prayer Archives - Saint Sophia

A Scandal, Many Sins, and a Saint!

05/27/2026

~Ioannis Panayiotopoulos, Lecturer at the Theological School, Athens University One of the most wonderful stories in the Lavsaïko [Lives of the Ascetics, by Bishop Palladius of Helenopolis, written for a chamberlain at the court of Emperor Theodosios II, a certain Lavsos, from whom the book takes its name] describes the life of a monk who abandoned his monastery and went to the port of Alexandria to work as a dock labourer. Given the fact that

Concentrating the Mind at the Hour of Prayer

01/08/2026

Saint Theophan the Recluse What can we do when the mind wanders here and there and we can’t gather it in prayer? If we’re alone, at home, we can delay the start of prayers, or, if we’ve already started, take a short break. If, after a little while, the mind doesn’t cooperate with our intention, then we have no choice but to force it to do so, whether it wants to or not, to the

‘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

The Dormition Fast: The Most Holy Mother of God

08/04/2025

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, August 13, 2008 On August 15, the Orthodox Church (new calendar) commemorates the Dormition (falling asleep) of the Most Holy Mother of God. The feast is considered to be one of the 12 Great Feasts of the year and thus an integral part of the proclamation of gospel of Jesus Christ. Many who are not familiar with Orthodoxy, or its manner of understanding saints, easily see feast days and the veneration

Forgiveness Sunday – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

03/02/2025

~By Fr Stephen Freeman, March 13, 2016 This is a meditation I shared with my parish this week as the Sunday of Forgiveness approaches: Perhaps the most generous words spoken by Christ are those we hear from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Taken at face value, the words make little sense. Surely, those who crucified Christ knew that they were killing a man. Surely they were

Repentance and Prayer according to Saint Païsios

01/09/2025

By Alexandros Christodoulou, Theologian In general terms, Saint Païsios set the greatest store in the spiritual struggle on repentance and unceasing prayer. It was through repentance that he received revelations from heaven. He used to say that the life of a monk was one of repentance and prayer. The monks are the Church’s wireless operators and the aim of their life is to get through to God in order to help people, once they’ve first

Turning Back (Part II)

10/25/2024

Turning Back (Part II) ‘The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Master, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?”… But Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him,

The Monastic Fathers

10/17/2024

Nowadays the monastic fathers could show us a way out of the superficial debates about the structure of the church or the exhaustion of spirituality. They invite us onto the path of longing. The longing for God sends us off through all obstacles on the chase for the hare, for oneness with God, for the coming of Jesus Christ, “who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). The striving

Conversations with Abba Isaac: Kung Fu and the Way of the Ant

09/30/2024

By Father Micah Hirschy As was the case with many young men who grew up during the 80’s and 90’s, I went through a period of deep fascination with Kung-Fu movies. There was something intrinsically appealing about a story where a young man could spend a few days with a Kung-Fu master or read an ancient scroll and henceforth become invincible and able to battle evil! I also loved that the Kung-Fu Masters gave their Art really

Persons in Communion: The Disciplines of Communion (Part II)

08/28/2024

The training of our consciousness enables us to recover an immediacy of response to anybody’s face, however spoilt, haggard, or careworn, and precisely because it is such. God loves this person here and now, in their very ordinariness, their cowardice, their loneliness, their sin. Our consciousness being awakened, the eye of the heart is opened, and we begin to see with the eyes of God. Then we can put ourselves in the other’s place, share

Archive

A Scandal, Many Sins, and a Saint!

Concentrating the Mind at the Hour of Prayer

‘I Must Feel Her Pain’

The Dormition Fast: The Most Holy Mother of God

Forgiveness Sunday – Do We Know What We’re Doing?

Repentance and Prayer according to Saint Païsios

Turning Back (Part II)

The Monastic Fathers

Conversations with Abba Isaac: Kung Fu and the Way of the Ant

Persons in Communion: The Disciplines of Communion (Part II)

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