Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou †   The immediate fruit of God’s love is the love of the image of God, that of people and all God’s creatures. Through years of ascetic effort, monastics acquire a ‘merciful heart’, which loves as God does. According to...

Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou †   Only the heart of a person who is continuously being cleansed by repentance from egotism, selfishness and the passions can really love God and other people. Egotism and love are irreconcilable. It’s often the case that egotism believes...

Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou †   The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is glad tidings [Gospel= gōd ‘good’ + spel news], because it brings into the world not only a new teaching, but a new life to replace the old one. The old...

    Watch Now. Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta, at his exclusive interview to Pemptousia, speaks on the benefit of the monasticism to the Church and to the society. Watch the second part of the interview: The person of the Mother of God in the Life of the Church Source: pemptousia.com ABOUT THE...

George Mantzaridis, Professor Emeritus, Theological School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki   Apart from marriage, which is the natural way of life for us humans, there’s also celibacy as a way of life beyond what’s natural. In the New Testament and the Patristic tradition, celibacy is declared to be superior to...

Based on the teaching of the Eastern Church Founders, Bishop of Nafpaktos, Hierotheos shares thoughts on marriage and monastic life.  Love is the ultimate goal of both, “both are compared to and directed to God’s love.”    Most young people don’t know how to discover their calling in the life. Whether to...

And so, thus it was that those blessed and hallowed monastics of Celtic lands modeled forth certain principles that we can still see, study, understand, and imitate today. The Celts were masters of Christian simplicity. Nowadays there is a movement in our culture to recover some simple basics, but the...

“Other monks and nuns lived out their days alone….in small wood-and-mud huts; they kept a cow or two, and accepted gladly the gifts of an occasional loaf or basket of vegetables from local farmers. The desire for a solitary life and time to spend simply yearning for God…must have drifted...

By Hieromonk Ambrose Prayer of St. Columban of Iona “Kindle in our hearts, O God, The flame of that love which never ceases, That it may burn in us, giving light to others. May we shine forever in Thy holy temple, Set on fire with Thy eternal light, Even Thy...

As a member of the university community in the United States, Dr. Kyriakos Markides felt he had become secularized by his training. In this interview with Fr. Chris, he shares his yearning for something meaningful and how this lead him back to his Orthodox faith. Dr. Markides also recounts how...

In this episode of Our Life in Christ and in America, Bill Hinkle interviews Fr. Peter Heers, an American priest serving as the rector of St. Elias the Prophet Orthodox Church in Thessaloniki, Greece. Fr. Heers shares his perspectives on his ministry there, as well as the importance of monasticism...

There’s a popular belief about how monasticism came about, which tends to give Saint Basil the Great a lot more credit than he’d probably be comfortable with. It goes something like this: After Saints Antony and Pachomius had more or less invented monasticism in Egypt, it went, as we’d say...