He was born in Vryoulla or Vourla in Asia Minor. As a seventeen-year-old, he and six other Christians were deceived and converted to Islam. When he appeared before his mother in Turkish clothing, she threw him out, saying: “I gave birth to a Christian, not a Turk”. He left, greatly Read more
Saint Porfyrios Kavsolkalyvitis I’ll tell you another secret now. At night I speak on the telephone to a monk on the Holy Mountain. He studies the Fathers a lot and explains many things to me. We talk about spiritual matters. Crazy, what can I say? … This happened again Read more
Metropolitan of Pisidia Sotirios The most frequently heard exhortation of the Church which the faithful who attend daily Services hear is, “Let us commend ourselves and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.” The Celebrant says this multiple times (as many as ten during Matins and Read more
Fr. Andreas Agathokleous It’s painful and unfair that the Church should appear in the eyes of people today, particularly the young, to be a religion that imposesitself on the insecurities, weaknesses and illusions of people. Or even that it takes away the enjoyment of life, creates guilty feelings and Read more
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou Today’s apostolic reading (2nd Sunday of Matthew) speaks about the theme of judgment and conscience. Our God is a God that ‘trieth the hearts and reins’.[1] The day of Judgment will come as a surprise because the Lord will judge the hidden intents of the heart. Read more
Metropolitan Nikolaos (Hatzinikolaou) of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki In the Gospel readings, we often come across the Apostles invoking the authenticity of their personal witness in order to be convincing: ‘which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have Read more
Vasileios Tatakis, Professor Emeritus A. U. Th. The question of whether Christianity, as a social creed, is conservative or radical makes me wonder if the terms ‘social creed’, ‘conservative’ and ‘radical’ have any meaning as regards Christianity and, if so, what this might be. These terms do have their Read more
Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos In its quality, love is the likeness of God, insofar as this is possible for us, of course. As regards its action, it is inebriation of the soul. As regards its properties, it is the source of faith, a deep well of forbearance and a sea Read more
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou As Saint Silouan says and Saint Sophrony explains, the word of God can resound in the heart of man in unison with prayer. As a result of his fall, man is divided at all levels. He has one thing in his mind, another in his heart Read more
Metropolitan Nikolaos (Hatzinikolaou) of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki Tonight’s talk will try to express something which is difficult to put into words. It will try to give characteristics and parameters to something which, by nature, is not so much describable but more indirectly perceptible, more concealed. It’s something which you Read more
Saint Porfyrios Kavsolkalyvitis Enjoy everything around us. Everything teaches us and brings us to God. Everything around is a drop of God’s love. The animate, the inanimate, plants and animals, birds and mountains, the sea, the sunset and the starry sky. They’re little loves, through which we come to Read more
Ilias Voulgarakis Saint John Chrysostom is almost the only Father of the Church about whom his contemporaries and later generations wrote a significant number of biographies. So far, we have more than eight (Byzantine) biographies. Some of these represent a kind of reworking of an earlier version, though not, Read more