to see if I saved that flattering murder threat from such a famous and dangerous Ten Most Wanted Listed terrorist! What a joke! What this country has become is so sick and so sad. sigh....Oh, Lord, forgive us and do come quickly!

*The icon of Blessed St. Stephan the Martyr is displayed to remind us that sometimes speaking the truth has dire or perhaps I should say, blessed consequences.

THE HOLY ARCHISTRATEGOS (LEADER OF THE HEAVENLY HOSTS) GABRIEL

2011-04-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

"The Archangel Gabriel was chosen by the Lord to make the blest-announcement to the Virgin Mary about the Incarnation of the Son of God from Her, to the great rejoicing of all mankind. Therefore on the day after the feast of the Annunciation – the day itself on which the All-Pure Virgin Herself is glorified, we give thanks to the Lord and we venerate His messenger Gabriel, who contributed to the mystery of our salvation.

The holy Archistrategos (Leader of the Heavenly Hosts) Gabriel acted in service to the Almighty God. He announced to Old Testament mankind about the future Incarnation of the Son of God; he inspired the Prophet Moses during the writing of the Pentateuch books of the Bible, he announced to the Prophet Daniel about the coming tribulations of the Hebrew People (Dan. 8: 16, 9: 21-24); he appeared to Righteous Anna with the news of the birth from her of the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary. The holy Archangel Gabriel stayed constantly with the Holy Virgin Mary when She was a child in the Jerusalem Temple and afterwards watched over Her throughout all Her earthly life. He appeared to the Priest Zachariah, foretelling the birth of the Forerunner of the Lord – John the Baptist. The Lord dispatched him to Saint Joseph the Betrothed: he appeared to him in a dream, to reveal to him the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God from the All-Pure Virgin Mary, and warned him of the wicked intentions of Herod, ordering him to flee into Egypt with the Divine-Infant and the Mother of God. When the Lord before His Passion prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to the extent of sweating blood, according to Church tradition, to strengthen Him there was sent from Heaven the Archangel Gabriel, whose very name signifies "Strength of God" (Lk. 22: 43).

The Myrh-Bearing Women heard from the Archangel the joyous news about the Resurrection of Christ.

Mindful this day of the manifold appearances of the holy Archangel Gabriel and of his zealous fulfilling of the Divine Will, and confessing his intercession before the Lord for Christians, the Orthodox Church calls upon its children with faith and with fervour to have recourse in prayer to the great Angel."

LOVE BEARS NO ILL WILL AGAINST ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME

2011-04-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

"If 'love is long-suffering and kind' (1 Cor. 13:4), a man who is fainthearted in the face of his afflictions and who therefore behaves wickedly towards those who have offended him, and stops loving them, surely lapses from the purpose of divine providence.

Watch yourself, lest the vice which separates you from your brother lies not in him but in yourself. Be reconciled with him without delay, so that you do not lapse from the commandment of love.

Do not hold the commandment of love in contempt, for through it you will become a son of God. But if you transgress it, you will become a son of Gehenna.

What separates us from the love of friends is envying or being envied, causing or receiving harm, insulting or being insulted, and suspicious thoughts. Would that you had never done or experienced anything of this sort and in this way separated yourself from the love of a friend.

Has a brother been the occasion of some trial for you and has your resentment led you to hatred? Do not let yourself be overcome by this hatred, but conquer it with love. You will succeed in this by praying to God sincerely for your brother and by accepting his apology or else by conciliating him with an apology yourself, by regarding yourself as responsible for the trial and by patiently waiting until the cloud has passed."

Philokalia II pg 102

A DARK SOUL HARBORS RESENTMENT LIKE MOLD, WHEREAS LOVE WILL BLEACH IT CLEAN

2011-04-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

"Resentment is linked with rancour. When the intellect forms the image of a brother's face with a feeling of resentment, it is clear that it harbors rancour against him. 'The way of the rancourous leads to death' (Proverbs 12:28), because 'whoever harbors rancour is a transgressor' (Proverbs 21:24).

If you harbor rancour against anybody, pray for him and you will prevent the passion from being aroused; for by means of prayer you will separate your resentment from the thought of the wrong he has done you. When you have become loving and compassionate towards him, you will wipe the passion completely from your soul. If somebody regards you with rancour, be pleasant to him, be humble and agreeable in his company, and you will deliver him from his passion."

Philokalia II pg 97

WHY DOES MAN LOVE MATERIAL WEALTH?

2011-04-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

"Self-indulgence, self esteem and lack of faith all produce love for material wealth. The self-indulgent person loves wealth because it enables him to live comfortably; the person full of self-esteem loves it because through it he can gain the esteem of others; the person who lacks faith loves it because, fearful of starvation, old age, disease, or exile, he can save it and hoard it. He puts his trust in wealth rather than in God, the Creator who provides for all creation, down to the least of living things.

There are three kinds of men who hoard wealth: the three already mentioned and the treasurer. Clearly, it is only the last who conserves it for a good purpose - namely, so as always to have the means of supplying each person's basic needs."

Philokalia II pg 86

Comment:

Self-indulgence, self esteem and a lack of faith are all enemies of salvation. Salvation can be lost by neglecting the poor. The riches of this world will pass away and their possessors will become the paupers of heaven while the poor suffer momentarily awaiting heavenly treasures and eternal riches.

IF YOU ARE NOT AMONG THE FEW, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF WITH THE MANY

2011-04-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

"It is the narrow way and the strait gate which lead to life eternal, and few there be who find it. Thus, according to His love for us, seeing the possible benefit of sorrows to those who are worthy, the Lord moves many off the broad road and puts them on the narrow, sorrowful path, so that in their patient endurance of sickness and sorrow, He might effect their salvation and grant them life eternal."

Counsels of Venerable St. Makary (Ivanov)

WHY DOES GOD ALLOW DEMONS TO ASSAIL US?

2011-04-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

"There are said to be five reasons why God allows us to be assailed by demons.

1. By attacking and counter-attacking, we should learn to discriminate between virtue and vice.

2. Having acquired virtue through conflict and toil, we should keep it secure and immutable.

3. Having made progress in virtue, we should not become haughty but learn humility.

4. Having gained some experience of evil, we should 'hate it with perfect hatred' (Ps 139:22).

5. And most importantly is so that, having achieved dispassion, we should forget neither our own weakness nor the power of Him who has helped us."

"The demons fight against us either through things themselves or through our impassioned conceptual images of these things. They fight through things against those who are occupied with things and through conceptual images against those who are not attached to things."

"Just as it is easier to sin in the mind than in action, so warfare through our impassioned conceptual images of things is harder than warfare through the things themselves."

"If a man doesn't sin in mind, he will never sin in action."

St. Maximos The Confessor - Philokalia II pgs 76 - 77

ROMANIAN ORTHODOX SPIRITUAL FATHERS ON ECUMENISM

2011-04-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

ECUMENISM - GLOBAL RELIGION OF THE ANTICHRIST - 1

2011-04-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

ECUMENISM- GLOBAL RELIGION OF THE ANTICHRIST - 2

2011-04-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

THE FLESH PAMPERING WORLD

2011-04-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (Prov. 13:24). Never mind the children—let us work on ourselves. For each of us this means the following: do not spare yourself, chasten yourself earnestly. Self-pity is the root of all our crawling into sin. He who does not indulge himself is always steadfast in good. Most of all you must keep your flesh, that slow-witted slave, in the strictest discipline. When you tire the flesh, it is humble; but give it only a small privilege, and already it begins to show its claws and to rage with passion-loving eyes. But what is amazing is that no matter what is said, everyone stands up for the flesh, and invents all sorts of pleasing things for it. Even science, it seems, would not move forward without this. What sort of science is this?" St. Theophan the Recluse

PHILOKALIA " LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL" WHAT CAN BE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN PERFECT LOVE?

2011-03-31T21:51:00.000-07:00

"If there are some men you hate and some men you neither love nor hate, and others you love strongly and others again you love but moderately, recognize from this inequality that you are far from perfect love. For perfect love presupposes that you love all men equally." pg 66

"For him who is perfect in love and has reached the summit of dispassion there is no difference between his own or another's, or between Christians and unbelievers, or between slave and free, or even between male and female. But because he has risen above the tyranny of the passions and has fixed his attention on the single nature of man, he looks on all in the same way and shows the same disposition to all. For in him there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond nor free, but Christ who 'is all, and in all' (Col.3:11; Gal.3:28") pg 70

"To be spontaneouly disposed to 'to do good to those who hate you' (Matt 5:44) belongs to perfect spiritual love alone." pg 74

MANY CONFESS, BUT FEW REPENT

2011-03-31T01:43:00.000-07:00

"Repentance is a freely-willed, internally cultivated process of contrition and sorrow for having distanced ourselves from God through sin. True repentance has nothing to do with intolerable pain, excessive sorrow and relentless guilty feelings. That would not be sincere repentance, but a secret egotism, a feeling of our ”ego” being trampled on; an anger that is directed at our self, which then wreaks revenge because it is exposing itself and is put to shame—a thing that it cannot tolerate."

click title to view entire article

St. Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland (451)

2011-03-31T01:11:00.000-07:00

"His apostolic work was not accomplished without much 'weariness and painfulness,' long journeys through difficult country, and many perils; he says his very life was in danger twelve times. When he came to Ireland, as its enlightener, it was a pagan country; when he ended his earthly life some thirty years later, about 461, the Faith of Christ was established in every corner.

The work of St Patrick and his brethren has been called the most successful single missionary venture in the history of the Church.

It is said of St Patrick that he chanted the entire Psalter every day."

LOVE ALL MEN, AT ALL TIMES, IN ALL PLACES

2011-03-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

"Perfect love does not split up the single human nature, common to all, according to the diverse characteristics of individuals; but, fixing attention always on this single nature, it loves all men equally. It loves the good as friends and bad as enemies, helping them, exercising forbearance, patiently accepting whatever they do, not taking the evil into account at all but even suffering on their behalf if the opportunity offers, so that, if possible, they too become friends. If it cannot achieve this, it does not change its own attitude; it continues to show the fruits of love to all men alike. It was on account of this that our Lord and God Jesus Christ, showing His love for us, suffered for the whole of mankind and gave to all men as equal hope of resurrection, although each man determines his own fitness for glory or punishment."

Philokalia vol 2 pg 60

THE MONOTHELETES CUT OFF THE HAND AND TONGUE OF ST MAXIMOS THE CONFESSOR AND HE DIED IN EXILE IN 662

2011-03-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

"The Monotheletes wished to reconcile the supporters of the Council of Chalcedon (451), who ascribed two natures to the incarnate Christ, with the Monophysites, who believed that He has only one nature; and so they proposed as a compromise the theory that Christ has two natures, the one divine and the other human, but only one single will. Against this St. Maximos maintained that human nature without a human will is an unreal abstraction: if Christ does not have a human will as well as a divine will, He is not truly man; and if He is not truly man, the Christian message of salvation is rendered void. What we see in Christ our Savior is precisely a human will, genuinely free yet held in unwavering obedience to His divine will; and it is by virtue of this voluntary co-operation of manhood with divinity in Christ, which restored by the integrity of human nature, that we are enabled to make our own wills freely obedient to the will of God and so attain salvation. St. Maximos' teaching was confirmed after his death by the Sixth Eucumenical Council, meeting at Constantinople in 680-1."

The Philokalia Vol 2 pg 49-50

THE HOSPITALITY OF ABRAHAM

2011-03-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

"Accepting the task of hospitality, the patriarch used to sit by the entrance of his tent inviting all who passed by, and his table was laden for all comers including the impious and barbarians, without distinction. Hence he was found worthy of that wonderful banquet when he received angels and the Master of all as his guest. We too, then, should actively and eagerly cultivate hospitality, so that we may receive not only angels, but also God Himself. For 'asmuch', says the Lord, 'as you have done it to one of the least of these My brethren you have done it unto Me' Matt 25:40."

The Philokalia Vol 2 pg 32

I LOOK FOR THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE LIFE OF THE AGE TO COME

2011-03-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

"For two days the soul is relatively free and it can visit its favorite places on the earth, but on the third day it departs for other spaces. In this process it passes through the hordes of evil spirits who block its path and accuse it of various sins—sins that they tempted the person to commit. According to certain revelations, there are twelve such obstacles, the so-called ”tollhouses,” ..."

CAN A RICH MAN GET TO HEAVEN?

2011-03-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

"Blessed are those who dash the children of Babylon against the rocks" Ps.137:9

The Philokalia teaches us that the children of Babylon are the passions. Like children, we nurture, caress and care for them. We look upon them fondly and fail to understand that they will grow into destroyers of souls. Consequently, we are to dash them against the rocks while they are young and weak. If we allow them to abide with us, they will one day overtake us and steal from us the keys of heaven. The three principle passions are riches, pleasure and praise. Conquer these rulers and kings and you will attain honor among angels and be ushered into the Kingdom of God. Suffer defeat at their hands and the demons like vultures will be circling above your soul ready to consume it at the day of your death.

EXORCISM, BAPTISM, CHRISMATION - THE DEVIL IS EXPUNGED, CHRIST ENTERS IN & WE ARE SEALED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

2011-03-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

Every catechumen entering into the Eastern Orthodox Church has an exorcism peformed prior to being baptized and sealed with the Holy Spirit. Why is this necessary? This quote should help explain: "The demons do their work of destroying people with incomparably greater success than the most evil-intentioned men. Man's corruptness consists in the mixture of goodness and evil in him; the fallen spirits' corruptness consists in their total evil, and complete absence of goodness. The fallen spirits' abilities are far superior to those of fallen men, whose intentions are restrained by the very weight and corpulence of their bodies. Demons freely and quickly flow through the universe, and freely do things that are quite impossible for man to do (cf. Job 1:7). People must be satisfied with whatever experience in evil that they have acquired during their short earthly life; their evil intentions are naturally destroyed in that hour when they have to leave this earthly life, and they are called to God's judgment and eternity. On the contrary, demons have been left to abide on earth from the time of their final fall (Gen. 3:14) until the end of the world. Anyone can imagine what experience they have gained in doing evil over such a long period of time, with their abilities and constant evil intent, which is not diluted by good aspirations of any kind."

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

2010-03-05T08:37:00.001-08:00

St. Bessarion the Great, wonderworker of Egypt (466)

"An Egyptian by birth, Abba Bessarion was initiated into the angelic life by Saint Anthony the Great. He later became a disciple of Saint Macarius, the founder of Scetis (19 Jan.), and then set out to lead the life of a wanderer, borne hither and thither by Providence like a bird by the wind. All his wealth lay in the Gospel, which he always had in his hand. Living in the open air, he patiently endured all weathers, untroubled by care for a dwelling or for clothing. Fortified by the strength of the faith, he thus remained untouched by all the passions of the flesh.
"On coming to a monastery where the brethren led the common life, he would sit weeping at the gate. A brother once offered him hospitality and asked why he was distressed. 'I cannot live under a roof, until I have regained the wealth of my house,' he replied, meaning the heavenly inheritance lost since Adam. 'I am afflicted, in danger of death every day, and without rest because of my huge misfortunes, which oblige me ever to travel on in order to finish my course.'
"He wandered for forty years without ever lying down to sleep, and he spent all of forty days and forty nights standing wide awake in a thorn bush. One winter's day, he was walking through a village when he came upon a dead man. Without hesitation, he took off his own coat and covered the body. A little further on, he gave his tunic to a poor man who was shivering in the cold. An army officer, who happened to be passing, saw the naked ascetic and wanted to know who had stripped him of his clothing. 'He did!' replied Bessarion, holding up the Gospel Book. On another occasion, he met with a poor man and, having nothing to give him in alms, he hurried to the market in order to sell his Gospel Book. On his disciple's asking him where the Book was, he replied cheerfully, 'I have sold it in obedience to the words which I never cease to hear: God, sell what you possess and give to the poor (Matt. 19:21).
"Through this evangelic way of life he became a chosen vessel of Grace, and God wrought many miracles through him. One day, for example, he made sea water sweet through the sign of the Cross, to quench his disciple's thirst. When the latter wanted to keep some for the remainder of the journey, he prevented him, saying, 'God is here, God is everywhere!' At another time, having stood for two weeks in prayer with hands raised to heaven, he brought about rain enough to fill a thirsty brother's coat. Then there was the time when he stopped the sun from setting until he reached the cell of an elder whom he wished to meet; and the time when he walked across the waters of a river. Through these and many other wonders wrought by the Saint, God showed, as He did with Moses, Joshua and Elias, that He grants His servants mastery even over natural phenomena. Through the power of Christ, he raised a paralytic, drove out demons and showed himself truly to be a 'god' upon the earth.
"When, having reached his goal, he was at the point of regaining that dwelling in heaven which he had sought throughout his wanderings, he said to those about him, 'The monk ought, like the cherubim, to be all eye.'
"In answer to a brother who asked what a monk living in community ought to do, he replied: 'Keep silence and do not measure yourself.' Indeed, this is how even in the midst of people one can obtain the grace of the great anchorites."

2010-03-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

"At all times and places, preach the Gospel, and, if necessary, use words."
St. John Chrysostom

2010-02-27T07:17:00.000-08:00

..."How is it that I think and do things that I don't want or desire to think or do"? I answered that everyone is that way, and so forth. Therefore, the more one conquers himself, the greater the reward that he will receive there in eternity. This is the Christian's most essential duty, and for this one needs God's help, which is received through prayer..."

St. Innocent of Alaska

2010-02-23T06:57:00.001-08:00

The PriestMartyr Charalampios, Bishop of Magnezia, the Martyrs Porphyry and Baptos and the Three Martyresses

The PriestMartyr Charalampios, Bishop of Magnezia, the Martyrs Porphyry and Baptos and the Three Martyresses suffered in the year 202.

Saint Charalampios, bishop of the Thessalonian city of Magnezia (northwest region of Greece), successfully spread faith in Christ the Saviour. News about his preaching reached the governor of the district Lucian and the military-commander Lucius. The saint was arrested and brought to trial, where he firmly confessed his faith in Christ and refused to offer sacrifice to idols. Despite the decrepit age of the bishop (he was already 113 years of age), they subjected him to monstrous tortures: they lacerated his body with iron hooks, while they scourged all his skin from head to foot. During this the saint turned to his tormentors: "I bless you, brethren, ye have restored my spirit!"

Having seen the endurance of the elder and his complete lack of malice, two soldiers – Porphyry and Baptos openly confessed Christ, for which they were immediately beheaded with a sword. Being present at the sufferings of bishop Charalampios were likewise three women who began to glorify Christ and were quickly martyred.

The enraged Lucius himself seized hold of the instruments of torture and began to tear at the priest-martyr, but suddenly his hand was cut off as though by a sword. Also arriving at the place of execution the governor spat in the face of the saint, and immediately he bent backwards. Then Lucius began to beseech the saint for forgiveness, and through his prayer both torturers at once received healing. During this a multitude of witnesses came to believe in Christ. Among them also was Lucius, who fell at the feet of the holy elder, begging forgiveness.

Lucian reported about the occurrence to the emperor Septimus Severus (193-211), situated at this time at Pisidian Antioch (western part of Asia Minor). The emperor gave orders to bring Saint Charlampios to him, and this was done with a stupid ferocity: they dragged the priest-martyr, having tied a rope to his beard. The emperor then gave orders to torture the bishop more intensely, and they began to burn at him with fire. But the Power of God aided to the saint, and he remained unharmed. Besides this, miracles were done through his prayer: he raised up a dead youth, and healed a demoniac tormented by devils for 35 years, so that the people in a multitude began to believe in Christ the Saviour. Even Galina the daughter of the emperor began to believe in Christ, and twice smashed idols in a pagan temple. By order of the emperor they beat the saint with stones about the mouth, and they wanted to set afire his beard, from which the flames went forth burning the torturer. Full of wickedness, Septimus Severus and his dignitary Crispus hurled blasphemy at the Lord, mockingly summoning Him to come down to the earth, and bragging of their own power and might. In wrath the Lord quaked the earth, great fear fell upon all, both the impious ones were suspended in mid-air held by invisible bounds, and only by the prayer of the saint were they put down. The dazed emperor was shaken in his former impiety, but again quickly fell into error and gave orders to torture the saint. And finally, he sentenced him to beheading with a sword. During the time of his final prayer, the saint was vouchsafed to behold the Saviour Himself and besought Him to grant that place where his remains would repose, in peace, would be fruitful for people, bringing forgiveness of sins and salvation. The Lord promised to fulfill the request and ascended to heaven, bearing with Him the soul of the priestmartyr Charalampios – who through the mercy of God accepted a peaceful death before execution. The daughter of the emperor, blessed Galina, buried the body of the martyr with great honour.

You Must Become Like A Little Child To Enter The Kingdom Of Heaven

2010-02-23T06:45:00.001-08:00

"He who is poor in spirit does not dare to try, does not think of trying. to comprehend the incomprehensible, to penetrate God's secrets, to philosephise on the highest; he believes in the word of the Lord, the Life-giver, knowing that His every word is truth, spirit, and life eternal; and in the words of His Church, ever instructed in all truth by the Holy Spirit, he believes as a child believes his father or mother, not demanding proofs, but relying upon them in perfect trust."

St. John lof Kronstadt

"My Life in Christ"

2010-02-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver

Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver was, according to the testimony of the holy Evangelist Luke, one of the chosen of God in expectation of the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit dwelt upon him (Lk 2:25). It was announced to him from God, that he would not die until that time, when the Promised Messiah – Christ the Lord – would be come into the world.

Ancient historians relate that the Egyptian emperor Ptolemy II Philadelphos (285-247 BC) wished to add to the famous Library at Alexandria with texts of Holy Scripture. He invited scholars from Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin sent their wise men. Righteous Simeon was also among the 72 scholars in Alexandria for the translation of the Sacred Scriptures into the Greek language.

2010-02-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

"For creation, as if written in characters and by means of its order and harmony, declares in a loud voice its own Master and Creator.... For this reason, God, by his own Word, gave creation such order as is found therein, so that while He is by nature invisible, men might yet be able to know Him through His works."

Saint Anthony the Great 251-356 A.D.

2010-02-11T07:04:00.001-08:00

St. Andrew (Rublev) of Russia, iconographer (1430)

Many consider him the greatest iconographer of all time, and his "Holy Trinity" the finest icon. Very little is known of his life. He was born around 1360, and probably studied with the Byzantine iconographer Theophanes the Greek. He is known to have created icons for the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow and the Cathedral of the Dormition at Vladimir. He created a highly spiritual and distinctively Russian iconographic style that set the standard for Russian iconography for centuries thereafter. It is said that he knew St Sergius of Radonezh (July 5). In his later years he became a monk.

2010-02-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

"If society embarks on the road of such recklessness consumption, our earth will go under. It has already been proven that if the average level of consumption of the whole world matches that of the United States… the basic resources will run out in 40 to 50 years. God has not given us resources to live like this,"

His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia

2010-02-05T08:02:00.001-08:00

What is the spirit of the anti-christ? It is the notion that man can work out his own problems and that we ourselves can usher peace into the world apart from divine intervention. It is a denial that we are broken and in need of a Savior. It is a display of pride that reflects a high regard for our own abilities to overcome the problems of this world through the unity of mankind rather than working within the unity of the Holy Trinity. It is a denial of sin, it's consequences and the day of judgement. Ultimately, it is a denial of the work of the Son of God to save mankind through the cross and His resurrection.

2010-02-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

The Monk Makarios the Great of Egypt 390

"In truth the Lord does not seek virgins nor married women, and neither monks nor worldly persons, but doth value the free intent of the person within the arbitrariness of his free will to offer thanks to the Holy Spirit, which acts and which rules the life of each person, yearning to be saved".

2010-01-29T06:31:00.000-08:00

"When a man reproaches himself, he will have endurance and patience in every circumstance."

Abba Poemen

2010-01-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

"When you pray, endeavour to pray more for others than yourself alone, and during prayer represent to yourself vividly all men as forming one body with yourself, and each separately as a member of the Body of Christ and your own member, "for we are members one of another" (Ephesians 4:25). Pray for all as you would pray for yourself, with the same sincerity and fervour; look upon their infirmities and sicknesses as your own; their spiritual ignorance, their sins and passions, as your own; their temptations, misfortunes, and manifold afflictions as your own. Such prayer will be accepted with great favour by the Heavenly Father, that most gracious, common Father of all, with Whom "there is no respect of persons" (Romans 2:11), no variableness" (James 1:17), that boundless Love that embraces and preserves all creatures."

St. John of Kronstadt

"My Life in Christ"

Atmospheric Corruption

2010-01-26T10:56:00.001-08:00

The devil is jealous of God's gifts to mankind and endeavors to steal them for his glory. The closer a man draws to God, the more the devil comes against that man for the devil abhors the shining glory of God that emanates from His beloved. It is blinding, annoying and a continually ever present illumination of the devil's filth, his uncleanness and his stench for where the beloved of God are present, so is the sweet aroma and shining glory of God.

"All who desire to live Godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." 2 Tim 3:12

"Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience" Eph 2:2

There is a worldly course and a heavenly course

A prince has power but his power is trumped by the power of the king.

Air is everywhere and invisible. Air contains fuel for all living things. Satan is the prince of the power of the air.

Death came through Satan. Man willingly gave himself over to the power of Satan and thus death entered into the world. Mankind as the king of the earthly realm relegated his powers to the devil and in return received only that which Satan was able to give which was all that was against God, anti-God and that gift was death and darkness. God in mercy allowed for death to enter into the world for in death, sin is ended yet God also in mercy conquered death so that we might live again forever free from the sin that formally enslaved us.

Saint Paul exhorts us to pray unceasingly. Just as we unceasingly breath to sustain life in this worldly realm, so we must unceasingly pray (which is our breath) for survival in the heavenly realm. Unceasing prayer sustains us in the heavenly realm. When we stop breathing in the worldly realm, we die. When we stop praying in the heavenly realm, we die.

2010-01-18T09:54:00.001-08:00

"May the Lord Jesus, Who said: 'Ask, and ye shall receive' (John 16:24), grant all your requests. Only prepare your house, and sweep it thoroughly to receive the Divine gifts. They remain secure only where there is no impurity. He who tastes of them becomes a stranger to the old Adam; he becomes crucified to the world as the world is to him, and lives always in the Lord."

St. Barsanuphius and St. John

"Directions in Spiritual Work"

2010-01-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

St. Genevieve of Paris (502)

She was born near Paris to a family of wealthy landowners. When she was about ten years old St Germanus of Auxerre, passing through the region on his way to Britain, discerned a special divine purpose for her, and told her parents that she had been chosen for the salvation of many. "He asked her that day, and early the next, if she would consecrate herself to holy virginity for Christ and, on both occasions, she answered that it was her dearest wish. Then he blessed her and gave her a copper coin inscribed with the Cross to wear around her neck, telling her never to wear gold, silver or pearls, but to elevate her mind above the small beauties of this world in order to inherit eternal and heavenly adornments."

Convents were unknown at that time in Gaul, so Genevieve lived as a solitary, in a cell in her own house, first with her parents then, after their death, with her godmother in Paris. She devoted herself to the poor, giving away everything that came into her hands, except the small amount that she needed to feed herself on bread and beans. (When she passed the age of fifty, she was commanded by the bishops to add some fish and milk to her diet). She kept Lent from Theophany to Pascha, during which time she never left her house. She was never afraid to rebuke the powerful for their oppression of the weak and the poor, and thus earned many powerful enemies; but the people's love for her, and the support of the Church, kept her from persecution.

It became her custom to walk to church on Sundays in procession with her household and many pious laypeople. Once the candle borne at the front of the procession (it was still dark) blew out in a rainstorm. The Saint asked for the candle and, when she took it in her hand, it re-lit and stayed lighted until they reached the church. At several other times, candles lit spontaneously in her hand; for this reason her icon shows her holding a candle.

She traveled throughout Gaul (modern-day France) on church business, being greeted with all the honors usually accorded a bishop. Several times she saved the city of Paris from the assaults of barbarian tribes through her prayers, by pleading with barbarian chieftains, and once by organizing a convoy to bring grain to the besieged city.

Saint Genevieve reposed in peace at the age of eighty. Through the centuries since then, she has shown her holy protection of the city of Paris countless times, and her relics in the Church of Saint Genevieve have wrought innumerable healings. Her relics were many times carried in huge processions in times of war, pestilence or other national trial. These relics were mostly burned and thrown into the River Seine by the godless Revolutionaries in 1793, but, as the Synaxarion concludes, "those who continue to invoke Saint Genevieve with faith, find her to be well and truly alive."

2010-01-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

Sainted Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea Cappadocia, "belongs not to the Church of Caesarea alone, nor merely to his own time, nor to his own kinsmen was he merely of benefit, but rather to all lands and cities worldwide, and to all people he brought and yet brings benefit, and for Christians he always was and will be a teacher most salvific", – thus spoke the contemporary of Saint Basil, Sainted Amphylokhios,

Bishop of Iconium Basil the Great had mastered all the available disciplines: "He so thoroughly studied everything, more than others are wont to study a single subject, each science he studied to its very totality, as though he would study naught else". Philosopher, philologist, orator, jurist, naturalist, possessing profound knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and medicine, – "this was a ship, loaded down full of learning, to the extent allowed of by human nature".

Overcoming the heretics "by the weapon of his mouth, and by the arrows of his letters", as an untiring champion of Orthodoxy, Saint Basil all his life gave challenge to the hostility and the every which way possible intrigues of the Arian heretics.

The emperor Valens, mercilessly dispatching into exile any bishops that displeased him, and having implanted Arianism into other Asia Minor provinces, suddenly appeared in Cappadocia for precisely this purpose. He sent off to Saint Basil the prefect Modestus, who began to threaten the saint with ruin, banishment, beatings and even death by execution. "All this, – replied Basil, – for me means nothing, since one cannot be deprived of possessions that one does not have, beyond some old worn-out clothing and some books, which comprises the entirety of my wealth. For me it would not be exile, since I am bound to no particular place, and this place in which I now dwell is not mine, and indeed any place whither I be cast shalt be mine. Better it is to say: everywhere is the place of God, whither be naught stranger nor new-comer (Ps. 38 [39]: 13). And what tortures can ye do me? – I am so weak, that merely but the very first blow will be felt. Death for me would be an act of kindness: it wilt bring me all the sooner to God, for Whom I live and do labour, and to Whom moreover I do strive". The official was bewildered by such an answer. "Perhaps, – continued the saint, – thou hast never had encounter with a bishop; otherwise, without doubt, thou wouldst have heard suchlike words. In all else we are meek, the most humble of all, and not only afront the mighty, but also afront all, since such is prescribed for us by the law. But when it is a matter concerning God and they make bold to rise up against Him, then we – being mindful of naught else, think only of Him alone, and then fire, sword, wild beasts and chains, the rending of the body, would sooner hold satisfaction for us, than to be afraid".

Reporting to Valens on the not to be intimidated Saint Basil, Modestus said: "Emperor, we stand defeated by a leader of the Church".

Saint Basil almost daily celebrated Divine-services. He was particularly concerned about the strict fulfilling of the canons of the Church, and kept attentive watch, so that only worthy individuals should enter into the clergy. He incessantly made the rounds of his own church, lest anywhere there be an infraction of Church discipline, and setting aright any unseemliness.

Sickly since youth, the toil of teaching, efforts at abstinence, the concerns and sorrows of pastoral service early sapped the strength of the saint. Saint Basil died on 1 January 379 at age 49.

2010-01-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

The Holy Martyred 14,000 Infants

The Holy Martyred 14,000 Infants were killed by king Herod in Bethlehem. When the time was come for the fulfilling of the greatest of events – the Incarnation of the Son of God and His Birth of the MostHoly Virgin Mary, Magi in the East beheld a new star in the heavens, foretelling the Nativity of the King of the Jews. They set off immediately to Jerusalem to worship the Born-Child, and the star showed them the way. Having worshipped the Divine-Infant, they did not return to Jerusalem to Herod, as he had ordered them to, but rather – receiving a revelation from on high – they went back to their country by another way. Herod finally realised that his scheme to find the Infant would not have success, and he gave orders to kill all the male children two years and younger at Bethlehem and its surroundings. He reasoned, that among the dead children would be also the Divine-Infant, Whom he considered a rival. The murdered infants became the first martyrs for Christ. The rage of Herod fell also on Simeon the God-Receiver, who declared in witness in front of everyone in the Temple that the Messiah had been born. When the holy elder died, Herod would not give permission that he be properly buried. And on the orders of king Herod, the holy prophet and priest Zachariah also was killed: they murdered him in the Jerusalem Temple betwixt the Offertory and the Altar – because he would not tell the whereabouts of his son John, the future Baptist of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The wrath of God soon fell upon Herod himself: an horrid condition struck him down and he died – devoured by worms while still alive. Before his death the impious king accomplished full measure of his wicked deeds: he murdered chief-priests and scribes among the Jews, and also his brother by birth, and his sister and her husband, and also his own wife Mariam and three of his sons, and likewise 70 men of wisdom that were members of the Sanhedrin.

2010-01-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

"No wonder, then, that it is so hard to be Christian--it is not hard it is impossible. No one can knowingly accept a way of life which, the more truly it is lived, leads more surely to one's own destruction. And that is why we constantly rebel, try to make life easier, try to be half-Christian, try to make the best of both worlds. We must ultimately choose--our felicity lies in one world or the other, not in both."

Fr. Seraphim Rose

2010-01-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

Down To Earth, Not Of This World

"What lies in time and goes according to the temporal order comes to a stop when it reaches completion, for then its natural growth is finished. But what is brought forth by the grace of God according to the order of virtuous living, when it reaches completion proceeds to grow again - for here the end of one serves as the beginning of another. He who by active virtue has put a stop to corruptible passions in him, by this very fact has begun other Divine transformations 'from glory to glory' (2 Cor. iii.18), since God, acting in him, never ceases, just as He never began, to enact good."

St. Maximus the Confessor

"Contemplative and Active Texts"

(The Philokalia)

2010-01-02T06:37:00.001-08:00

The Synthetic Christ

We moderns have done with Christ, the same as we have done with everything else in this world in which we exist. We have taken the seed of life, sliced it, dissected it and studied it, taking a bit of it for our own and then from that little bit of real life, we have created a synthetic look a like. In the midst of a world created by God for our benefit, we have done the same thing with all of life. We have refused His ways, insisting on creating our own world, our own food, our own medicine, our own clothes, our own religion, our own way of life, living apart from God yet deluding ourselves into thinking this is reality. We have rejected the true God and created an imitation. We have rejected the real world and created an toxic placebo. We have rejected the real purpose for which man has been put upon this earth and embraced a delusion that appears real and feels real but is really just a computer generated image. Pull the plug and it disappears for it has no depth and no connection with a sustainable energy source. We moderns have built a tidy, shiny, impressively appearing civilization on lies, distortions, half truths and delusions. We have become masters at imitating and counterfeiting truth and reality. We have convinced ourselves and the world around us that our creation is reality and that the authentic reality is inadequate to sustain life. We moderns call our rebellion; freedom and enlightenment. The old world, the ancient world, the world of our fathers is of no use to us and must be destroyed for it ties us to the past which keeps us from embracing that hope which is to come. The shining star that led the wise men of the East to Christ, has been replaced with a new star that is leading the wise men of our age to the antichrist and the new world order. The purveyors of this new world order are re-creating civilization, the world and the universe to satisfy their egos and the masses have been become intoxicated with their strong drink. In our drunkenness, we have been incited to rape the virginal maidens of beauty and truth. We have burned to the ground the ancient traditions that were the pillars of our faith. We have pillaged the glorious treasures that through the ages have sustained us in times of famine and war. Our society has entered into a period of desolation and abomination from which there is no return.

This is a time in which the inhabitants of the heavenlies, the Holy Trinity, the Mother of God, the saints of old with all the holy angels look mournfully upon the earth. Yet in their mourning for our souls, they are ready and able to save those of us who perhaps will come to our senses to call out to the heavenlies for salvation so that we might escape from this insanity of life, we call modernity.

Sainted Gregory, Bishop of Omiritia (North Africa)

2010-01-01T09:46:00.001-08:00

...When he finished the prayer, the earth quaked, and in the East the heavens were opened up, and in a radiant cloud, amidst flaming and fiery rays of light the Lord Jesus Christ came down on earth, and thus was heard the Voice of the Lord: "On account of the prayers of bishop Gregory be ye healed of My Crucifixion by your fathers".
Like unto Saul before his becoming Paul, who on the Road to Damascus was struck blind by the Heavenly light, the Jews here were struck blind and they implored the holy bishop to heal them. In receiving holy Baptism, all of them were healed. Rabbi Ervan received the Christian name Leo (meaning "lion")...click on title for the rest of the story.

As Of Today Nutrients Are Legally Declared To Be Toxins

2009-12-31T01:03:00.000-08:00

Today marks the worldwide implementation of the Codex Alumentarius which is a private trade commission sanctioned by the UN in 1962. This commission which is comprised of big pharma, big agribiz, big medica, big biotecha and big chema have managed through various means to mandate a global implementation of their rules and regulations bringing all nutrients and foods under their total control. As of today, all dairy cows on the planet must be treated with Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone and every other animal on the planet used for food must be treated with antibiotics and growth hormones. All foods, except those grown regionally for local consumption must be irradiated, including organic certified foods. All nutrients, (vitamins, minerals, etc...) except those diluted to extremely low doses cannot be purchased except by physician's prescription. All pharmaceuticals will now be considered nutrients and all nutrients will now be considered pharmaceuticals. Additionally, the seven most dangerous pesticides on the face of the earth that have up until now been previously banned worldwide will again be legal and reintroduced globally for agricultural applications. Gut wrenching GMO foods will replace the global food supply. If this all seems nightmarish, it is and even though you may not see the implementation of these rules and regulations immediately, the flood gates have been opened and we will begin to see a radical global shift in the world's population with literally hundreds of millions of people suffering and perishing prematurely as result of these laws.

The time is truly upon us predicted by our ancient fathers, who stated that a time would come when the world will become insane and those in their madness will turn to those who are sane and say, "Why are you not joining us, have you gone mad?" Sadly enough, the vast majority of the world's population will not have a choice in the matter and will be forced to consume that which will lead to widespread disease and premature death.

We also know that Jesus Christ told us these days must come before His return and they will mark the end of this world as we know it. All of these signs are an indication of man's cooperation with Satan in his efforts to destroy as much of God's creation and the human race as he can before his ultimate demise. In the midst of these difficult times, we need to keep our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith trusting in Him to uphold us, keep us and sustain us as we face the trials and hardships that are upon us.

Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Home of the Free, the Beautiful, the Plentiful

2009-12-11T22:36:00.000-08:00

"By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise."
- - -
Adolf Hitler

Food will be plentiful all over the cities and villages, but all will be poisoned…
Righteous Dimitri Tarabicz

Wisdom of the Desert Fathers

2009-12-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

"An old man said, 'I would rather have a defeat with humility than a victory with pride."

The Holy Work Of Acquiring Love

2009-11-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

"A dead man judges no one, and it is just the same with the man who is humble"

Our holy Father Longinus lived in the Egyptian deserts during the fourth or fifth century.

The Wrath Of God Perfectly Explained

2009-11-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

The wrath of God is the painful sensation we experience when we are being trained by Him. Through this painful experience of unsought sufferings God often abases and humbles an intellect conceited about its knowledge and virtue; for such sufferings make it conscious of itself and its own weakness.

St. Maximos the Confessor

"Third Century of Various Texts"
(The Philokalia)

Another Amazing Saint, Another Amazing Story

2009-11-26T08:09:00.001-08:00

...But his enemies were not to be appeased. From the capital came orders to transfer Saint John to desolate Pitius (in Abkhazia). Worn out by sickness, under accompanying military escort for three months in the rain and frost, the saint made his final transferral, – at Comana his powers failed him. At the crypt of Saint Basiliskos comforted by a vision of the martyr ("Despair not, brother John! Tomorrow we shalt be together"), and having communed the Holy Mysteries, the oecumenical hierarch with the words, "Glory to God for everything!", expired to the Lord on 14 September 407...(click on the title for the rest of the story).

The Mystery Of Lawlessness

2009-11-25T09:35:00.001-08:00

Lawlessness is a mystery that leads to darkness and death and truth is a mystery that leads to enlightenment and life. Satan works through men and demons to accomplish his workings, copying God who works through men and angels to accomplish His workings. Unless we are yearning after and receiving a love for truth everyday we also will be deceived by the workings of Satan who even now is deceiving the elect with his workings. Reference 2 Thess. 2

The Monk Ioannikes the Great

2009-11-17T18:02:00.001-08:00

...The Monk Ioannikes spent 70 years in ascetic deeds and attained to an high spiritual perfection. Through the mercy of God the saint acquired the gift of prophecy, as his student Pakhomios has related. The monastic elder during the time of prayer hovered over the ground. One time he traversed a river flooded to overflowing. The saint could make himself invisible for people and make others invisible: one time the Monk Ioannikes led out from prison Greek captives under the watch of a crowd of guards. Poison and fire, with which the envious wanted to destroy the saint, did him no harm, and predatory beasts did not touch him. It is known, that he freed the island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes. The Monk Ioannikes likewise saved a young nun, who was preparing to quit the monastery on a whim to marry; he took upon himself the agonised maiden's suffering of passion, and by fasting and prayer annihilated the seductive assault of the devil.
Foreseeing his end, Saint Ioannikes expired to the Lord on 4 November 846, at the age of 94.

Basic Christianity 101

2009-11-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

"Don't criticize or judge other people. Regard everyone else as an angel, justify their mistakes and weaknesses, and condemn only yourself as the worst sinner. This is step one in any kind of spiritual life."

Blessed Seraphim of Platina

The Apostle James - Brother of Christ

2009-11-04T19:06:00.000-08:00

Saint James presided over the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, and his word was decisive (Acts 15). In his thirty years as bishop the Apostle James converted many of the Jews to Christianity. Annoyed by this, the Pharisees and the Scribes plotted together to kill Saint James. Having led the saint up on the roof of the Jerusalem Temple, they demanded that he renounce the Saviour of the world. But the holy Apostle James instead began to bear witness, that Christ is the True Messiah. Then the Jewish teachers shoved him off downwards. The saint did not die immediately, but gathering his final strength, he prayed to the Lord for his enemies, who at this while were stoning him. The martyr's death of Saint James occurred in about the year 63.

The holy Apostle James composed a Divine Liturgy, which has formed the basis of the liturgies, composed by Saints Bail the Great and John Chrysostomos.

Comment: The Orthodox Church true to it's apostolic stature and traditions has always in all places and at all times celebrated a liturgy based on the framework that was established and initiated by the Apostle James and the church has never veered from this practice in almost two thousands years. What other Christian group can boast such a wonder as this?

The Monk Ilarion the Great

2009-11-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

"By means of smell the saint learned with which passion this or that man was afflicted."...

Small Seeds Sown Can Grow Into Big Trees

2009-10-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

The desire of my life has been to please God and is it not our Creator Himself who put this desire within the heart of every man to seek after Him, the One who loved us more than even His very own life that we might know what true love is? How is it that we would not seek this only Friend of man, the Great Lover of man, the One who has given us of all that He is purely because He loves us? Is it too great a thought to embrace that we lowly souls were created by God for His good pleasure that we might know Him as our friend?

As we contemplate His handiwork in the creation, we can observe what the character of God is like in each and every object, animate and inanimate. All that is on this planet has been given to us for our enjoyment that we might enjoy its benefits whether they be rocks or water, plants or animals, every living thing and each material thing was given to us to enjoy because we are His beloved children.

Water makes up seventy per cent of the earth and water also makes up seventy per cent of our bodies. Just as the earth contains the waters so our bodies contain the waters and just as the waters contribute greatly to the beauty and health of the earth, so waters contained within the human frame contribute greatly to the beauty and health of each individual. Just as the waters of the earth can carry the imprint of man's behavior so can the waters contained within a man carry the imprint of his behavior. As a man behaves, so is he and the signature of his influence can be seen in all he touches just as the signature of our Creator can be seen in all He touches. God is love and within His being is contained nothing but love. God has no part in the hatred embraced by man and where ever we see violence, war, pollution and injustice we are observing the workings of man and not God. The Creator of heaven and earth and all that dwells on the earth above the earth and below the earth can be described by one all encompassing word which is love. We are surrounded by God's love which is manifest in the rocks, the trees, the waters and all of life both seen and unseen both awesome and insignificant; all of the material world is a revelation of His love for mankind.

The Great Creator of heaven and earth is also a humble God who has chosen to remain invisible to us and His invisibility is manifest in the manner by which He holds all things together by a force unseen. We can observe the material world and the material universe but we cannot observe the force that keeps every particle of every object animate and inanimate bound together in forms so diverse that we will never comprehend them all. We are told in the inspired scriptures that it is the second person of Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ Himself who holds all things together and He does so by the power of the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. What is most interesting is that God the Father has never revealed Himself to mankind directly but in keeping with His humility He has manifest Himself to us through His only begotten Son and even in this manifestation He came portraying Himself as a Servant of mankind, the most lowly of men, of such a humble stature that He had no place to even lay his head and no place to call His own. He was so lowly and so subservient that He divested Himself of all power taking the form of an infant. In the history of mankind they has never been nor will there ever be an act of humility so extreme as this effort made by God to reach His children.

In considering all this, what is just as mind boggling in a negative way is the manner in which mankind has rejected God's love. How could it be that mankind could embrace the good gifts of God yet not give thanks or acknowledgement to the Giver of all good gifts? How could it be that so many billions not millions but billions of people do not fall down daily and worship the One who gives life and blessings to all both rich and poor, righteous and wicked, of lowly position and high position? God is no respecter of persons and His love is free for all mankind yet man goes about his daily business oblivious this reality and consequently mankind is living delusional, distracted and distorted lifestyles and the only way that men may ever come out of this lifestyle is the through the challenge that God places before them and that will not happen except through those that God has already delivered. So isn't it time for us to do as God did, to be ready and willing each and every day to look for ever so small ways in which to serve others? Even offering a thirsty soul a drink of water will be remembered at the Great Judgement Day and as you have done to the least of mankind, so you have done even to Christ Himself. Unless we sow seeds we will not see a harvest and unless we water the seed it will never grow and who knows but God what may happen with the small and feeble efforts we make each day to sow seeds or to water the seeds that have been sown along our path of daily life. Do not neglect to do good at every opportunity for in every instance that you perform a deed of kindness for someone else you will in essence be performing a deed of kindness to our Creator Himself in the person of Jesus Christ His Son.

Nothing Else In All Creation Can Be Moral But Angels and Man

2009-10-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

If God created all things and proclaimed them to be very good then why do we think of germs as bad? Could it be due to the propaganda of modern science, the idol of our age? Has our thinking been molded by our ancient faith, the scriptures and the traditions of our Fathers or has our view of the creation been molded by the modern priests of science?

Germs, viruses, bacteria, yeast and molds are everywhere on, in and above the earth in various forms. In nature when a tree is weakened or compromised from mineral derivation, lack or water or the presence of toxins the immune system isn't able to properly do its job thus making the way clear for microbes to go into a decomposing mode which is part of the grand cycle of life and death. Were it not for the great fall of mankind, the earth would be a perfect place with no provision for the need of death to synergisticly work within the cycle of life. So because of the fall, death has become a necessary phenomena and God in mercy has made a provision for dealing with death when it begins to occur and that provision is decomposition which again in mercy fits perfectly within the natural cycle of nature which encompasses new birth, aging and death. A day will come when death shall no longer be part of this natural cycle, where aging will contribute to greater perfection and glory rather than wrinkles and creaks.

Staying Faithful, Rejoicing Always

2009-10-14T05:39:00.000-07:00

"Do you see how many good things temptations and afflictions cause? So if you too want to see, to taste the love of Christ, endure whatever comes upon you -- not whatever you like, but whatever the Lord wants to test you with. What we suffer voluntarily is absolutely nothing in comparison with the trials the Lord sends us against our will. The hostile devil fights us bone against bone and blood against blood, as much as God allows. He fights so much, that one melts and flows like wax before the fire. But when the trial passes, you are totally filled with joy."

Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Read And Weep

2009-10-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

Our kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of this world belongs to Satan. Don't forget that and remember that Satan hates the Orthodox church with a vengeance and he will do all he can to destroy us, first seeking to woo us with riches and power and if this doesn't work then he will rip out our hearts, cut off our noses and gouge out our eyes. This has been the lot of God's people for two thousand years and will continue until the day of Christ's return.

Be not deceived for Satan loves America, it is the apple of his eye for he has built for himself a congregation of heretics and apostates. Followers who read the bible and worship faithfully Sunday after Sunday but who is this god they worship? Where does heresy and apostasy come from? Who is it that woos men into a false belief system, a false church, a false religion, a counterfeit of the truth? Is it none other than the evil one himself? The evil one delights in the American religious system of freedom of worship for men can choose any way they wish to believe and all ways are OK so long as they do not lead to Orthodoxy.

Satan has a strategy to destroy the American Orthodox believer and we need now more than ever to gird ourselves for the struggle that is before us. Now more than ever, we need to turn to the Mother Church rejecting modern innovations immersing ourselves in worship, prayer, ascetic deeds and fellowship of the believers avoiding the distractions and pleasures of this world. Watch yourselves dear brethren and prepare for the time is at hand.