The Outstanding Traditional Theologian of Orthodoxy: Saint Gregory Palamas
Rafael Ch. Misiaoulis Saint Gregory Palamas occupies a very prominent position in the Church, which is why he’s honoured on the Second Sunday in Lent, immediately after the Sunday of Orthodoxy. In his person we recognize the outstanding teacher of the hesychast life in Christ, a man who continued...
Musings from a Grateful Convert: The Kingdom is in Good Hands
It belongs to the children. During this Great Lent, I have the privilege of chanting during some of the services. Weeknight services are not really well-attended in general, but there is almost always a special visitor. My priest is very young and has a beautiful family, which includes a two-year-old...
Fasting and its Benefits (3)
Saint John of the Ladder 1. As we’re now going to speak of the stomach, we’ve decided again- as with all our themes- to turn our philosophy against ourselves. Because I wonder if anyone has ever been free of it before residing in the grave. 2. Gluttony is hypocrisy...
Great Lent: Spiritual Reform School
I still hear, from time to time (though less frequently), “What are you giving up for Lent”? I’m glad that it is still ‘out there’—the idea that there is a season during which someone might actually abstain from something. Abstinence of any sort is usually trampled upon in our day....
Fasting and its benefits (2)
Who is as strong as a lion, but, for the sake of his stomach falls into a trap and the whole of his strength is brought low? When the fathers in Skete ate bread and salt, they used to say: ‘Let’s not be beholden to bread and salt’. In this...
The Fast and its Benefits (1)
Let us observe an acceptable fast, pleasing to the Lord. A true fast: estrangement from evil, restraint of the tongue, control of anger, abstention from desires, slander, falsehood and perjury. If there is a paucity of these, then our fast is true and acceptable. Apostikho, Vespers, Monday in 1st week...
Thoughts on Great Lent
Metropolitan Ioïl (Frangkakos) of Edessa, Pella, and Almopia In this period, we have two fasts, as we all know. There are about seven weeks of strict fasting, eight if you include the Cheese-fare weekwhich precedes. For a lot of people this is an enjoyable and desirable time, for others...
Loving Others: Be Ye Doers of the Word
In his poem “The Second Coming,” the Irish poet William Butler Yeats describes the post-World War I atmosphere in 1919. His first stanza is not only gripping, it speaks of so much of what we have seen during the past year. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon...
The end of the fast and the ‘air’ of asceticism
Having completed the forty days that bring profit to our soul, we beseech You, in Your love for us: May we behold the Holy Week of Your Passion that in it we may glorify Your majestic works and ineffable dispensation for us, singing with one mind, ‘Lord glory to You’....
Finding the Deep Heart during Great Lent
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou The grace of God has gathered us together today at the heart of Great Lent in order to express to the Lord our longing for His salvation, for the acquisition of the spirit of wisdom and for understanding of His commandments. Holy Scripture, however, warns us:...
