Augustine Archives - Saint Sophia

From Darkness to Light

02/27/2025

~By Archimandrite Varnavas Lambropoulos On the eve of our entry into Great Lent, everything in church speaks to us of repentance. The wonderful hymns ‘robe’ the message of repentance in a poetic manner; the Gospel reading gives us the keys to open the gates of repentance; and the Epistle reminds us of one of Saint Paul’s most pressing admonitions: to call us to repentance. In essence the leading apostle repeats, in his own, graphic manner,

The Second Day of Christmas: The Institution of the Synaxis of the Theotokos

12/26/2023

By John Sanidopoulos, December 27, 2012 After a great feast, the Orthodox Church traditionally honors the memory of those persons who played a chief role in the events commemorated by the feast. The Most Holy Mother of God occupies first place after Christ, in the events connected with the Nativity of our Lord. For this reason, in the first centuries, the faithful assembled on the day following the Nativity to express their gratitude to the

The Feast Day of Saint Anthony the Great

01/17/2023

Anthony was born in central Egypt around 215, the son of Christian peasant farmers. After their death, around 269, he paid attention when the Gospel was read in church and applied to himself literally the words, ‘Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor.’ He disposed all his property and undertook a life of solitude and discipline under the guidance of another recluse near his village. Some years later, having put his

Divine Beauty (1)

09/21/2022

By Fr John Breck, March 1, 2009 “Ever since the creation of the world,” the apostle Paul declared, “[God’s] invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). To those qualities of Power and Deity, we can add divine Beauty.[1] Beauty is an all-encompassing term that is nearly synonymous with “truth” and “goodness.” “Beauty is truth / truth beauty. / That is all

Jesus and the Bible: Many Ways of Knowing

07/28/2021

Unknown to many post-Reformation Christians, early centuries of Christianity—through authoritative teachers like Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine, and Gregory the Great—encouraged as many as seven “senses” of Scripture. The literal, historical, allegorical, moral, symbolic, eschatological (the trajectory of history and growth), and “primordial” or archetypal (commonly agreed-upon symbolism) levels of a text were often given serious weight among scholars. These levels were gradually picked up by the ordinary Christian through Sunday preaching (as is still

The Soul’s Objective Union with God

03/10/2021

The Genesis story of the Judeo-Christian tradition is really quite extraordinary. It says that we were created in the very “image and likeness” of God, proceeding from free and overflowing love (Genesis 1:26). This flow is rediscovered and re-experienced by various imperfect people throughout the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This sets us on a positive and hopeful foundation, which cannot be overstated. The Bible illustrates, through various stories, humanity’s objective unity with God, the total gratuity

Knowing How to Learn. I Believe in Health, in Friendship and in Wisdom

02/24/2020

Knowing how to Learn Jerome said: ‘Take care not to seek to become a teacher first and then a pupil, or an officer first and a soldier afterwards. ‘Take care not to enter a street you have never been in before if you do not have someone to show you the way. You could get completely lost. ‘No art can be learnt without an expert teacher. ‘You will need a long time to learn what

Prayer of the Heart in an Age of Technology and Distraction, Part 8

10/31/2019

By Fr. Maximos (Constas) The shift from exterior to interior is not simply a monastic idea. It’s part of basic Christian living. We don’t do this because we’re told to, but because it’s what’s good and best for us. This is what’s best for us. I’m reminded of one of the many wonderful quotes from Augustine’s Confessions where he says to God, “I was looking everywhere for you, but I was looking outside of myself.” I

Are you Over-Bearing? Knowing How to Teach.

09/05/2019

Are You Over-Bearing? The Superior must not reprove with anger. An angry or violent reproof does not set the brother free from his fault but it throws the Superior into a state of sin. That is why the Bible says: ‘The Lord’s servant must be … forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness.’ [2 Tim. 2:24-25] We ought not to be inflamed with anger when others have offended us, nor should we show ourselves too indulgent

The Fourth Monday after Pascha. CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN! Salvation as At-One-Ment: Divinization

05/20/2019

…. we [have] explored the metaphor of a wedding to describe what God is doing—preparing and drawing us toward deeper intimacy, belonging, and union. The Eastern Fathers of the Church were not afraid of this belief, and called it the process of “divinization” (theosis). In fact, they saw it as the whole point of the Incarnation and the very meaning of salvation. The much more practical and rational church in the West seldom used the

Archive

From Darkness to Light

The Second Day of Christmas: The Institution of the Synaxis of the Theotokos

The Feast Day of Saint Anthony the Great

Divine Beauty (1)

Jesus and the Bible: Many Ways of Knowing

The Soul’s Objective Union with God

Knowing How to Learn. I Believe in Health, in Friendship and in Wisdom

Prayer of the Heart in an Age of Technology and Distraction, Part 8

Are you Over-Bearing? Knowing How to Teach.

The Fourth Monday after Pascha. CHRISTOS ANESTI! CHRIST IS RISEN! Salvation as At-One-Ment: Divinization

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