The making of relics

While Orthodox hesychasm appears to be an abstract, unpractical and utopian state, it is in essence very practical, true and realistic, precisely because it speaks of the transformation of man’s body and, of course, of the whole man. Its veracity is seen in the bodies of the saints, which receive the deifying energies of God, and in the relics of the saints, in which the presence of the uncreated deifying energy is manifest. Moreover, the relics manifest the deification of the body as well, and this is proof of the existence of the deifying energy also in the person’s soul. Therefore we can say that a purpose and work of the Church is to make relics.
Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos)

To Live

And I stamped my foot angrily: 'Are you not ashamed, unhappy animal, to whine about your fate? Are you not able to free yourself of subjectivity? Are you not able to forget yourself? Can you not (O shame!) understand that you have to surrender to the objective? The objective, standing outside of you, standing above you, will it not take you over? Unhappy, pitiful, stupid! You whine and complain as if someone is obliged to satisfy your needs. Yes? You cannot live without this and without that? Well, what of it? If you cannot live, then die, let your blood flow out, but live by the objective. Don't descend to contemptible subjectivity, don't seek conditions of life for yourself. Live for God, not for yourself.'
St. Pavel Florensky

Paris...or the modern world

I have formed a definition of Paris, attached an epithet to it, and I stand by that epithet. Namely: this is the most moral and most virtuous city in the whole world. What order! What prudence, what well defined and solidly established relationships; how secure and sharply delineated everything is; how content everyone is; how they struggle to convince themselves that they are content and completely happy; and how in the end, they have struggled to th e point where they really have convinced themselves that they are content and completely happy, and...and...they have stopped at that.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The way of progress

Oh, hateful equality! Oh, base uniformity! Oh, thrice accursed progress!
Oh, the massive, blood-soaked, but picturesque mountain of universal history! Since the end of the last century you have been laboring in torments of new births. And out of your suffering depths merely a mouse crawls out! A self-satisfied caricature of the people of former days is born, the average rational European, in his comic clothes that even the ideal mirror of art cannot reflect, with a small and self-deluded mind, with his creepy, practical good will!
No! Never yet in the history of our times has anybody seen such a monstrous combination of mental pride before God and ethical submission before the ideal of a homogeneous, gray, laboring, and godlessly passionless all-mankind!
Is it possible to love such a mankind?
Should one not, with all the strength of even a Christian soul, hate—not the people who are stupid and have lost their way—but a future of theirs such as this?
Yes, one should! One should! Thrice, one should! For it hath been said, 'Love thy neighbor, and hate his sins!'
Konstantin Leontiev

Fit to size

'The Frenchman has no common sense and would indeed consider it the greatest misfortune to have it.' Fonvizin wrote this sentence in the last century [18th], and, my God, what pleasure he must have taken in writing it! I bet his heart was tickled with delight when he composed it. And, who knows, perhaps all of us since Fonvizin, for three or four generations have read it not without certain relish. Even now wherever they are encountered, all sentences like this, cutting foreigners down to size, contain something irresitibly pleasant for us Russians. Only on a profoundly secret level, of course, sometimes secret even from ourselves.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

I think it is feasible to replace "Russians" with every other nationality on earth, except of course the Humbles of Humbleton...they have no such problem.

The ascent of the flesh

The most shocking thing about him for me was his spiritual indifference. The flesh had gained such an ascendancy over all his mental qualities that one glance at his face was enough to tell you that all that was left in him was a savage desire for physical pleasure, for sexual passion and carnal satisfaction.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Truth seekers

Unbeknownst to almost all this sorry advertisement was posted midway between two wellsprings of True Truth - the Cathedral of the Annunciation and Christ the Saviour.

Time to prepare for the "Holidays"

...here, in this land of the dollar, even on the eve of Christ's Nativity you hear dance music. In America they begin a whole month in advance to decorate shop windows with Christmas decorations, and a month before Christmas day Christmas trees are lit on glittering streetcorners but all of this is only 'business' and nothing else.
Archimandrite Gerasim (Schmaltz)

Basic beliefs

I do not believe in the infallibility of my mind; I do not believe in the infallibility of other minds, even the greatest; all the more, I do not believe in the sinlessness of collective mankind; but in order to live, everyone must believe in something. Let me then believe in the Gospel, as explained by the church, and not otherwise.
Konstantin Leontiev

True environmentalism

Only he who loves God can love the creation which comes from God. To love creation (or anything, for that matter) one must love it as it truly is; and since creation comes from God, one can only love it as from God and cannot help loving God thereby as well. Autonomous reason, however, by beeing out of contact with God, must also be out of contact with concrete reality (which is nothing else than created reality as given by God), and so can only look on things as ideally, as perfect…
Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

On "institutes"

In particular, only true virginity is capable of understanding the whole significance of marriage. A height is measurable only from a height; a mountain grows in the eyes in proportion to the ascent to the opposite peak. In the same way, one can understand the holiness of marriage and its qualitative difference from debauchery only from the height of a chaste consciousness. Only true virginity, a virginity full of grace, understands that marriage is not an 'institution' of civil society but has its origin in God Himself. On the other hand, only a pure marriage, only a conjugal consciousness full of grace, makes it possible to understand the significance of virginity. Only a married man understands that monasticism is not an 'institution' of the ecclesiastical-juridical order but has been established by God Himself, and that monasticism differs qualitatively from the exasperation of the unmarried.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

What's better than a good reputation?

The name of Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European reputation.
Mr. Badger, Bleak House

Biding time

...everyone, not even excluding government personnel, abides for the time being atop superficial information, that is, abides in an enchanted circle of knowledge, premature deductions foisted upon them by the press, precipitate testimony advanced through the deceitful prisms of all their parties, never presented in a true light.
Nikolaj Gogol

The 'emergent' question of the 21st century...

In a word, no.

Peace kills

"For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" (Proverbs 1:32).

Does peace kill? Yes, godless peace kills. Does prosperity destroy? Yes, prosperity without God and contrary to the laws of God can destroy. Simple are they who seek such a peace and they who run after such prosperity are fools. For, in essence, they do not seek peace but rather the sword and are not running after prosperity but rather after destruction. What is the peace of the simple and what is the prosperity of fools? The peace of the simple is physical peace and the prosperity of fools is physical feasting. King Herod wanted such a peace and he was consumed by worms. Jezebel wanted such a prosperity and dogs consumed her.

By what name would we call a man who, in deciding to build a house, thinks that he will place the roof in the air first and afterward erect walls and then lay the foundation of the house? We would call him a simpleton and a fool. Much the same are all those who are attempting to establish peace in the world without interior peace and to establish exterior prosperity for men without interior prosperity. The Christian Faith is the only one which builds from the foundation and the foundation is Christ, a firm and indestructible rock. Thus, the Christian Faith for the peace and prosperity of men builds on Christ. An internal, blessed and joyful peace is built on Christ the Lord and on this peace, external peace is built. So also is true and lasting prosperity. It is still better to say that true peace and true prosperity is like a well-built house and external peace and prosperity are like the external adornments of the house. However, if the adornments fall, the house will stand but if the house is destroyed, will the adornments then hang in the air?

O my brethren, the Christian teaching is the only reasonable teaching about peace and prosperity. All else is madness and foolishness. For, how could the servants build a mansion on the estate of the Master without permission of the Master and without His help?

O Lord, the source of eternal true peace and true prosperity, save us from the peace of the simple and the prosperity of fools.
St. Nikolai (Velimirovic)

The sheep fold

Make thou thy fold with the sheep: flee from the wolves: depart not from the Church.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Theology

...means the word of God. Theology is therefore all or nothing. The whole of nature and of super-nature and subternature is all theology...If the whole of nature is not theology, then theology is nothing or nature is nothing. If the whole of nature does not speak about God, who will believe Isaiah or St. Paul...If the whole of the world around is a wilderness, what can the voice of one prophet crying about God in that wilderness accomplish? If the whole universe does not speak of God, who can without contempt hear the words of one man? ...The publicans and pharisees sought a sign and it was not given them. But our generation seeks...a miracle to believe. 'Show us God,' say many of our contemporaries, 'and we will believe.' But how? Do not these people who despise miracles and do not believe in them demand a greater miracle? ...We must say to them: Show us what is not God!
St. Nikolai (Velimirovic)

The human imagination cannot conceive...

how, in the light of so many different ways of becoming enlightened, the land here is just filled with ignoramuses.
Denis Fonvizin