A Little Light and the Darkness will become Heaven
Protopresbyter Themistoklis Mourtzanos Our secularized age aims at involving us in the pleasures of consumerism. It has even turned religion into a consumer item. This is why the latter has been restricted in its functions to customs, symbols and metaphysics. Society doesn’t understand, and doesn’t want to understand, that...
From the Post-Modern Persona to the Person
Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopaidi Monastery The theology of the person, as this is revealed in the hesychast ascetic tradition, is the most significant counter-argument to post-modern individualism and relativism. The ascetics of introversion and of conscious tranquillity (hesychia) is not a psychological proposition but the authentic and...
Questions and Answers for the Article “The Tension of Hesychia”
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou All the inspiration to attain the Kingdom of Heaven comes from the awareness of our spiritual poverty, which helps us humble our spirit and depend our life on Him Who is able to save us. In the crisis we are now going through, we perceive the...
The Tension of Hesychia (Stillness)
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou The period we are now going through is characterised by the silent expectation of the greatest event under the sun, the coming in the Flesh of the Saviour God on earth. All the great events of God’s dealings with man, which are recorded in sacred history,...
We don’t shoot the darkness…
Protopresbyter Georgios Dorbarakis ‘We don’t shoot the darkness; we just turn the light on’ (Saint Porfyrios Kavsokalyvitis) The great contemporary saint and much-loved Elder Porfyrios is talking about an ordinary experience: if we want to get out of the dark, we don’t take violent action, such as taking potshots at...
‘Keep Thy Mind in Hell and in Me’
Archimandrite Peter, Abbot of Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex UK Saint Symeon the New Theologian says that we do not benefit from the ‘glamorous’ way in which we celebrate a feast in the Church. Even if we bring down all the stars from heaven to adorn the...
The Road to the Interior
Vasileios Tatakis Gregory of Nyssa has this to say about human nature: ‘But because we are poor in the good, our nature always impels us towards the deficiency, and the appetitive disposition of our nature is to seek what is lacking’ (PG, On the...
Simplicity and Goodness
Saint Porfyrios Kavsolkalyvitis Whatever your good side does, make sure your bad side doesn’t get to hear of it. ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right is doing’. ‘Left’ here is the opposite side of us and if it gets to know what’s going on it’ll...
Five Ways to Repent
Elder Moses the Athonite † Saint John Chrysostom shows us five practical ways to repent. He says: The first way is to condemn yourself for your sins. The Lord esteems this action greatly. If, of your own volition, you condemn your sins, you’re less likely to repeat them. No...
Spiritual Adultery
Elder Aimilianos Simonopetritis † A thought, that is, a wish, a desire or a recollection which crosses swords with the spirit, is an illegitimate child. It’s not from God, nor from my spirit which is kin to and unites with the Father. Distraction of the nous is adultery. It’s...
