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The Second Thursday of Great Lent. Great Lent: An Empirical Journey into the Depths of Our Being

03/13/2025

~ By Elder Patapios Kavsokalyvitis, Superintendent of the Skete of the Holy Trinity, Mount Athos By fasting, we learn to say ‘No’ to our desire for food and also learn to say ‘No’ to our often self-destructive will. We also learn to say ‘Yes’ to God, which is always redemptive. We’ve begun the Triodio, this blessed period of the liturgical year, with repentance, because we’ve felt deeply, existentially, within us the need to return from

The First Thursday of Great Lent. Charity and Lent

03/06/2025

Protopresbyter Antonios Christou Dear readers, Great Lent is a time of strenuous, spiritual struggle with ourselves (less sleep, less nutrition, less ease and preoccupation with things we like doing, greater participation in the services and prayers, and so on). I don’t know, however, whether we truly realize the extent to which another fundamental aim is charity towards others. Apart from the general principle expressed in the Sermon on the Mount (‘Blessed are the merciful* for

The Great and Holy Wednesday

05/01/2024

On Holy Wednesday [Matins celebrated by anticipation on Holy Tuesday evening] the Church invites the faithful to focus their attention on two figures: the sinful woman who anointed the head of Jesus shortly before the passion (Matthew 26:6-13), and Judas, the disciple who betrayed the Lord. The former acknowledged Jesus as Lord, while the latter severed himself from the Master. The one was set free, while the other became a slave. The one inherited the

Saint Maximus the Greek

01/21/2024

Published by Pemptousia Partnership on January 21, 2022 Georgios Martzelos St Maximos the Greek was one of the most distinguished monks and theologians of the 16th century, famed for his missionary activities and reforming achievements in the Russia of his time. He was born in Arta in around 1470 of respected and prosperous parents, and his name in the world was Mikhail Trivolis. At an early age he went to study in Italy, at major centres of the

The Fourth Wednesday of Great Lent: Ten Suggestions for Lent

04/07/2021

By His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, Geron of America Meditate on the History of Salvation Think of the Lenten period as a time of meditating on the history of salvation.  Think about the creation of the universe and of Adam and Eve as the beginning of human life on earth.  Think about the fall of Adam and the entrance of sin in humanity.  We see in the hymnology of the liturgical book of Lent, the Triodion,

The Great and Holy Wednesday

04/15/2020

On Holy Wednesday [Matins celebrated by anticipation on Holy Tuesday evening] the Church invites the faithful to focus their attention on two figures: the sinful woman who anointed the head of Jesus shortly before the passion (Matthew 26:6-13), and Judas, the disciple who betrayed the Lord. The former acknowledged Jesus as Lord, while the latter severed himself from the Master. The one was set free, while the other became a slave. The one inherited the

The Thirty-Ninth Day of Great Lent. Approach to Holy Week

04/18/2019

Holy Week in the Eastern Orthodox Church institutes the sanctity of the whole calendar year of the Church. Its center of commemorations and inspiration is Easter wherein the glorified Resurrection of Jesus Christ is celebrated. Every Sunday is dedicated in the Eastern Orthodox Church to the Resurrection of the Lord. One hundred days also are dedicated to Easter, 50 before it for preparation, and another 50 after it for commemorating the glorification of the Lord.

The Fourth Day of Great Lent. Bright Sadness.

03/14/2019

For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is “something else” in Lent—something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This “something else” can best

Feast of All Saints. The End Goal for Everyone-Numbered Among the Saints

06/11/2017

Jesus said: “Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take his cross

Feast of the Holy Spirit. Life in the Early Church

06/05/2017

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ”Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:37-38 For the last week of these reflections that have brought us through

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