Metropolitan Ioïl (Frangkakos) of Edessa, Pella, and Almopia ‘They saw a man blind from birth’ The curing of the man blind from birth is a terrible rebuke for the Pharisees, who didn’t want to accept the words of Christ. Before this momentous event, Christ had had an extensive dialogue Read more…
Excerpt from a Homily by Saint John Chrysostom If someone’s really knowledgeable about gold mines, they wouldn’t be able to bear not examining the smallest vein for the wealth it contained. So, in the Scriptures, it’s impossible without loss to pass over the merest jot. We must investigate everything since Read more…
Sotiris Stylianou The Gospel extract which is read on 12 March 2023 is from Mark (2, 1-12) and concerns the cure of a paralyzed man in Capernaum. The Lord was teaching in a certain house and so many people had come that there was no room to move. Four Read more…
Elder Ephraim of Arizona † In 1978 when I was at Philotheou Monastery, Father Job passed away. He was a good disciple of mine. Soon afterwards we had an all-night vigil for St. John the Forerunner. I have a soft spot for him, because I was born on his Read more…
Elder Ephraim of Arizona † Geronda loved the sea and trees. That is Geronda why, when I went to Hawaii to hear confessions in 1987, I saw him in a vision in the midst of orange trees. Those orange trees were tall and loaded with oranges and apples. Up Read more…
Hierodeacon Rafael Misiaoulis, Theologian And the crowds marveled, saying, ‘Never was anything like this seen in Israel’ (Matth.. 9, 33). In today’s Gospel reading, mention is made of two miracles performed by Our Lord Jesus Christ. One is the cure of the two blind men and the other the Read more…
Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis Saint Sophrony in Essex said that we still have not a few ascetics (whom the Lord has hidden) who don’t perform obvious miracles, though great miracles occur every day in their souls, unobserved by most people. One such miracle is when the soul leans towards pride, Read more…
Saint Nicholas Velimirovich ‘And his disciples asked him: “Teacher, who is to blame, him or his parents, that he was born blind’” (Jn. 9, 2). A short time before, the Lord had cured the paralytic at the pool of the Sheep’s Gate and had told him: ‘Go and sin Read more…
Ioannis Karavidopoulos, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Hermeneutics, A. U. Th. The subject of the narrative in the Gospel of Saint John (5, 1) concerning the complaint of the man who’d been paralyzed for 38 years, is genuinely moving: ‘I have no-one to put me into the pool when Read more…
Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos ‘Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the waters to be moved’. One of the factors of human existence, which often constitutes a trap Read more…