Elder Ephraim

"Each person must bear the weaknesses of others. Who is perfect? Who can boast that he has kept his heart undefiled? Hence, we are all sick, and whoever condemns his brother does not perceive that he himself is sick, because a sick person does not condemn another sick person.

Love, endure, overlook, do not get angry, do not flare up, forgive one another, so that you resemble our Christ and are counted worthy to be near Him in His Kingdom. My children, avoid condemnation---it is a very great sin. God is greatly saddened when we condemn and loathe people. Let us concern ourselves only with our own faults---for these we should feel pain. Let us condemn ourselves and then we shall find mercy and grace from God." - Elder Ephraim

tags: Eastern Orthodox monastery elder Greek

St. Dorotheos of Gaza

"Therefore, we know about God that He loves and shows pity on His creatures, and also that He is the source of wisdom and knows how to govern everything concerning us. Nothing is impossible for Him, but everything is subject to His will. We must also realize that everything He does is for our benefit and we must accept it with thankfulness...as from a benefactor and a good Lord, even if it is troublesome. For everything is done with right judgement, and God, Who is merciful, does not overlook even the smallest sadness that we suffer." - St. Dorotheos of Gaza

New(ish) CDs from St. Vladimir's Seminary

St. Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, NY has released two new CDs of liturgical music performed by the seminary's chorale. One is titled Vigil: Selections from the All-Night Vigil of the Orthodox Christian Church and it focuses on selections from the Vespers and Matins services. The other is simply titled Chant: Chant Traditions of the Orthodox Christian Church. All selections are in English.



It's always nice to have Orthodox liturgical CDs in English. So often, the ones available are in Greek, Slavonic, Arabic, etc., and that makes sense considering the English speaking Orthodox only make up a tiny percentage of the greater Orthodox world.

As one can tell from the name, St. Vladimir's is a seminary that grew out of the Russian tradition. The selections reflect the Russian style more than any other on the Vigil CD disc. It's what one typically hears in parishes of the Orthodox Church in America. That being said, many of the arrangements here are a little more "western" sounding that what I'm typically used to. I don't say that as a negative (they are sung beautifully), but I'm used to the slower, more "mystical" sounds of the east.



My old parish had a Ukranian choir director and that "eastern" sound shone through and deeply entrenched itself in me. There's certainly some of that here (especially on the Chant CD), but one shouldn't pick these up expecting the "exoticism" people typically think of with Orthodox music (not everything in Orthodoxy is inaccessible to western ears!) That being said, these really are wonderful CDs. Beautifully sung, piously sung and clearly sung, which is incredibly important. Most of the performances are by mixed choir, but there's also quite a few male choir perfomances as well.

If you can only get one of them, I'd recommend going for the Chant CD as it more representative of chant in the various styles of Orthodox countries from around the world. "St. Symeon's Prayer" is wonderfully rendered in a Byzantine style and the "Trisagion" is done in the ethereal Georgian style. The Chant disc also includes one of my favorite Holy Week hymns, ""Today He who hung the earth upon the waters..."

More from Mantzaridis

I'm currently working my way through Georgios Mantzaridis' Time and Man, a philosophical, theological and anthropological look at time and man's relation to it.

I liked this bit:

"Just as red-hot iron, without ceasing to be iron, simultaneously becomes fire as well, so too the deified man, without ceasing to be man, simultaneously becomes god. Without ceasing to be a creation of God, he becomes a partaker in the divine life and attains the eternity that is God. He becomes not only eternal, but also unoriginate and everlasting in the image of the eternal and unoriginate and everlasting God. He becomes a son of God, because the Son of God too became man and united himself with man."

AXIOS! AXIOS! AXIOS!

On August 22, 2005, the Holy Synod of the Church of Jerusalem unanimously elected Theophilos, the former Archbishop of Tabor, as the 141st Patriarch of Jerusalem. May God grant many, many years unto Patriarch Theophilos III.

From Time and Man

"When the timeless God comes into the World, he makes an unprecedented incision into time and history, and lays the foundations of a qualitatively different age. The whole of human history was a period of preparation for the coming of Christ." - Georgios I. Mantzaridis from Time and Man

St. Ambrose of Milan

"You are a portrait, O man, a portrait painted by your Lord God. Yours is a good artist and painter. Do not deface the good picture, which reflects not deceit, but truth; which expresses not guile but grace."

Elder Joseph the Hesychast

"When you want to learn the will of God, abandon your own will completely along with every other thought or plan; and, with much humility, ask God in prayer for His understanding." - Blessed Elder Joseph the Hesychast (+1959)

St. Isaac of Syria

"The heart of the Lord is directed towards the humble, to benefit them. The face of the Lord is set against the proud, so as to humble them. Humility receives compassion continuously, whereas a hard heart and absence of faith continually meet with endless difficulties."

St. Silouan of Mount Athos

"The soul of a humble man is like the sea: throw a stone into the sea...for a moment it will ruffle the surface a little, and then sink to the bottom. Thus do afflictions disappear down into the heart of the humble man, because the strength of the Lord is with him."

"To know God we have no need of riches. We need only love our neighbor and be lowly in spirit, sober, and obedient; and for these virtues te Lord allows us to know Him. Could anything in this world be more precious than this knowledge?"

Blessed Euphemia of Serbia

This isn't an exact quote, but I found this note scrawled somewhere (and I no longer have the book) and wanted to pass them along. The words are different, but the essence is the same. I thought them important enough to post eventhough they aren't exact.

Wise words from the Serbian abbess:

"Always be vigilant with your thoughts, don't make rash decisions because while a mistake can be made in an instant, it is only corrected over a long period of time with great toil and repentance."

(from Blessed Euphemia of Serbia, translated by Joachim Wertz, published by St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood)

Archimandrite Sophrony

"He who believes in Christ believes in his own divinization. Belief or disbelief depends on an elevated or depreciated conception of man."

"The Church is designed not to enslave her members by imposing any kind of 'form' by disciplinary means, but to lead her children into the sphere of divine being..."

"If we conform to and become like Christ in His humanity, His earthly manifestations, we become alike to His divinity as well."

(quotes taken from I Love, Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony by Nicholas V. Sakharov)

2005 Holy Week & Pascha Photos

Icon of the Resurrection decorated for Pascha:


(image courtesty of Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

Jerusalem:



Constantinople:



Sofia:



Belgrade:



Sarajevo:



Palma de Mallorca, Spain:



Kiev:



Bishkek, Krygyzstan:



Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM):



Bucharest:



Jordanville, New York:



Pascha fireworks from Greece:



Shooting off "Pascha rockets" in Chios, Greece



Moscow:

OPTINA ELDERS ON HUMILITY

St. Barsanuphius of Optina

"In order to enter the Kingdom you must first of all be humble. How do you receive humility? How do you learn this great art? We must implore the Lord to bestow this gift on us. In one of the evening prayers we read: 'Lord, grant me humility, chastity and obedience.'" - St. Barsanuphius


St. Ambrose of Optina

"If someone offends you, don't tell anyone about it except your elder, and you will be peaceful. Bow to everyone, paying no attention whether they respond to your bow or not. You must humble yourself before everyone and consider yourself the worst of all. If we have not committed the sins that others have, perhaps this is because we did not have the opportunity - the situation and circumstances were different. In each person there is something good and something bad; we usually see only the vices in people and we see nothing that is good." - St. Ambrose


St. Joseph of Optina

"One must not argue, for an argument can sometimes cause great unpleasantness. It has been said: 'He is great before God who behaves humbly towards his neighbor, and God will exhalt the humble, but the proud and argumentative God will humble.' One must reproach only himself for his own faults, and not his neighbor." - St. Joseph of Optina


St. Macarius of Optina

"Be peaceful and strong, and courageous in your spiritual battles, and not fainthearted. A powerful weapon against the enemy is self-reproach and humility, and therefore it is difficult. It destroys all of his powers and he opposes it. Experience will demonstrate its benefit." - St. Macarius of Optina

These excerpts were taken from Orthodox Life magazine, which is published bi-monthly by the Brotherhood of Saint Job of Pochaev at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York. Subscriptions to Orthodox Life can be purchased for $18 for one year, $30 for two years, $45 for three years.

Order from:

Holy Trinity Monastery
P.O. Box 36
Jordanville, NY 13361-0036

email of the publication: Orthlife@telenet.net

Archbishop Seraphim of Ottawa on the Death Penalty

I am saddened whenever I hear Orthodox Christians defend capital punishment, even though I know that there are, were, and always will be various and opposing opinions in our Church, and that these opinions may be justifiable within their own systems of logic.

I cannot square capital punishment with any of my Christian experience. The Old Testament may be quoted, but I do not see it in the New. I cannot square it with the introduction to the Ten Commandments. I cannot square it with the Gospel. I cannot square it with the words of the “Our Father.” I cannot square it with “The Beatitudes.” I cannot square it with my knowledge of our canonical tradition. I cannot square it with my knowledge of the teaching of the Fathers. I can not square it with my reading of any one of our saints. And most certainly I cannot square it with the teaching of Saint Silouan, that the real test of a Christian is being able to forgive one’s enemies.

Since we Christians stand for repentance, and are called to live this daily, it is perhaps our responsibility to help the persons incarcerated for serious crimes to move in that direction also.

Perhaps we Orthodox Christians should at last take seriously our call to visit those in prison, to become qualified for a prison ministry, even, and to bring some hope, consolation, and witness of something better to these persons who otherwise could well die without knowing anything else except misery.

We always say “Talk is cheap.” Perhaps it’s time we proved we are Christians by doing something instead of philosophizing.

+ Seraphim
Bishop of Ottawa and Canada


Letter originally published in the Orthodox Church in America's publication, The Orthodox Church, January 1999

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the Environment

His All Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch is the 270th successor of the 2,000 year-old local Christian Church founded by St. Andrew the Apostle. The Patriarchate of Constantinople is considered "the first amongst equals" of the heads of the 15 autocephalous and four autonomous Orthodox Churches in the world. These 19 churches are one body united in belief and communion, but have different administrative and spiritual heads while comprising one Church.

His All Holiness, since his enthronement in 1991, has been a staunch defender of the environment. He, along with Patriarch Demetrios before him established September 1st as the day on the liturgical calendar for Orthodox Christians to pray for the environment. His All Holiness stresses that the natural environment is God's creation, and therefore worthy of defense and protection by Christians. He's been an important international leader in ecological issues. Links to his various ecological activities can be found here.

The following is an excerpt from Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch, Bartholomew I by Fr. John Chryssavgis:

"On a number of occasions in the ecclesiastical year the Church prays that God will protect humanity from natural catastrophes: earthquakes, storms, famine and floods. But today we see the reverse. On September 1st, the day devoted to God's handiwork, the Church implores the Creator to protect nature from calamities of human origin, calamities such as pollution, war, exploitation, waste and secularism. It may seem strangely paradoxical that the body of believers, acting vicariously for nature, beseeches God for protection against itself, its own actions. But from this perspective the Church, in its wisdom, brings before our eyes a message of deep significance, one which touches upon the central problems of fallen humanity and its restoration. This is the problem of the polarization of individual sin against collective responsibility.

Scripture tells us that if one member of the body is infirm, the entire body is also affected (1 Cor. 12:26). There is, after all, solidarity in the human race because, being made in the image of the Trinitarian God, human beings are interdependent and co-inherent. No man is an island. We are 'members of each other' (Eph. 4:25) and so any action, performed by any member of the human race, inevitably affects all other members. Consequently, no one falls alone and no one is saved alone. According to Dostoevsky's Starets Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, we are each of us responsible for everyone and everything.

How does this central problem relate to the matter of protecting the environment against mankind's actions? It has become painfully apparent that humanity, both individually and collectively, no longer perceives the natural order as a sign and a sacrament of God but rather as an object of exploitation. There is no one that is not guilty of disrespecting nature, for to respect nature is to recognize that all creatures and objects have a unique place in God's creation. When we become sensitive to God's world around us, we grow more conscious also of God's world within us. Beginning to see nature as a work of God, we begin to see our own place as human beings within nature. The true appreciation of any object is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary."

I will post more excerpts from this book as I read it.

Fr. Seraphim of Platina

Fr. Seraphim (Rose) of Platina, California was an American convert to Orthodoxy. After abandoning his protestant upbringing and exploring eastern religion (he even assisted in a traslation of the Tao Te Ching before becoming Orthodox) he found Holy Orthodoxy and converted in the 1960s. He quickly abandonded life in the world, became a monastic, co-founded the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in northern California (in Platina), lived a life of asceticism, poverty, and prayer and also spent much of his time publishing books and magazines. He co-founded The Orthodox Word magazine in the 1960s with the blessing of St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco. Fr. Seraphim is widely loved and revered throughout the Orthodox world, particularly in the United States and Russia. He died in 1982.

Here are some excerpts from his writings about mankind's true needs:

"Man hungers after what is more than himself, what is more than the world; it is man's hunger for God, to be a partaker of His nature, that ruins all attempts to make him satisfied with less. And this hunger is so central to man that it manifests itself today most evidentally in spite of the fact that men have lost awareness of it. In fact, the 'irrational' character of so much of contemporary history is a result precisely of this unawareness on man's part of what he truly desires."

"Our age has been taught to believe in nothing higher than the human mind, and in the ideas of that mind; that is why the conflicts of our day are 'ideological,' and why Truth is not in them. For Truth is only in living communion with living Truth, Christ; apart from Him there is no life, no Truth."

(Excerpts taken from Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, by Hieromonk Damascene.)

Site Purpose

I'm an Orthodox Christian and read a lot of books of Orthodox history, spirituality and check a lot of sites for Orthodox related news, etc. Just figured it would be good to pass along some excerpts from my readings and to post news for both Orthodox people and those that are curious. Enjoy.