A spiritual climate

… man's cure is found not just in some psychological support and some individualistic practice, but first and foremost in man's journey from isolated individuality towards a personal relationship. This is a journey from self-love to love of both God and man, from self-seeking love to self-denying love. It is precisely for this reason that cure takes place within a particular spiritual climate.
Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos

The wiles of the wicked one

Spiritists of our day accept every manifestation from the spiritual world as though sent by God, and immediately they boast that God has been "revealed" to them. I knew an eighty year old monk whom everyone respected as a great spiritual director. To my question: "Have you ever in your life seen anything from the spiritual world?", the monk answered me, "No, never, praise be to God's Mercy." Seeing that I was astonished at this, he said, "I have constantly prayed to God that nothing appear to me, so that, by chance, I would not succumb to pride and receive a fallen devil as an angel. Thus far, God has heard my prayers." This recorded example shows how humble and cautious the elders were. The devil, clothed in the light of an angel, appeared to a certain monk and said to him: "I am the Archangel Gabriel and I am sent to you." To that, the brother responded, "Think! Were you not sent to someone else, for I am not worthy to see an angel?" The devil instantly became invisible and vanished.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

A thief in the night...

Let us make preparation, my brethren, for the clouds are gathering and the divine lightning may descend from them at any time.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On progress

O marvelous progress! O sage progress! O progress drawing one near to the bottom of hell!—And what of the progress of living, heartfelt faith? what of the progress of Christian love? …Christian love not only in the most basic, immediate sense, but also the kind that fills the glaring, horrifying needs of others who do not even have their daily bread, their necessary clothing and their shelter? Where are you, true progress? They have forgotten you, they have stolen your name away from you and applied it instead to this monstrous, satanic progress!
St. John of Kronstadt

On "extra-Scriptural" terms

The Holy Fathers of the Church did not hesitate to use terms which did not exist in the Holy Scripture in order to express the truth which the Church possesses. For example the Fathers of the 4th century applied the term "co-essential" (of one essence) to Christ and said that Christ is of one essence with the Father.
Met. Hierotheos Vlachos

Who is so great as our God?

It is in creatures—beings created from nothing by the divine will, limited and subject to change—that the infinite and eternal energies abide, making the greatness of God to shine forth in all things, and appearing beyond all things as the divine light which the created world cannot contain.
Vladimir Lossky

That Divine truth would permeate

…consciousness of the Divine is equally compatible with all stages of rational development. But, in order that Divine truth might permeate, enliven, and guide man’s intellectual life, it must subordinate external reason to itself and dominate it, not remain outside its sphere of action. Divine truth must stand above other truths in the general consciousness as the sovereign principle pervading all culture.
Ivan Kireevsky

The contemplation of love

For if reason is not associated with being, then being is not associated with reason, is alogical. Illusionism and all kinds of nihilism, which end in flaccid and pitiful skepticism, are then inevitable. The only way out of this quagmire of relativity and conditionality is the recognition that reason is associated with being and that being is associated with reason. And if that is the case, the act of knowing is not only a gnoseological but also an ontological act, not only ideal but also real. Knowing is a real going of the knower out of himself, or (what is the same thing) a real going of what is known into the knower, a real unification of the knower and what is known. … Considered within me (according to the mode “I”), “in itself,” this “entering into” is knowledge. “For another” (according to the mode “Thou”), it is love. Finally, “for me,” as objectifies and objective (i.e., according to the mode “He”), it is beauty. In other words, perceived in me by another, my knowledge of God is love of the one who perceives. Contemplated objectively, by a third, love of another is beauty.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Books galore

So it seems pretty cool to put a reading list on one's blog...so I want to be in the cool club so I've added a reading list. This way as well you, my dear readers, can see where I'm getting all these crazy ideas.

Ceaseless agitation

Every day, in her ceaseless agitation, the West declares her own thoughts to be lies and exchanges the old lie for a new one, or exchanges its own old scandals for new ones.
Aleksey Khomiakov

True in 1845 true in 2006.

The good of the nation

'...I am going to steal this book from here because this is an institution, and tomorrow you and I will go to any office and say that we are workers and peasants. You and I will sit down in some administrative office and start thinking for the good of the nation.'
...
'We are members of the working class,' Peter said to the highest official. 'We have an accumulation of brains, give us power over the oppressive bureaucratic bastards.'
Andrei Platonov’s Makar the Doubful

Matt's good deed for the week: he returned this sweet bling found on the train to it's rightful owner and conquered the urge to keep it for himself. Way to go Matt! I don't know if I could resist sweet bling like this!

The struggle of philosophy

Although engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the falsehood of pagan mythology, Christianity did not destroy pagan philosophy; rather it took it and transformed it in accordance with its own superior knowledge. The brightest lights of the Church — Justin, Clement, Origen (insofar as he was Orthodox), Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and most of the great Holy Fathers upon whose work, so to speak, Christian teaching became established in the midst of a pagan culture — not only were thoroughly versed in ancient philosophy, but utilised it for the rational construction of the first Christian gnosiology, which combined the development of science and reason into an all-embracing vision of faith.
Ivan Kireevsky

An impersonal number?

...on the anthropological level one may surmise that if the divine Persons are such interchangeable identical units, then the human person made in the image
and likeness of God also becomes an interchangeable and thus dispensable, expendable unit - an impersonal number.
Philip Zymaris

The important issues...

‘Excuse me,” began Andrei Fokich, stunned by this sudden attack, ‘but I didn’t come about that, the sturgeon’s not the issue.’

‘How can it not be the issue if it’s spoiled?’

‘They sent us sturgeon that’s second-grade fresh,’ said the bartender.

‘Dear fellow, that’s absurd!’

‘What’s absurd?’

‘Second-grade fresh—that’s absurd!’ Freshness comes in only one grade—first-grade, and that’s it. And if the sturgeon’s second-grade fresh, that means it’s rotten!’

‘Excuse me,’ the bartender said once again, not knowing how to escape the artiste’s tongue lashing.

‘I cannot excuse you,’ the latter said firmly.

Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita

Seeker sensitivity

… there is, in our days, such an abundance of those who are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 3:7). A new sport has been created, if we may call it that, a sport of "god-seeking." "God-seeking" has become the goal in itself and if their efforts were ever crowned with success, they would feel themselves highly unfortunate and immediately turn, with their former zeal, from "god-seeking" to "god-fighting" (i.e., theomachism).
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Foundations

The Saint receives and passes on not an abstract teaching about God -of course, he may do this as well in the beginning- but, first and foremost, he passes on the way-method by which we attain to communion with God. I believe that the basic point which distinguishes Orthodox tradition from any other is the method through which man is cured. The background of the dogmas, of Orthodox arts, of social work, etc. is purification, illumination and theosis.
Met. Hierotheos Vlachos

Insidious self-esteem

Self-esteem is so deeply rooted in us and so firmly enmeshed in us, making us think that we are something, and something not unimportant, that it always hides in our heart as a subtle and imperceptible movement, even when we are sure that we do not trust ourselves and are, on the contrary, filled with complete trust in God alone. In order to avoid this conceit of the heart and act without any self-reliance, led only by your trust in God, take care always to preserve an attitude in which the consciousness and feeling of your weakness always precede in you the contemplation of God's omnipotence, and let both alike precede your every action.
St. Theophan the Recluse, et al.

Of cosmology

…the cosmology of revelation is necessarily geocentric…copernican cosmology, from a psychological or rather spiritual point of view, corresponds to a state of religious dispersion or off-centredness, a relaxation of the soteriological attitude, such as is found in the gnostics or the occult religions. The spirit of the insatiable thirst for knowledge, the restless spirit of Faust, turning to the cosmos breaks through the constricting limits of the heavenly spheres to launch out into infinite space; where it becomes lost in the search for some synthetic understanding of the universe, for its own understanding, external and limited to the domain of becoming, can only grasp the whole under the aspect of disintegration which corresponds to the condition of our nature since the fall.
Vladimir Lossky

Hunger and want

…in those days there were universities and academies in all the districts because the people wanted to advance their knowledge as quickly as they could; like hunger and want, the senselessness of life had tormented the human heart too long, and it was high time to find out what the existence of men was all about, was it something serious, or a joke?
Andrei Platonov. The Potudan River.

Enemies of sound doctrine

The one aim of the whole band of these enemies of sound doctrine is to shake the faith of Christ down to its foundations, by utterly levelling apostolic tradition to the ground. They clamor for written proofs and reject the unwritten testimony of the Fathers as worthless, proving themselves worse than debtors who refuse to pay what they owe when there is no written evidence of the loan.
St. Basil the Great

The source of all Christological heresy

No one can speak the truth about the Lord who judges Him only with their eyes. That which the eyes can see of Him is but a small veil behind which is hidden the eternal mysteries of heaven and the greatest mysteries of time and of earth. In order to see that which is hidden in Him, behind the physical veil, one must have spiritual vision, which is the Spirit of God in one's heart, the Spirit Who draws back the veil and reveals the mysteries.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The task of modern Cross bearers

In times past, when heresies prevailed, many chose death through martyrdom and various tortures. Now, when we through the grace of Christ live in a time of profound and perfect peace, we learn for sure that cross and death consist in nothing else that the complete mortification of self-will. He who pursues his own will, however slightly will never be able to observe the precepts of Christ the Saviour.
St Symeon the New Theologian

On "dialogue"

For the Saints, the truth was not an object of research. They did not negotiate it; they merely offered it. If the dialogue did not lead the heterodox to the rejection of their mistaken belief and acceptance of Orthodox faith, they did not continue it.
Holy Monastery of the Paraclete

The coherence of knowledge

…the lovers of God are not simpletons because they know God well enough that they are able to love Him. Of all human knowledge, this knowledge is more important and greater. To this must be added that the enemies of God cannot be more knowledgeable, even though they consider themselves as such, because their knowledge is unavoidably chaotic, for it does not have a source and does not have order. For the source and order of all knowledge is God.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

A reminder to the "educators"

1. Man is a being who can be perfected and completed in the most ideal and real way by the God-man and in the God-man.

2. The perfection of man by the God-man takes place with the help of the evangelical witnesses.

3. The illuminated and educated man sees in every man his immortal and eternal brother.

4. Every human work and action—philosophy, science, geography, art, education, culture, manual labor, etc.—receives its eternal value when it is sanctified and receives meaning from the God-man.

5. True enlightenment and education is accomplished through a holy life according to the gospel of Christ.

6. The saints are the most perfect illuminators and educators; the more holy a man is the better an educator and illuminator he becomes.

7. School is the second half of the heart of the God-man; the first is the Church.

8. At the center of all centers and of all ideas and labors stands the God-man Christ and His theanthropic society, the Church.
St. Justin (Popovic)

A lenten reminder

You have to be tired in church. It is the least you can do for Jesus Christ; He died on the Cross for us.
Fr. Roman Braga

Knowledge according to love

For if reason is not associated with being, then being is not associated with reason, is alogical. Illusionism and all kinds of nihilism, which end in flaccid and pitiful skepticism, are then inevitable. The only way out of this quagmire of relativity and conditionality is the recognition that reason is associated with being and that being is associated with reason. And if that is the case, the act of knowing is not only a gnoseological but also an ontological act, not only ideal but also real. Knowing is a real going of the knower out of himself, or (what is the same thing) a real going of what is known into the knower, a real unification of the knower and what is known. … Considered within me (according to the mode 'I'), 'in itself,' this 'entering into' is knowledge. 'For another' (according to the mode 'Thou'), it is love. Finally, 'for me,' as objectifies and objective (i.e., according to the mode 'He'), it is beauty. In other words, perceived in me by another, my knowledge of God is love of the one who perceives. Contemplated objectively, by a third, love of another is beauty.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

The bloom starts in the seed

If Photios is correct and the Filioque is as serious a matter as he claims, then what can we say about Western society, which is historically based on the theology which produced the Filioque?
Philip Zymaris

Shocking evidence

Now...no need to depend on faith! All your questions answered here!

Ah, the refreshing optimism of a socialist

'The revolution is here for good, now it’s all right to have children,' Nikita said. 'There’ll never be unhappy children again.'
The Potudan River - Andrei Platonov

On assimilation

...the assertion that Christianity is founded on the views of the ancient Greek philosophers constitutes a great error, unless we mean by "Christianity" a philosophical-theological system, like that of Thomas Aquinas or some other rationalistic Western theologian. As I emphasized at the beginning of my address, true, Orthodox Christianity is not a work of men and is not based on human conceptions, on human inventions; it is a work of God, a Divine revelation. It took many terms from the ancient philosophers, but assimilated them completely to the essence of the Gospel. These terms did not impede in the past, and do not impede us today, from comprehending this essence—on the contrary, they aid us. As in the past, so also today, the concepts and terms of ancient Greek philosophy assist theology, as well as every science, to express its special content.
Constantine Cavarnos