Saint Isaac the Syrian The great luminary of the life of stillness, Saint Isaac, was born in the early seventh century in Eastern Arabia, the present-day Qatar on the Persian Gulf. He became a monk at a young age, and at some time left Arabia to dwell with monks in Persia. He was consecrated Bishop of Nineveh (and is therefore sometimes called “Saint Isaac of Nineveh”), but after five months received permission to return to
Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, July 11, 2021. From time to time the image of God becomes blurred and almost forgotten. People forget what God “looks like,” how he sounds, how he is, and in the resulting vacuum create idols like the children of Israel and their Golden Calf. The search for an earthly savior always ends in the creation of an anti-Christ. I truly believe our abuse of the earth is
By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey A central question, however, is exactly what we mean by “mindfulness.” How do we understand what we are doing? Why we are doing it? As mentioned already, both Buddhists and Christians are taught not to condemn or to act as a judge over others. On this subject, St. Paul says, “Who am I to judge another man’s servant?” (Romans 14:4). However, in this sentence we see an important difference between the
By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey Recently while waiting for my wife at a doctor’s office, I flipped through a “wellness” magazine. In it was an article entitled, “Are You Aware of What You Eat?” True to the title, the article suggested knowing what we are eating. We should also know where our food comes from, we should chew slowly, and we should notice how satisfied our stomach feels. This is called “eating with mindfulness.” The idea
Pavlos Mouktaroudis The second Sunday in Lent is devoted to Saint Gregory Palamas (14th century), a hesychast from the Holy Mountain and later Archbishop of Thessaloniki. Saint Gregory Palamas defended the hesychasts of the Holy Mountain who were being mocked and attacked by the person who expressed the spirit of the Western Church, the monk Barlaam, from Calabria in Southern Italy. When Saint Gregory defended these monks, he set out the Orthodox faith regarding God,
By Fr. Maximos (Constas) The Orthodox Church is a bottomless spring of spiritual wisdom, granting the eternal life of Christ to all who ardently seek it. Through the millennia this wisdom has been captured for us in part in the writings of the Fathers, the lives of the saints, and the various collections of sayings of the monastic fathers. Among the most prized literary possessions of the Church is the spiritual classic The Philokalia, which
Saint Isaac the Syrian The great luminary of the life of stillness, Saint Isaac, was born in the early seventh century in Eastern Arabia, the present-day Qatar on the Persian Gulf. He became a monk at a young age, and at some time left Arabia to dwell with monks in Persia. He was consecrated Bishop of Nineveh (and is therefore sometimes called “Saint Isaac of Nineveh”), but after five months received permission to return to
St Isaac the Syrian, or St Isaac of Nineveh, as he is also known, is one of the greatest spiritual writers of the Christian East. If one visits the monasteries of Mount Athos or Romania today and asks the monks whom they would recommend for spiritual reading, the name of Isaac will nearly always be among the first to be mentioned. His influence on Orthodox spirituality continues to be great. It is by no means
By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey Recently while waiting for my wife at a doctor’s office, I flipped through a “wellness” magazine. In it was an article entitled, “Are You Aware of What You Eat?” True to the title, the article suggested knowing what we are eating. We should also know where our food comes from, we should chew slowly, and we should notice how satisfied our stomach feels. This is called “eating with mindfulness.” The idea
Saint Isaac the Syrian The great luminary of the life of stillness, Saint Isaac, was born in the early seventh century in Eastern Arabia, the present-day Qatar on the Persian Gulf. He became a monk at a young age, and at some time left Arabia to dwell with monks in Persia. He was consecrated Bishop of Nineveh (and is therefore sometimes called “Saint Isaac of Nineveh”), but after five months received permission to return to
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