The greatest evil effected by judging others is that he who judges is deprived of [divine] love. James, the brother of God writes: Do not speak against one another, brethren. Whoever speaks against one of the brethren and judges speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge! Only one is the lawgiver and judge, he who is able
The monks have always practiced what many psychologists today talk about (for example in autogenous training), namely, finding comfort through expressions of trust. For the early monks spiritual life also meant the art of healthy living. It was no accident that so many of the monks got to be very old. Their asceticism didn’t deny life, it promoted it. For their spiritual life the monks adopted dietetics, the art of healthy living, which was the
This holy, glorious Martyr of Christ came from Amasia in Pontus and was a Roman legionary at the time of Maximian’s great persecution (c. 303). He had been a Christian since childhood but kept his faith secret, not out of cowardice but because he had not yet received a sign from God to present himself for martyrdom. While his cohort was stationed near the town of Euchaita (Helenopontus), he learned that the people of the
By Father Matthew Baker If in De Incarnatione the goal and purpose of the incarnation is identified with deification (theopoiesis), in his later works Athanasius more frequently links it specifically with adoptive sonship (huiothesia). Athanasius’ earliest exposition of this doctrine of adoptive sonship appears to be in his De Decretis(chapters 3 and 7), written sometime between 346 and 356 in defense of the Nicene definition. Unlike the oft-quoted exchange formula of De Incarnatione 54.3, Athanasius’ later formulations have an explicitly Trinitarian character:
Alongside this ‘critical’ process, and in reaction to it, for more than a century there have been attempts to make a synthesis of beauty. For the 19th century we need only recall the operas of Wagner. As this century opened, symbolism was codified according to philosophical systems. In every country of Europe, but especially in Germany and Russia, many of the intelligentsia felt regret for an organic age, when the highest values were mediated to
By slowly converting our loneliness into a deep solitude, we create that precious space where we can discover the voice telling us about our inner necessity-that is, our vocation. Unless our questions, problems and concerns are tested and matured in solitude, it is not realistic to expect answers that are really our own. How many people can claim their ideas, opinions and viewpoints as their own? Sometimes intellectual conversations boil down to the capacity to
Useful Counsels for All Monks “You can and must become a leader in the monastery without realizing it, without speaking. You can accomplish this only through fervent prayer for everyone. Open your heart simply, unforced, and spontaneously to our Lord. “Don’t force yourself, nor pressure yourself nor doubt that this will happen. In all this you should speak first to the Lord. And before you speak to your Elder, first pray fervently. A praying person,
In the early Church, the term “martyr” was originally used when characterizing the Apostles as witnesses of Christ’s life and resurrection [Acts 1:8, 22]. Due to the persecutions that the early Christians endured, however, the term was applied to those who gave their lives for the Christian Orthodox Faith. In Greek, the word martyr means “witness” and, the verb form, martyred, means to “bear witness” or “give evidence.” Though martyrdom was not a constant experience
By Father Matthew Baker Popular presentations of the Orthodox Christian faith often highlight the doctrine of theosis, or deification, as a distinctive accent of Orthodox theology and spiritual teaching. In the 20th century, owing to the enthusiastic rediscovery of St Gregory Palamas and especially the wide influence of the theology of Vladimir Lossky, this message of deification was most often cast in terms of a “participation in the divine energies.” The phrase from 2 Peter 1:4, “partakers
The saint Abbot Isaiah, the Egyptian hermit, says of the Jesus Prayer (1) that it is a mirror for the mind and a lantern for the conscience. Someone has also likened it to a constantly sounding, quiet voice in a house: all thieves that sneak in take hasty flight when they hear that someone is awake there. The house is the heart, the thieves, the evil impulses. Prayer is the voice of the one who
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