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Saint Nectarius Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

11/09/2022

Commemorated on November 9  Saint Nectarius, the great wonderworker of modern times, was born Anastasius Kephalas in Selebria, Thrace on October 1, 1846. Since his family was poor, Anastasius went to Constantinople when he was fourteen in order to find work. Although he had no money, he asked the captain of a boat to take him. The captain told him to take a walk and then come back. Anastasius understood, and sadly walked away. The

Celtic Monasticism – 2

06/22/2022

Published by Pemptousia Partnership, July 11, 2015 “Other monks and nuns lived out their days alone….in small wood-and-mud huts; they kept a cow or two, and accepted gladly the gifts of an occasional loaf or basket of vegetables from local farmers. The desire for a solitary life and time to spend simply yearning for God…must have drifted through the hearts of even the busiest abbot in the most bustling monastery.” (Bitel, op.cit.) Monastic life was seen

The Desert and Temptation (Part IV)

06/26/2019

Without temptation the monks become careless. They let themselves go, and so live any old way. Temptations force them to live consciously, to exercise discipline, and to be wakeful. Thus the monks don’t pray for temptations to stop, but for God to give them enough strength. The story was told of Mother Sarah, that for thirteen years she endured being violently assaulted by demons of impurity. She never prayed for the struggle to cease, but

The Twenty-Seventh Day of Christmas Advent. Emmanuel, God with Us.

12/11/2018

Christmas is about Emmanuel, God with us. The accent is on the immanence of God. We cannot understand the miracle of the immanence unless we understand the glory of the transcendence, and the other way around. “In the poorest of the poor we see Jesus in distressed disguise.” So said Mother Teresa as she and her nuns ministered to the abandoned babies and dying aged whom they gathered in from the streets of Calcutta. Disguise

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part IV)

01/09/2017

There is a second key mistake that we often make in our assumptions about the essential nature of life in the world, which mistake makes monastic literature difficult to approach. We often conceive of worldly life as merely a kind of default existence that anyone who is not specially called to monasticism or ordination simply ends up leading. We assume that it is only the monk, nun or priest who has a special call, while

A Layman in the Desert (Preface, Part II)

11/04/2016

It often seems that we Orthodox only end up spinning our wheels when we try to answer questions… with reference to monastic literature. While we probably have a clear sense that there is something to be learned about such topics there, we do not always have a good picture of how to really find this value while also respecting the basic integrity and purpose of these texts. One of the key sources of this problem

The Fifth Friday after Pascha, Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! How Do We Pray the Psalms?

05/15/2015

By Jim Wellington How do we pray the Psalms? We should surely take our lead from the Holy Fathers of the Early Church and learn from their wisdom. Whilst researching the origins of the Jesus Prayer, I came across some fascinating insights in psalm-commentaries accredited to Fathers of the third, fourth and fifth centuries. These insights and the understanding of the Psalms which they promote, would have been available to the earliest monks and nuns

The Desert and Temptation (Part IV)

02/13/2013

Without temptation the monks become careless. They let themselves go, and so live any old way. Temptations force them to live consciously, to exercise discipline, and to be wakeful. Thus the monks don’t pray for temptations to stop, but for God to give them enough strength. The story was told of Mother Sarah, that for thirteen years she endured being violently assaulted by demons of impurity. She never prayed for the struggle to cease, but

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