Apropos to the feast of St. Nicholas the Fool for Christ

'Fools for Christ' were distinguished by rare fearlessness. Blessed Nicholas ran throughout the streets of Pskov pretending insanity rebuking the people for their hidden, sins and prophesying that which will befall them. When Ivan the Terrible entered Pskov, the entire town was in fear and terror of the Terrible Tsar. As a welcome to the Tsar, bread and salt was placed in front of every home but the people did not appear. When the mayor of the town presented the Tsar with bread and salt on a tray before the church, the Tsar pushed the tray away and the bread and salt fell to the ground. At that time, Blessed Nicholas appeared before the Tsar in a long shirt tied with a rope, hopping around on a cane as a child and then cried out: 'Ivanuska, Ivanuska, eat bread and salt and not human blood.' The soldiers rushed out to catch him but he fled and hid. The Tsar learning about this Blessed Nicholas, who and what he is, visited him in his scant living quarters. It was the first week of the Honorable Fast [The First Week of Lent]. Upon hearing that the Tsar was coming to visit him, Nicholas found a piece of raw meat and when the Tsar entered his living quarters, he bowed and offered the meat to the Tsar. 'Eat Ivanusha, eat!' Angrily, the Terrible Tsar replied: 'I am a Christian and I do not eat meat during the Fast Season.' Then the man of God quickly responded to him: 'But you do even worse: you feed on men's flesh and blood, forgetting not only Lent but also God!' This lesson entered profoundly into the heart of Tsar Ivan and he, ashamed, immediately departed Pskov where he had intended to perpetrate a great massacre.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The offerings of the educated

...what does our educated society have to offer, they who so love to make free and self-confident judgements concerning every question and contemporary event? -- Nothing but a market-place, where every kind of cheap liberal idea and opinion is offered and exchanged... Someone must open the eyes of these careless and blinded people, who are going to their destruction and drawing after them a great people!
Archbishop Amvrossy of Kharkov

The destruction of satan and the "invisible church"

An abstract federation of communities whereby each body is a member of a more general body reduces the Eucharist to a secondary position and makes possible the heretical idea that there is a membership in the body of Christ higher and more profound than the corporate life of local love for real people and thus the whole meaning of the incarnation of God and the destruction of Satan in a certain place and at a certain time in history is destroyed.
Fr. John Romanides

The ark of holy things

Those who know and accept and believe the prophetic visions, as the Divine himself gave them shape and form, which the chorus of prophets behold and explain; and who, strengthened by the written and unwritten tradition of the Apostles, continuing to the Fathers, therefore express holy things in images and honour them:
May their memory be eternal!
Synodikon of Orthodoxy

I believe...in one, holy, universal, and apostolic Church.
Wayfarers, behold the ark! When the flood came, Noah was saved in a secure ark. The flood of madness and sin continues incessantly. Therefore, the Lover of Mankind constructed the ark of salvation. Ask for His ark, and you will soon be entering it.
Do not let yourselves be led astray by the multitude of variegated vessels, decorated and adorned on the outside. Ask about the power of the engine and about the skill of the captain. The most powerful engine and the most skillful helmsman are to be found in the ark of Christ. This is the all-seeing, all-powerful, Holy Spirit himself.
Neither let yourselves be led astray by those who invite you into their tiny and new rowboats, or those who offer you private rowboats just for yourselves. The journey is distant and the storms are dangerous.
Neither let yourselves be led astray by those who say that on the other side of the ocean there is no new land, no new world, and that there is no reason to prepare for a distant voyage. They invite you to go fishing on the shore. To such a little extent do they see or know. Truly, they are setting out for destruction, and are inviting you to destruction as well.
Do not allow yourselves to be deceived, but rather ask about His ark. Even though it may be less dazzling to the eyes than others, nevertheless it is strong and secure. Even though it does not have many variegated banners, except the sign of the cross, know that your life is safe aboard it. And on a sea voyage the first and primary concern should be that the life of the passenger is safe.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Grant it, O Lord

I have no tears, no repentance, no compunction -- my God and Savior, grant these to me!
St. Andrew of Crete

What is that blessed day? It is the day of self-judgement. When that day dawns, the man who has condemned the whole world until then will at once come to regard himself as the greatest stain on the whole of God’s earth. He will be ashamed before God; he will be ashamed before every man and before everything that God has created on earth. And this shame will begin to burn him like fire. And he will then acknowledge and confess: 'Truly I am the greatest stain on God’s earth. Truly, are all other men not better than I am? …O Lord, Lord, have pity on me a sinner and rescue me from the mire of my sins, that I may so much as begin to resemble Your creation.' My brother, do not expect that blessed day of repentance to come of itself. Take firm hold on yourself the first day that it comes to meet you, and say: 'You are the blessed day on which I shall purchase life eternal!'
St Nikolai (Velimirovic)

Nail my flesh

Let us crucify our member through abstinence; and as it is written, let us be vigilant in prayer, living after the example of Him who suffered; by His passion, putting to death the passions.
Irmos of Matins, Wednesday, First week of Lent

Nail my flesh with the fear of you, O Christ, Who nailed the sin of Adam to the cross. Loose me from the bonds of wickedness, shatter the arrows of the evil one with Your Lance, Master, and deliver me from all his mischief.
Irmos of Matins, Wednesday, First week of Lent

Beloved, our condition needs much endurance; and endurance is produced when doctrines are deeply rooted. ...the soul which is nailed by the fear of God none will be able to overturn. ... Thus the Prophet prayeth, saying, "Nail my flesh by Thy fear" (Ps. 118: 120, LXX.); "do Thou so fix and join me, as by a nail riveted into me." For as men of this kind are hard to be captured, so the opposite sort are a ready prey, and are easily thrown down.
St. John Chrysostom

The light-giving season

Lord, You have consecrated and given us this light-giving season of abstinence, enable us all to pass through it in compunction and sincerity, living in peace by the power of the Cross, only Lover of mankind!
Hymn of Matins, Wednesday, First week of Lent

Spiritual meat

The season of repentance is at hand: show the fruits of abstinence, O my soul! Consider those who repented in the past and cry aloud to Christ: I have sinned, O Loving Master; save me, as You saved the Publican who sighed with sorrow from his heart, for You alone are rich in Mercy!
Hymn of Matins, Tuesday, first week of Lent

Restrain yourself, soul, from harmful passions, from hate and envy and from every evil. Be nourished in the fast with the spiritual meat from Heaven, which is the Word of God.
Irmos of Matins, Tuesday, first week of Lent

As the Lord killed the enemy by fasting, so let us also come to destroy his arrows and spears, saying: get behind me Satan! When he comes to tempt us.
Irmos of Matins, Tuesday, first week of Lent

Apropos to the first day of the Great Fast

For eating is also a matter of habit.
Abba Dorotheos

This is the time of repentance. This is the day of salvation. This is the beginning of the fast. Be vigilant, my soul! Close the door of your passions and seek the Lord.

Let us present a good fast, well-pleasing to the Lord! A true fast is alienation from the evil one; the holding of one's tongue, the laying aside of all anger, the removal of all sensuality, of accusation, falsehood and sins of swearing. The weakening of these will make the fast true and well-pleasing.

The principle of Christianity

People who deny the Church constantly speak about 'evangelical principles,' about evangelical teaching; but Christianity as life is completely alien to them . . .
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Five year plan x2

I know you've all been eagerly awaiting an update on the actions of famed new ecumenical group CCT so I will not disappoint... Having just concluded their "celebration" of formation last week they could not fail to release some "objectives" towards which all "Christians and all people" need to strive.

Being not quite as ambitious as Stalin they will expand their plan from 5 years to 10, but no bother. Before laying out these objectives we must first get you in the "spirit" and remind you that "The Gospel and our ethical principles place our service of the poor and vulnerable and our work for justice at the center of Christian life and witness." (As if stating that "justice's" foundation is in the Gospel isn't enough they have to invoke those ambiguous "ethical principles".) Let's see what St. Isaac the Syrian says about this so-called "justice" talked of in the Gospels, "how can you call God just when you come to the passage about the laborers' wages [Matt. 20:1-16] Where is God's justice? ...Do not call God just, for His justice is not made known in your affairs ...He is good, as He says, to the evil and the ungodly."

Laying aside the fact that the center of the Christian life is actually the Eucharist we'll proceed. Next, to inspire your sense of "justice" some cheerleader phrases and lofty goals would be good, "...we can, we must, do more. Our goal must be the elimination of poverty in this land." I can almost hear Stalin's 1925 era voice through the crackly speaker perched high above red square...

Lest you forget who is calling you to action I will remind you that they are "representatives of almost all the families in Christianity in the United States: Evangelicals/Pentecostals, Catholics, Racial/Ethnic, Orthodox and Historic Protestants." (Grammatical correctness aside, if I had a bad dream and were the "ecumenical officer" from the Orthodox Church present when this was written I think I would have objected to being called an Orthodox Protestant.)

And don't forget kids, in 10 short years you'll be poverty free!

[Edit: See superb article here.]

The Artisan

But what kind of artist on earth can be compared to Christ the Artist, who from illiterate men creates wise men, who from fishermen creates apostles, who from cowards creates heroes, who from the immoral creates saints?
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The virtue of gluttony

Christianity is food and drink. And the more one eats of it, the more the mind is stimulated by the sweetness; it is uncontrollable and insatiate, insatiably asking for more eating
St. Macarius the Great

The word of Christ

...what does it mean, brethren, to keep the word of Christ within ourselves? That means; First: to keep the word of Christ in our mind, thinking about it; Second: to keep the word of Christ in our heart, loving it; Third: to keep the word of Christ in our will, fulfilling it in deeds; Fourth: to keep the word of Christ on our tongue, openly confessing it when it is necessary to do so. Thus, to keep the word of Christ means to fill ourselves with it and to fulfill it. Whoever would keep the word of Christ in this manner, truly, he will never taste of death.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirivic)

Outward resemblances

All that can be said in regard to the platonism of the Fathers, and especially in regard to the dependence of the author of the Areopagitica on the neo-platonist philosophers, is limited to outward resemblances which do not go to the root of their teaching, and relate only to a vocabulary which was common to the age.
Vladimir Lossky

May we in like manner speak of the "Western captivity" of Orthodoxy? I think so.

In preparation for Great Lent

Today is celebrated the memory of St. Theodora who after the death of her iconoclast husband restored the veneration of icons in 842. Of course this is where the feast we celebrate in two weeks, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, originates. Today's commemorations also "happen" to coincide with the Sunday of the last judgment reminding us that those who do not recognize Christ in "the least of these" will be sent into "the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels". It seems to me reasonable to recognize that seeing Christ in "the least of these" includes many of the saints we venerate on icons. Having recently read the life of St. Symeon of Emesa, fool for Christ, I could not help but see in his life such an example as fools for Christ take on a much more humble position than your run of the mill monk. Recently I posted a great explanation of the fool for Christ phenomenon which well sums up this thought.

And don't forget that today is also the commemoration of St. Blaise of Sebaste the patron of my bosom buddy Bleys, otherwise known as Colonel K.

The ludicrous ways of saints

...the all-wise Symeon's whole goal was this: first, to save souls, whether through afflictions which he sent them in ludicrous or methodical ways, or through miracles which he performed while seeming not to understand, or through maxims which he said to them while playing the fool; and second, that his virtue not be known, and he receive neither approval nor honor from men.
Leontius of Neapolis

D.I.Y.

A brother said to Antony, 'Pray for me,' He answered, 'Neither I nor God will have mercy on you unless you do something about it yourself and ask God's help.'
Sayings of the Desert Fathers

On unity

Union is possible with Rome. Unity alone is possible with Orthodoxy.
Alexey Khomiakov

The speech of faith

Separate aspects of faith disintegrate only for scholastic theology, but, in living life, these aspects, each retaining its independence, become so closely interwoven that one idea imperceptibly evokes another. For a scholastic theologian, it is easy to say that the concepts Church, Holy Spirit, and Son of God are different: easy, because in his consciousness they are only concepts. But for a believer for whom all of these are realities that cannot be experienced independently of one another, realities that are interpenetrating and interconnected; for a believer who perceives them in their living givenness; for whom the Church is tangibly the body of Christ, the fullness of the Spirit sent by Christ; for such a believer, it is painful to make sharp divisions and separations, for they cut through living flesh. The speech of faith is in no wise like the speech of theology, and faith clothes its knowledge of dogmatic truth in a symbolic garment, in figurative language, which covers the higher truth and depth of contemplation in consistent contradictions.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Don’t fret “Byzantium” was egalitarian

Byzantine architecture, with its interpretation of the Church as the Trinitarian mode of existence, marks out a space which is concrete and yet without bounds, a space continually divided up which yet has its center everywhere. The eucharist is accomplished everywhere, in the place where each Christian is present, bearing in himself Christ and the Spirit.
Christos Yannaras

Have it their way

Walking across campus today I could not help but notice a large RV parked along a campus street. You may ask me what (insert latest pop star here) was doing at my school? I would reply that this was no pop star but the RV of repentance - the tanker of truth - the source of "salvation". What is the best way to spread salvation? To give out Bibles, of course. What if in my reading of the Bible I don't find salvation? Well now, you must read our version as we are "Spreading the interpreted Word of God one Bible at a time." Italics, of course, mine...

It depends on us

Since therefore I am unable to present instruction and the image and model of virtuous deeds from my own life, carrying with myself everywhere the mark of sin, come, and from the work of others and their sweaty toils, I shall today unveil for you a nourishment which does not perish but which leads our souls to life everlasting [cf. Jn 6:27]. For as bread strengthens the body, the word of God often awakens the soul to virtue in earnest, and especially the souls of those most slothful in the work of divine commandments and disposed to carelessness. For the zealous, those whose intention is directed toward God, it is sufficient for their conscience to set them in the presence of instruction, recommending all good things and dissuading them from evil. Those more humble than these need to have the commandment of the written law set before them. But if someone escapes both from the first and from the second type of path which leads to virtue, it is necessary that from the zeal and concern of others, which he sees before his eyes, through his hearing, aroused in him to shake his soul from its sleep, that he may travel through the straight and narrow path and begin eternal life now. For it depends on us and lies within our power either to despise the desire for things which come in the present because they pass away, or, in the desire and longing for present things, to lose the unceasing good.
Leontius of Neapolis

What might happen?

Advertisements have penetrated American life to such an extent that, if upon waking some amazing morning Americans were to find all advertisements gone, the majority of them would be in the most desperate of plights. ...without advertisements, the devil alone knows what might happen!

Life would become incredibly complex. One would have to think for himself at every step.

No, it is much easier with advertisements. Americans don't have to think about anything. The large business houses do the thinking for them.
Ilya Ilf and Eugene Petrov

It goes without saying that this is now true for most of the modern world. This comment was made early in the previous century before advertising had spread in talons over the world outside America.