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Keeping Death before our Eyes Every Day (Part I)

Keeping Death before Our Eyes Every Day In his Rule St. Benedict advises the monks to keep death before their eyes every day. In saying this, he summarizes what we are told in numerous stories about the monks: they lived in the awareness of their death. This makes them inwardly more vital and focused. Thinking about death liberated them from all fear. Thus a young monk asks an elder: “Why am I seized by fear

The Remembrance of Death (Part II)

By Father Steven Kostoff Taken in isolation, “remembrance of death”—especially among those who “have no hope” [1 Thessalonians 4:13]—can have a horrible effect upon the soul. It only makes sense to forget about it!  The Christian practice of the “remembrance of death” needs to be the result of a lively faith in Christ, the Vanquisher of death, for it to be the spiritually positive practice it is meant to be.  Saint Paul has said it

The Remembrance of Death (Part I)

By Father Steven Kostoff In the Orthodox Prayer Book under the heading “Before Sleep,” we find “A Prayer of Saint John of Damascus, said pointing at the bed.”  This particular prayer begins, “O Master Who lovest mankind, is this bed to be my coffin?  Or wilt Thou enlighten my wretched soul with another day?” As Saint John was a monk, we could, of course, dismiss or ignore such a prayer as “monastic excess,” or even

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Friday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part IV)

By Father Thomas Hopko We Christians believe, Orthodox Christians believe, that Christ is that Messianic King who frees us, and He frees us by dying. He liberates us. He ransoms us by the power of hell. He gave Himself, a ransom, to death, by which we were held captive, in order to release us, and that is what trampling down death by death means. So the icon of the so-called Descent into Sheol shows that

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Fourth Monday of Pascha: The Descent of Jesus into Hades (Part I)

By Father Thomas Hopko The Paschal icon, the icon of the victory of Christ, God’s Messiah, over death, the last enemy, in the Orthodox Church is an icon of the live, glorious Christ, in the realm of the dead, smashing the gates of Sheol, or of Hades, and releasing, and freeing, and pulling from the tombs, the whole of humanity, symbolized in the persons of Adam and Eve. In that icon, of course, there are

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Friday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Means of Redemption, Part II)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Means of Redemption, Part II The word “redemption,” of course, comes from this juridical explanation. As Vladimir Lossky points out: “The very idea of redemption assumes a plainly legal aspect: it is the atonement of a slave, the debt paid for those who remained in prison because they could not discharge it. [15] By His death Christ ransomed man out of servitude to sin, and redeemed man from the eternal consequences of sin which had

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Thursday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Means of Redemption, Part I)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Means of Redemption, Part I Now, having looked at the pre-Fall state and the consequences of the Fall, let us look more closely at how Christ restores man to the pre-Fall state and in fact beyond and above this state. The how of the redemption, like the nature of God the Holy Trinity, is ultimately a mystery. And yet the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers help us to approach this mystery. They enable us

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! The Second Tuesday of Pascha: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross (The Consequences of the Fall, Part I)

By Hieromonk Damascene The Consequences of the Fall, Part I Such was the lofty original state of man and the creation, and such was man’s lofty original calling. But as we all know and experience every day, the first man, Adam, fell from this state and brought himself and all of creation into a state of corruption and death. The whole story of the Fall and why it occurred lies outside the scope of this

The Great and Holy Pascha! Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen!

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad therein.” Pascha is the day of universal joy and peace. The entire world, every breath and all creation, triumphs and rejoices. For the Lord has conquered and destroyed death, abolishing the “dominion of death” – the power of death. With the Resurrection of Christ, the dawn of the coming general Resurrection has already begun to break over all creation, for

Holy Ground

Holy Ground All this might sound like a new sort of romanticism, but our own very concrete experiences and observations will help us to recognize this as realism. Often we must confess that the experience of our loneliness is stronger than that of our solitude and that our words about solitude are spoken out of the painful silence of loneliness. But there are happy moments of direct knowing, affirming our hopes and encouraging us in