Pemptousia Archives - Saint Sophia

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. The Significance of the Birth of Christ for the Human Race

11/18/2025

Every year, in an atmosphere of joy and delight, the Church celebrates the Birth of Christ, and sings wonderful hymns to God Who became incarnate and re-formed our degenerate human nature. Orthodox hymnography and theology emphasize the great anthropological significance of the divine incarnation: we have been saved from hopeless degradation and from the chaos of destructive hatred by the love of God, which took on flesh and bone within history through the person of

‘I Must Feel Her Pain’

11/06/2025

Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis An acquaintance of Saint Païsios once asked him to pray for a girl who’d become involved with the occult. The saint said: ‘I have to feel her pain’. The man didn’t understand and thought the saint meant that he’d cause her pain, but was told: ‘Tell me something about her so that I can feel her pain and pray for her with pain in my soul’. All believing Christians know the value

‘We Shall Be Saved through His Life’

11/04/2025

Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos ‘For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life’ (Rom. 5, 10) In our spiritual tradition, the attitude of people towards God is often portrayed as being hostile. God and human beings seem to be two different worlds, between which there’s no love or co-existence, but rather a yawning chasm. It may

The Inconstancy of Our Inner State

10/30/2025

~Saint Theophan the Recluse You complain about the volatility of your inner state- sometimes it’s good, at others it’s bad. It can’t be otherwise. ‘I’ve undergone unpleasant spiritual states in a variety of forms and continue to do so’. All we can do is bear them with patience and fortitude, without relaxing our spiritual struggle and without neglecting our observance of God’s commandments, which is exactly what you’re doing. A good spiritual state arrives. It

Do You Really Want to See the World?

10/21/2025

Fr. Andreas Agathokleous It’s not easy to look at the world. You have to step back a bit, as you would with a painting. Not too far, though, because then you lose the relationship, you don’t hear the messages, the words of its silence. The world’s characterized by noise, bustle, cares and not insignificant problems. You can’t see everything. It’s impossible to know everything. You can just guess at it, looking through your own microscope.

Sermon on the Apostolic reading for the 5th Sunday of Matthew (Romans 10: 1-10)

10/14/2025

~Metropolitan of Pisidia Sotirios In our reading from the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul lays before us two basic truths, which are of particular interest for us today. The first, is that we should desire and seek the salvation of our people with all of our hearts. Not only those close to us, but all people. Second, the Holy Apostle tells us that the salvation offered by Christ is open to all, and is

Saint Paisios the Athonite Brings Solace to Every Soul

10/07/2025

~Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou † Elder Païsios has no need of any praise or introduction from us. With his imitation of Christ’s love, he satisfied both God and other people and this is why he’s widely praised in the Church of God. He had the rare gift of being able to bring solace to people of all works of life, irrespective of their level of education or their spiritual

Love and Mourning in the Human Race (Saint Mary Magdalene, II)

10/02/2025

Sister Parakliti, Holy Skete of Saint Mary Magdalene, in Liti Grief has its own stages. According to the psychological approach [1], we need to pass through them with care and support. We need time to begin to discover meaning in everything that’s happening to us. With Magdalene, it didn’t take much time. Christ appeared to her and told her about the resurrection. With this faith, she then continued her life, which had acquired a different

Love and Mourning in the Human Race (Saint Mary Magdalene, I)

09/30/2025

Sister Parakliti, Holy Skete of Saint Mary Magdalene, in Liti This year, we’d like to dedicate the great virtue, that of love, to the memory of Saint Mary Magdalene. In volume two of the Philokalia, we find the ‘Four Hundred Texts on Love’ by Saint Maximos the Confessor. There are many sayings by the saint, but we shall focus on the first two of the first hundred: ‘Love is a holy state of the soul,

Saint Kyriakos the Anachorite

09/29/2025

† Dionysios, Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani Today the Church honours and celebrates the sacred memory of Blessed Kyriakos the Anchorite, who was born in Corinth in 408. His father was called Ioannis and was a priest, while his mother was Evdoxia. The then bishop of Corinth, Petros, who was Kyriakos’ uncle on his father’s side, ordained him reader. But Kyriakos did not find inner peace in Corinth and so, at the age of eighteen,

Archive

The Fourth Day of Christmas Advent. The Significance of the Birth of Christ for the Human Race

‘I Must Feel Her Pain’

‘We Shall Be Saved through His Life’

The Inconstancy of Our Inner State

Do You Really Want to See the World?

Sermon on the Apostolic reading for the 5th Sunday of Matthew (Romans 10: 1-10)

Saint Paisios the Athonite Brings Solace to Every Soul

Love and Mourning in the Human Race (Saint Mary Magdalene, II)

Love and Mourning in the Human Race (Saint Mary Magdalene, I)

Saint Kyriakos the Anachorite

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