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The Abuser (Part 2)

Abusive behavior betrays a deep spiritual and psychological illness By Abbot Tryphon, January 10, 2020 There are people who insist on holding on to resentment, often inventing situations in their minds that never happened, justifying their bad behavior, and putting the blame on others. They see themselves as the abused party, always quick to take offense. Rarely are they able to have healthy relationships, for they are in reality, the abusers. Their world centers around

Elder Porphyrios: Peace of Heart is Established Little by Little

Your constant care should be not to let your heart become agitated or troubled, but to use every effort to keep it peaceful and calm. Seeing your efforts and endeavours, God will send you His grace and will make your soul a city of peace. Then your heart will become the house of comfort as is allegorically expressed in the following Psalm: ‘Jerusalem is builded as a city’ (Ps. cxxii. 3). God has required only

Elder Porphyrios: On the Means of Preserving Inner Peace

To preserve inner peace: First of all, keep your outer senses in order and flee all licentiousness in your external conduct, – namely, neither look, speak, gesticulate, walk nor do anything else with agitation, but always quietly and decorously. Accustomed to behave with decorous quietness in your external movements and actions, you will easily and without labour acquire peace within yourself, in the heart; for, according to the testimony of the fathers, the inner man

The Third Wednesday of Pascha. The Spiritual Benefits of the Pandemic

By Abbot Tryphon, April 26, 2020 Let us allow this pandemic to be the force that transforms the world Entertainment has come to take on a central role in many people’s lives, becoming so important as to have replaced personal interaction with neighbors and friends. I’m old enough to remember the day when neighborhoods were filled with homes sporting large front porches. On hot summer nights families would be sitting on their porches, sipping lemonade

What is Repentance?

You have already realized how unbelievably quickly life goes by. One does not notice this as much in one’s youth, but when the years bear down upon us, we see that a lot of time has passed and that very little is left of this life. Where do we go when the end of our life comes? We know where we are going while we are still here, but what happens afterwards? Where are we

REAL PEACE (Part II)

Fr. Maximos went on to emphasize that the lack of inner peace emanates from our egocentric passions and unbridled desires. Furthermore, he pointed out that all external wars, violence, and social and interpersonal conflicts spring from our inner states of disharmony. For him, therefore, achieving freedom and justice must begin with an arduous effort to attain inner peace. Revolutionaries who fight for justice do not understand that, no matter how noble their cause may be,

On Christian Authenticity (Part II)

Our age chiefly dreams up and manufactures simulacra. Shopping malls are adorned with plants and trees that look real but aren’t. Television and movie studios present us with times, places, and environments that don’t exist. Advertisements refer us to worlds that have no connection with reality. Men and women are painted and dyed, fakes and shams, copies of which no original has ever existed, not a few of them surgically altered, to show the world

Keeping Silence, Not Passing Judgment

One sign that asceticism has led a monk to God is the refusal to pass judgment. However severely monks fast and however hard they work, all of that is useless if they nonetheless go on judging others. Asceticism has merely gotten them to the point where they can exalt themselves over others. It has served to satisfy their pride, to heighten their feeling of self-worth. Those who have encountered themselves in their asceticism, those who

Freedom Attracts

Freedom Attracts When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person, there are no expectations, only an