Pemptousia Archives - Saint Sophia

Love is the Criterion of Faith and Works

06/26/2025

Georgios Patronos, Emeritus Professor of Theology, University of Athens The Gospel reading for 2nd Luke comes from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, in which almost all Jesus’ teaching during his public ministry is gathered together, emphasis is placed on the overall context of the Christian life. Here, in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, in which events are set out in their historical time-line, that is in the order in

Self-Justification

06/17/2025

~Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos ‘Justifying ourselves, following our own opinion and satisfying our own will are the progeny of ungodly pride’ (Abba Dorotheos). When we’re accused of something, our first reaction is to defend ourselves. To explain why it’s not like that, even if it is. And that doesn’t apply only to the youngest any more. Grown-ups are lacking in backbone in that, even if the reality is clear, we still try to justify ourselves. ‘I’m human,

Repentance is like Lightning

06/12/2025

~Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis I was in the Evangelismos Hospital. I was concerned about my soul’s unreadiness. When my spiritual guide (the late Elder Epifanios Theodoropoulos) visited me, I said: ‘I’m praying that God will give me a few more years of life, so that I can repent’. He answered: ‘You don’t need years, repentance is like lightning (K. Yiannitsiotis, Κοντά στον Γέροντα Πορφύριο [Close to Elder Porfyrios]. The late author had a close relationship with Saint Porfyrios-

An Open Window

06/05/2025

~Elder Moisis the Athonite † We’ve said before that God isn’t impassioned, punitive or vindictive. If he were so, he’d have to be evil. But there’s not a trace of wickedness in the divinity. Every trial’s a divine lesson and a form of asceticism, which we’ve otherwise voluntarily removed from our lives. Our loving God tries in a variety of ways to bring us close to him. Before God, we’re all strivers. Today’s economic crisis

Proof that God Exists

06/03/2025

~ By Metropolitan of Gortyn and Megalopolis, Ieremias † In these talks, my friends, we’re presenting in simple form the well-known work of Saint John Damaskinos (the Damascan): The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. We know that God is beyond our capacity to understand. This doesn’t mean, however, that He’s left us in complete ignorance: He’s revealed His glory to us, first in nature and then, more fully, in the sacred books of Holy

The Fifth Thursday of Pascha. The Resurrection: An Affront to Reason

05/22/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! ~Archimandrite Epiphanios Ekonomou It’s hardly surprising that the message of the Resurrection of Christ has raised a whole host of doubts and questions. Objections were registered immediately after the occurrence of the supernatural event on which the whole structure of the Christian Church is founded. For the Jews of Biblical Jerusalem, it was a blasphemy of the apostate Christians to claim that a crucified criminal could ever be the Messiah.

Sunday of the Paralytic

05/11/2025

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Excerpt from a Homily by Saint John Chrysostom If someone’s really knowledgeable about gold mines, they wouldn’t be able to bear not examining the smallest vein for the wealth it contained. So, in the Scriptures, it’s impossible without loss to pass over the merest jot. We must investigate everything since everything’s uttered by the Holy Spirit, and there’s nothing written in them to distract us. Consider, for instance, what the

The Fifth Tuesday of Great Lent. Lent: The Other Dimension of Life

04/01/2025

Fr. Andreas Agathokleous Amid the turbulence of our life, the deafening noise surrounding us, the long and pointless conversations on the telephone or in person, the stress and uncertainty regarding the state of the world today and tomorrow, the Church offers us the period of time of Great Lent. What meaning can this period, beginning with Monday in the first week and lasting until Great Saturday, have for all of us who live the modern

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. By the Rivers of Babylon: Inconsolable Home-Sickness

03/31/2025

Mihaïl Koutsos Psalm 136. By Jeremiah to David, on captivity 1 By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. 2 We hung our instruments on the willows, 3 for there our captors asked us for songs, and our abductors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion’. 4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you,

The Fourth Friday of Great Lent. The Epistle Reading for the 4th Sunday in Lent

03/28/2025

By Metropolitan of Pisidia Sotirios † In today’s Epistle, Saint Paul calls hope ‘a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul’. A ship without an anchor runs the risk of being dashed against the rocks along a coast. When people without hope are faced with the adversities of life, they’ve got nothing to lean on. What an anchor is for a ship, or air for the lungs, hope is for our spiritual existence. Hope is

Archive

Love is the Criterion of Faith and Works

Self-Justification

Repentance is like Lightning

An Open Window

Proof that God Exists

The Fifth Thursday of Pascha. The Resurrection: An Affront to Reason

Sunday of the Paralytic

The Fifth Tuesday of Great Lent. Lent: The Other Dimension of Life

The Fifth Monday of Great Lent. By the Rivers of Babylon: Inconsolable Home-Sickness

The Fourth Friday of Great Lent. The Epistle Reading for the 4th Sunday in Lent

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