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Is there Spiritual Life and Sanctity Today?

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, April 14, 2016 By Archimandrite Kyrillos, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Essex  My immediate answer to both parts of this question is a very affirmative ‘Yes’. God does not change. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the nature of human beings has not changed either. Since Adam, humans are dignified with such a power over their own destiny that they can to a great degree turn

People as Liturgical Beings, Part 1

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, October 23, 2014 By Abbot George Kapsanis of Gregoriou We usually characterize people as rational and independent beings. These attributes are correct enough, but don’t convey human nature in its completeness. Through the liturgical experience, we feel that, more than anything, people are liturgical beings. They were made to serve, to offer themselves and the whole world to God with gratitude, praise and worship, to unite with God, to be sanctified,

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! The Sixth Tuesday of Pascha: From the Depths of Hell

By Fr John Breck, April 1, 2009 The final Old Testament reading for Holy Saturday vespers—Daniel 3:1-57, the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace in Babylon—is composite, drawing upon both Aramaic and Greek (Septuagint) traditions. The latter modifies and amplifies a detail the Church’s patristic witnesses consider essential. That small detail is a typological image that announces the primary theme of Orthodox Pascha or Easter: the descent of Christ into the

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad!

Submitted by Fr. John Breck, May 2, 2009 Attributed by all of the extant manuscripts to St John Chrysostom, this little-known, pseudepigraphical homily from the fifth century focuses on “the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[1] It begins by summarizing various fruits of the resurrection in the lives of believers, then exhorts readers or listeners to assume conduct appropriate to the day of Holy Pascha. In the rhetorical style typical of the period, it stresses antitheses,

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent: Forgiveness for All the Sundays to Come

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 23, 2017  I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. They were, for them, something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” knowledge of the fundamental unity of the human

The Fourth Tuesday of Great Lent: The Meaning of Pain in Our Lives

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, October 18, 2014 By Abbot George Kapsanis of Gregoriou Apart from the suffering that it causes, physical, mental or spiritual pain– which entered man’s life by divine sufferance – also has positive effects for man’s earthly life and development. It is easy to philosophize or theologize about pain but it is difficult to have a proper attitude towards pain when one experiences great pain oneself. I believe it is very presumptuous to

The Second Wednesday of Great Lent: On Humility and the Humble Outlook (Part 2)

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, November 4, 2014 By Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi Βlessed and favoured people who are humble are meek, calm, serene, attached to virtue, opposed to evil, untroubled by any circumstance or threat. They live in the bosom of the faith, like infants in the maternal embrace of grace. They never live for themselves, because they’ve forgotten what that is. They’ve become one with the others; they become all things to everyone, in

A Bunch of Stuff We Don’t Know

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 25, 2016 Reading discussions about life after death, it is easy to get the impression that people actually know what they’re talking about, that perhaps they have been there, seen what goes on and therefore authoritatively opine on the nature of things. But, the truth is that we mostly don’t know. We have a few things given to us in Scripture, and even those few things are often somewhat cryptic

Thoughts on Modernism, Relationship with Faith

Thoughts on Modernism By Michael Haldas, August 8, 2016 “A symbol has an ontological connection with what it symbolizes not just an arbitrary connection assigned by human culture…There is a great tendency in our modern society to reduce symbols to mere signs. This stems from a secular view of the world which views the universe not as the Spirit filled creation but as a cold, external and empty void, devoid of human meaning and independent

Forgiveness for All the Sundays to Come

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 10, 2016  I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. They were, for them, something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” (the term Sophrony preferred) knowledge of the fundamental