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

Of fops and dogs

Do not harness your intellectual freedom into a foppish dog-caller with the inscription 'Europe'.
Aleksey Khomiakov

Feel good feelings

"Helping you feel safe is just part of the online peace-of-mind you have come to expect from us."

So my savings account instituted new "security measures" when I logged in today. Their blurb included the above statement. I am sure glad they are looking out for my "feelings" and "peace-of-mind" because that "sense" of "security" really keeps my money safe...

Surgery for the world

The Holy Eucharist pours healing balm into the wound of repentance, but the Eucharist also judges the communicant. Is it not in this same way that the Anointing and Comforting Spirit will come to heal the wounds of creation with a baptism of fire after the Terrible Day of surgery for the world, after the Judgment of the Son of God and the Word of God, that Very Same Hypostatic Word that “is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12)?
St. Pavel Florensky

The dawn of a better life

...I also loved to read the Holy Scriptures; and when, toward the end of the Old Testament, in its concluding chapters, I somehow had a sense of emptiness and peace, and the strict Romans were already present, a feeling of barely audible, barely noticeable, sweet expectation stirred within me. The dawn of a better life seemed to be awaiting the whole world. There was no light as yet, and one felt both sad and relieved. Then a poor child was born in Bethlehem....How good it is in these dry deserts, where only palm trees grow and people walk about barefoot in light robes! And already Peter was weeping in the night when the cock crowed, and I wept with him; all grew dark, the dead rose out of their graves and walked into town, the curtain in the temple was rent….Before me is a picture....Christ manifest himself for a minute to a couple of disciples, who were on their way to Emmaus. Some poor little town, this Emmaus; three smallish men are hurrying out of some valley, their robes blowing behind them; to one side are rocks, and in the distance looms an agglomeration of small houses with flat roofs. How deserted it all seems! As though after dinner when it is no longer hot, you might enter a large green garden which no one is using and where the shadows cast by the trees grow more and more elongated. As though the person closest to one had departed from the house and from this garden, in which he could have strolled had he wished. And something new was about to begin, was about to glimmer….But what was it? Even then I could not explain it, nor can I do so now.
Konstantin Leontiev

Reject the vomit

The truth of the Unity of God has been delivered to thee: learn to distinguish the pastures of doctrine. Be an approved banker, holding fast that which is good, abstaining from every form of evil . Or if thou hast ever been such as they, recognise and hate thy delusion. For there is a way of salvation, if thou reject the vomit, if thou from thy heart detest it, if thou depart from them, not with thy lips only, but with thy soul also: if thou worship the Father of Christ, the God of the Law and the Prophets, if thou acknowledge the Good and the Just to be one and the same God . And may He preserve you all, guarding you from falling or stumbling, stablished in the Faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

She who is more honorable than the Cherubim

… while she alone stood between God and the whole human race, God became the Son of Man and made men sons of God; she made earth heavenly, she deified the human race, and she alone of all women was shown forth to be a mother by nature and the Mother of God transcending every law of nature, and by her ineffable childbirth-the Queen of all creation, both terrestial and celestial. Thus she exalted those under her through herself, and, showing while on earth an obedience to things heavenly rather than things earthly, she partook of more excellent deserts and of superior power, and from the ordination which she received from heaven by the Divine Spirit, she became the most sublime of the sublime and the supremely blest Queen of a blessed race.
St. Gregory Palamas

In the name of man

The first truth of Orthodoxy is that man does not exist for the sake of man, but for the sake of God or, more fully, for the sake of the God-man. Therefore, we stay with the God-man in the name of man. In Him alone is an understanding of man's being possible; in Him alone is a justification for man's existence possible. All the mysteries of heaven and earth are attained in this truth, all the values of all the worlds that man can contemplate, all the joys of all the perfections that man can attain.
St. Justin (Popovic)

Knowledge

...is not yet true enlightenment. Knowledge is the broadening of man’s intellectual endowment. True enlightenment, however, embraces in itself development of high moral and spiritual principles over and above knowledge. To acquire knowledge is not very difficult; to attain a high moral development, however is the highest aim of man and many people who are deprived of scientific knowledge b the circumstances of life but are deeply permeated by moral light are nearer to complete enlightenment than many who have knowledge but lack the power of spiritual life.
Alexey Khomiakov

Mankinds social benefit

The Panagia did the work of greatest social benefit to mankind. It is not a matter of a superficial and temporary deed, but of the eternal salvation of man, of the fact that she brought life into the world. "For she performed a miracle of miracles on earth and a public benefit greater than any in history..."
Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos)

Communism

…not merely a power-mad political regime, but an ideological-religious system whose aim is to overthrow and supplant all other systems, most of all Christianity. Communism is actually a very powerful heresy whose central thesis, if I’m not mistaken, is chiliasm or millennialism: history is to reach its culmination in an indefinite state of earthly blessedness, a perfected mankind living in perfect peace and harmony.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

St. Aleksander pray to God for us!

Today is the commemoration of St. Aleksander of Comana my patron so here is his story from the Prologue:

SAINT ALEXANDER, BISHOP OF COMANA
Men look upon clothes and the face,
But God looks at the soul and the heart.
Glorious Alexander, a charcoal-burner, was,
With the charcoal-burner, the body is blackened
And from soot, which water cleanses,
In the sinner, the heart is darkened
Which only the fire of faith can cleanse
The fire of faith and the cry of repentance.
It is easier to cleanse the skin of a charcoal-burner
Than the blackened heart of a sinner.
Alexander, with humility, covered
In a cave concealed, as a hidden flame
For laughter, to the gullible world, he was.
The world did not see; Gregory saw,
With an acute spirit, the charcoal-burner discerned
And in him, found a saint,
In the dark cave, a beautiful flame,
Beneath the mask of insanity, great wisdom,
Beneath the dirty soot, a pure heart,
A royal soul in decayed rags.
That the light be hidden, the Lord does not permit,
At the appropriate time, the light proclaims,
For the benefit and salvation of men.
All is wonderful, what God judges.

THE PRIESTLY-MARTYR ALEXANDER, BISHOP OF COMANA
As a simple charcoal-burner, Alexander lived in the town of Comana near Neo-Caesarea. When the bishop of Comana died, St. Gregory the miracle-worker and Bishop of Neo-Caesarea (November 17) was then called to preside at a council to elect a new bishop. Both clergy and laymen alike were present at the council. However, the electors were unable to agree on one person. At the time of evaluating a candidate, they all primarily paid attention to the points of his externals: external dignity and behavior. St. Gregory then said that they need not look so much at the external characteristics as much as at the spirit and spiritual capabilities. Then some jesters mocking cried out: then we should elect Alexander the charcoal-burner as our bishop! General laughter then ensued. St. Gregory asked: "Who is this Alexander?" And, thinking that his name was not mentioned at this council without God's Providence, Gregory ordered that Alexander be brought before the council. As a charcoal-burner, he was completely soiled and in rags. His appearance again evoked laughter in the council. Gregory then took Alexander aside and made him take an oath to speak the truth concerning himself. Alexander said that he was a Greek philosopher and that he enjoyed great honor and position but that he rejected all, humbled himself and made himself to be a "fool for the sake of Christ" from the time when he had read and understood Holy Scripture. Gregory ordered Alexander bathed and clothed in new attire and, with him, entered the council and before all began to examine Alexander in Holy Scripture. All were amazed at Alexander's wisdom and words of grace and could hardly recognize in this wise man, the former quiet charcoal-burner. Alexander was unanimously elected bishop. By his sanctity, wisdom and goodness, he gained the love of his flock. Alexander died a martyr's death for Christ during the reign of Diocletian.

Learn to respect and to love the lowly and simple people. Such as these are the most on earth: such as these are the most in the Kingdom of Heaven. In them, there is no pride, i.e., the basic madness from which the souls of the rich and the powerful of this world suffer. They carry out their duty in this world perfectly and yet it appears to them amusing when someone praises them for it, while the self-seeking men of this world seek praise for all their work and often, it is imperfectly completed. St. Alexander was an eminent philosopher and he left everything, hid himself from exalted society, the praise of the world and mingled with the lowliest and the simplest of men, as a charcoal-burner among charcoal-burners. Instead of former praises and honors, he endured with rejoicing that children ran after him and laughed at him because of his sootiness and raggedness. However, Alexander was not the only one who liked to live with the lowly and simple. Many kings and princes, learning of the sweetness of Christ's Faith, removed the crowns from their heads and fled from aristocratic vanity to be among the simple people. Did not He alone, the King of Kings, the Lord our Christ appear among shepherds and fishermen? St. Zeno counsels: "Do not choose a glorious place for living and do not associate with a man of a prominent name."

В конце концов

So the "school year" is over and I thankfully passed with "A's minusums". Now the stress shall subside. But now now I understand what they were talking about in Harry Potter when they talked of putting in 7 or more hours a day of studying...

The law of the human mind

Standing on this highest level of [noetic] thought, the Orthodox believer can easily and harmlessly comprehend all systems of thought deriving from the lower levels of reason; he can see their limitations and their relative truthfulness. However, for the lower form of thought, the higher is incomprehensible and appears nonsensical. Such, in general, is the law of the human mind.
Ivan Kireevsky

The Urals of my soul

Again and again, every sin, every 'petty' baseness is present, ineradicably distinct, in my consciousness. More and more deeply, 'petty' inattentions, egotism, and heartlessness are branded into the soul with letters of fire, gradually crippling it. Not that there was anything clearly bad, anything clearly, tangibly sinful. But always it was in the petty things. And out of petty things, mountains grew!
St. Pavel Florensky

This (not) just in

In case anyone had been wondering... I haven't been updating as much this summer as I've been intensively studying Russian for most of my days.
...

Woe! (Nelly)

...woe to them who wish to defend the power of Christ with the impotence of man’s weapons!
Aleksey Khomiakov

The contradiction of deviation

… whenever the teaching of faith deviates even a little from its basic purity, the deviation, growing little by little, cannot help becoming a contradiction to faith. The lack of wholeness and inner unity of faith compels one to seek unity in abstract thinking; and reason, having received equal rights with Divine Revelation, first serves as the ground of religion, and subsequently replaces it.
Ivan Kireevskii

The unmaking of man

‘Don’t people decrease in their sense of life when buildings increase?’ Voshchev hesitated to believe. ‘Man will make a building and unmake himself. Who will live in it then?’
Andrei Platonov. The Foundation Pit.

The well concealed menace

Serving the tyranny, the corruption and abuse of language becomes better known as propaganda. …the most perfect propaganda achieves just this: that the menace is not apparent but well concealed. Still, it must remain visible; it must remain recognizable. At the same time, those for whom the menace is intended must nevertheless be led and eased into believing (and this is the true art!) that by acquiescing to the intimidation, they really do the reasonable thing, perhaps even what they would have wanted to do anyway.
Josef Pieper

We will resist these trials

if we would but remember Christ crucified on the Cross for us and so many thousands of martyrs for the Faith who, in their patience, conquered all and emerged from the flames as gold and who for centuries glow among the angels and among men.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Included in the concept of the Church is this:

...the Church is that point at which dogma becomes moral teaching and Christian dogmatics become Christian life. The Church thus comprehended gives life to and provides for the implementation of Christian teaching. Without the Church there is no Christianity; there is only the Christian teaching which, by itself, cannot 'renew the fallen Adam.'
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

But one rung

The absolute atheist stands on the last rung but one before most absolute faith (whether he steps higher or not), while an indifferent man has no faith at all, nothing but dismal fear, and that, too, only occasionally, if he is a sensitive man.
Fr. Tikhon in Devils by FD

Heavenly King

…the apophaticism which characterizes the mystical theology of the Eastern Church appears as a witness to the fullness of the Holy Spirit—to this Person who, though He fills all things and brings all things to their ultimate fulfillment, yet remains Himself unknown.
Vladimir Lossky

A lesson from the lesser

Camels and mules behave more decently than some people at wedding receptions!
St. John Chrysostom

Condemned by truth

It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen of the jury, it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Slow and elderly as I am, I have been caught by the slower pursuer, whereas my accusers, being clever and sharp, have been caught by the quicker, wickedness. I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice.
Plato

What we need is a deep clean

The struggle and effort to be rid of passions should be associated with the return of the nous to the heart. A therapeutic treatment which is limited to the surface, without also being aimed at curing the nous is only moralisation. Here we see the value of the neptic theology of our Church. To eliminate hesychasm from Christian living is to make Orthodoxy worldly. This is why we must adapt the therapeutic treatment to curing the nous.
Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos)

The perpetual revolution

A doubt about the possibility or reality of a communication between living and dead through Christ and in Christ is too un-Christian to want an answer. To ascribe to the prayers of living Christians a power of intercession which is refused to the Christians admitted into heavenly glory would be a glaring absurdity. If Protestantism were true to logic, as it pretends to be, I may boldly affirm that not only Anglicans, but all Protestant sects (even the worst) would either admit serious and earnest addresses to saints and angels, or reject the mutual prayers of Christians on earth. Why, then, are they rejected, nay, often condemned? Simply because Protestantism is for ever and ever protesting.
Aleksey Khomiakov

The guarantee of the word

Our every word comes before the assembly of the angels of God. Hades receives our every evil word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal death and Paradise receives every good word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal life. Truly, does the Old Testament sage wisely speaks and promptly reminds us with the words that: 'Death and life are in the power of the tongue.'
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On the "branch theory"

…the godless system of the heresies is a road with many branches, and whenever a man has strayed from the one straight way, then he falls down precipices again and again.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Spiritual swimming

One should nourish the soul with the word of God: for the word of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, is angelic bread, by which are nourished souls that hunger for God. Most of all one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up. From this there occurs an enlightenment in the mind, which is changed by a Divine change.
One should habituate oneself in this way so that the mind might as it were swim in the Lord’s law; it is under the guidance of this law that one should direct one’s life.
St. Seraphim of Sarov

Seeming rage

It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder, and to see the lightning; and, while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are, and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage, which seemed to make creation new again.
Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Behold!

...the bolsheviks have destroyed the monastery; they destroyed the cemetery, too. Behold twentieth century civilization!
Archimandrite Gerasim (Schmaltz)

Apropos to the feast of St. Abba Dorotheos of Gaza

Do you realise the enormity of his pride? Do you see his obstinacy? Do you see his insubordination? Therefore, when He saw his impudence God said: 'He is a fool, he does not know how to be happy. If he does not have a hard time, he will be totally lost. If he does not learn what sorrow is, he will not learn what rest is. Then He gave him that what he deserved and expelled him from paradise'. Thus, Man was given up to self-love and to his own desires which would crush his bones, so as to learn not to trust himself but the commandment of God.
Abba Dorotheos

Only death

He who does not love God, not only does he not love God but does not love anything that is from God, i.e., neither the beauty of the stars nor the order of the seas and mountains nor the living power that is in animals and plant life. He who does not love God, removes and distances God from nature. What else then is left? Only dead, formless, dark, dust only death. Even that dust is created by God. And that dust, the blasphemer of God must return to God and that, which is left over, he can love. What is there left over? Only that which does not touch God, i.e., death, sin and the devil. He who does not love God he, in essence, loves death, sin and the devil. Every blasphemer of God is a toy of the devil, the fruit of sin and a pawn of death.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovich)

The Catholic Church

But since the word Ecclesia is applied to different things (as also it is written of the multitude in the theatre of the Ephesians, And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the Assembly ), and since one might properly and truly say that there is a Church of evil doers, I mean the meetings of the heretics, the Marcionists and Manichees, and the rest, for this cause the Faith has securely delivered to thee now the Article, 'And in one Holy Catholic Church;' that thou mayest avoid their wretched meetings, and ever abide with the Holy Church Catholic in which thou wast regenerated. And if ever thou art sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord's House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God (for it is written, As Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and all the rest,) and is a figure and copy of Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all; which before was barren, but now has many children.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

The corners of the (Western) heart

Western people fragment their lives into separate aspirations; and though they then unite them into a coherent plan by means of rationalistic understanding, at each moment of life the individual is like a different person. One corner of the heart shelters the Western person’s religious feeling, which is called upon on occasions of ritual observance; another, quite separate, harbors the faculties of reason and the capacity for worldly activity; a third corner contains the person’s sensual desires; a fourth, a sense of morality and family; a fifth, self-interest; a sixth, the desire for aesthetic pleasure. And each of these separate strivings is subdivided into further aspects, each accompanied by a special state of mind, each manifesting itself separately from the others, all bound together only by an abstract, rationalistic recollection. Westen people can easily pray in the morning with fervent, intense, amazing zeal and then rest from that zeal, forgetting prayer and exercising other faculties in their wok. They then rest from their work, not just physically but morally, forgetting its dull routine in laughter and the sound of drinking songs, They then forget the rest of the day—indeed, their whole life—in dreamy enjoyment of an artificial spectacle. Next day it will be easy for them to begin again turning the wheel of their outwardly correct lives.
Ivan Kireevskii

The lesson of the firefly

The holy Fathers, speaking of the glory of the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven, make divinely inspired analyses. St. Gregory the Theologian says: 'with those who have stood and not fallen we shall be small lights going round the great light'. St. Cyril of Jerusalem says that because God foresaw men’s faithlessness, He put light into the small insects which fly in summer, so that from what was seen, that which was awaited would be believable. The God who made one part can also provide the whole. He Who made the worm (the firefly) shine, 'much more can illuminate a righteous man'. Macarios of Egypt explains that the Kingdom of the Light, Jesus Christ, is now mystically illuminating the soul and reigning in the souls of the saints, hidden from the eyes of men, until the day of the resurrection, 'when the body itself will also be covered and glorified by the light of the Lord', which henceforth is in the souls of men, so that it too may reign with the soul.
Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos)

The enemy of the Son

…many of those who are falsely called Christians, and wrongfully addressed by the sweet name of Christ, have ere now impiously dared to banish God from His own creation. I mean the brood of heretics, those most ungodly men of evil name, pretending to be friends of Christ but utterly hating Him. For he who blasphemes the Father of the Christ is an enemy of the Son.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

The Social Gospel

The Panagia did the work of greatest social benefit to mankind. It is not a matter of a superficial and temporary deed, but of the eternal salvation of man, of the fact that she brought life into the world. 'For she performed a miracle of miracles on earth and a public benefit greater than any in history...'.
Met. Heirotheos (Vlachos)

Church consciousness

If we see a decline of piety, a failure to understand the Divine services, the reason for this lies outside the Church: it is in the decline of faith in the masses, in the decline of morality, in the loss of church consciousness.
Fr. Michael Pomazansky

Mercy and love

‘Let’s see what she’ll ask of me today.’ …
‘I don’t want anything, papouli. I only want you to help me to remain always under God’s mercy and love.’ …
‘And you think you’re not asking for much,’ he said to me. ‘Is there, my child, anything greater than God’s mercy and love?’
Elder Porphyrios and a spiritual child.

Apropos to the feast of St. Abba Dorotheos of Gaza

Therefore, whoever wants to find true rest in his soul must learn humility and he will see that all joy, all glory and all true rest are to be found there, whilst in pride it is just the opposite. How have we come into all this affliction? How have we fallen into all this misery? Is it not because of our pride? Is it not because of our senselessness? Is it not because we took the wrong decision? Is it not because we chose to impose our bitter will? Why? Was not Man created with every luxury, in all joy, in all rest and in all glory? Was he not in paradise? God said, ‘Do not do that’ but he did it. Do you realise the enormity of his pride? Do you see his obstinacy? Do you see his insubordination? Therefore, when He saw his impudence God said: ‘He is a fool, he does not know how to be happy. If he does not have a hard time, he will be totally lost. If he does not learn what sorrow is, he will not learn what rest is. Then He gave him that what he deserved and expelled him from paradise. Thus, Man was given up to self-love and to his own desires which would crush his bones, so as to learn not to trust himself but the commandment of God. The hardships from disobedience will teach him the calmness that comes from obedience as the Prophet says: ‘Your own wickedness will correct you’ (Jer. 2:19). However, as I said in many ways, the goodness of God has not renounced His creature, but again invites and calls him ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11:26). It is as if he is saying, ‘You were labouring, you were miserable, you were suffering through your disobedience; come then, return, recognise your weakness and your shame, so that you may attain your rest and glory. Come, lead a life of humility, you who were dead through haughtiness. Learn from me, that I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matt. 11:29).
Abba Dorotheos. On Renunciation, Section 8.

To be avenged

By the lamp sat the activist at his mental labor: he was drawing graphs for the record in which he wished to enter all the data concerning the welfare of the poor and middle peasantry, so there would be a permanent, formal picture and experience, as a basis.
'Write down my goods, too!' said Voshchev, unpacking his sack.
He had gathered in the village all the poor, rejected objects, all the small unknown and forgotten things—to be avenged by socialism. Those patient, shabby rags had once touched the flesh of the laboreres, and these things were marked forever by the burden of bowed life, expended without conscious meaning and lost without glory somewhere under the straw of the earth. Without full understanding, Voshchev had collected like a miser a sackful of material remnants of lost people, who had lived like him without truth and who had died before the victorious conclusion. Now he was presenting those liquidated toilers before the face of the government and the future, so that those who lay quietly in the depth of the earth could be avenged through the organization of the eternal meaning of man.
Andrei Platonov. The Foundation Pit

The truth...

stands higher than your pain.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Vivid impressions

Western hearts are tormented by this comfortable way of living, and to feel anything deeply many Western people seek for vivid impressions. …Seeking for vivid impressions is a surrogate for spiritual life.
Fr. Artemy Vladimirov

The defence against chance

He had always disliked the people who encored a favourite air in the opera—'That just spoils it' had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards … was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself—perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defence against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film.
C.S. Lewis. Perelandra

Balanced Orthodoxy

A well-balanced Orthodoxy can easily take any foreign influences that come and straighten them out, make them Orthodox; but a one-sided 'party-line' cuts itself off from the mainstream of Orthodoxy.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Instruments of power

…sophisticated language, disconnected from the roots of truth, in fact pursues some ulterior motives, that is invariably turns into an instrument of power…
Josef Pieper

The redemptive act

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least to be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his senses tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.
Flannery O’Conner

The Mission

The mission of the Church which is given by Christ and realized by the Holy Fathers is this: for the awareness and realization to be planted and cultivated in the soul of our people that each member of the Orthodox Church is a catholic person, an eternal and theanthropic person, that he belongs to Christ and for this reason is a brother of all human beings, and a servant of all men and creatures. This is the purpose of the Church given by Christ. Every other purpose is not of Christ but of the antichrist. For our local Church to be the Church of Christ, the catholic Church, she must constantly realize this purpose in our people. By what means can she realize this theanthropic purpose? Once again, the means are none other than the theanthropic ones, because the theanthropic purpose can be realized only through theanthropic means, never with human means or any other whatsoever.
St. Justin (Popovic)

The Holy Mountain

Apropos to Matt's return from pilgrimage to Mt. Athos we'll offer a little wisdom from said mountain.

Who is going to speak about your struggle, blessed Fathers;
Who is going to praise worthily the deeds of your asceticism?
Who is going to praise the temperance of your mind?
your unceasing prayer
your sufferings to gain virtue,
the wearing out of the body,
the struggle against passions,
the all–night assemblies for prayer,
the unceasing tears,
the humility of spirit,
the victories against demons,
and all the other gifts?
O multitude of holy men
sanctified and desired by God.
O honeycombs chosen by God,
who made wax cells,
full of the sweetest honey
of quietness in the holes and caves of the earth
in the Holy Mountain.
Delight of the Holy Trinity!
Delight of the Holy Mother of God!
Pride of Athos,
source of pride for the world.
Pray to the Lord that our souls find mercy”.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
by the intercessions of Thy Saints,
have mercy on me a sinner.
Most Holy Mother of God, save me.
St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain

In former days, the Holy Fathers first withdrew into the desert, becoming themselves a desert void of their passions by struggling. Without plans or programs of their own, they left themselves in the hands of God, avoiding honors and power, even when they arrived at measures of sanctity — unless Mother Church had need of them. They did obedience to the will of God, and they glorified the name of God with their holy life. They became spiritual blood donors, for they had acquired good spiritual health in the desert with good spiritual food and vigilant patristic watchfulness.

In our day, however, many of us, who are unfortunately influenced by worldly love, which can make no spiritual pledge, supposedly venture to do good, to donate blood, but our blood is full of spiritual bacteria and we do more harm than good.

Once two Catholics came here. They seemed to be good boys, architects. And they said to me that Orthodox monasticism doesn't produce anything, whereas theirs undertake great ministries. I explained to them that the mission of the monk is something else, different from the mission of the clergy in the world. I said, 'If we destroy the lighthouse on the rocks, what will become of the ships? But the monks are the lighthouses.'
Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos

The simple monks

But monks in the monastery are practical people; they condensed the whole theology into the practice of prayer.
Fr. Roman Braga

The Russians are coming

So this is probably my most personal revelation on this here blog, of course I'll include an apropos quote, however. I received today the wonderful news of my placement into the desired level at my summer Russian program which is third year Russian.

Carolus V, Emperor of Rome, was wont to say that the Hispanic tongue was seemly for converse with God, the French with friends, the German with enemies, the Italian with the feminine sex. Had he been versed in the Russian tongue, however, he would of a certainty have added to this that it is appropriate in converse with all of the above, inasmuch as he would have found in it the magnificence of the Hispanic tongue, the sprightliness of the French, the sturdiness of the German, the tendresse of the Italian and, over and above all that, the richness and the conciseness of powerful imagery, of the Greek and Latin tongues.
Mikhail Vassilievich Lomonosov

Middle doctrine

'Many were tempted by the idea,' [St.] Mark [of Ephesus] continued, 'that one can find a medium between two doctrines. True: one can find such expressions which, having a double meaning, could at the same time express something between the two doctrines. But a doctrine midway between two contrary doctrines on the same subject is impossible; for in this case it must be something between truth and falsehood, between an affirmation and a negation. Thus, if the Latin doctrine of the Spirit’s procession from the Son is just, then ours is false. What middle doctrine can there be here?'

A body more perfect

A new reality came into the world, a body more perfect than the world—the Church, founded on a two-fold divine economy: the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, the two persons of the Trinity sent into the world. …The Church is body in so far as Christ is her head; she is fullness in so far as the Holy Spirit quickens her and fills her with divinity, for the Godhead dwells within her bodily as it dwelt in the deified humanity of Christ. We may say with Irenaeus: ‘where the Church is, there is the Spirit; where the Spirit is, there is the Church.’
Vladimir Lossky

Middle without a beginning or end

The near-sighted philosophy of the previous century [i.e., the 18th] had for a time dreamt of breaking this holy union and had forced knowledge to dig a grave for faith, but what came of this attempt at matricide? Holy faith, honored by self-forgetting reason, is in a depth of the heart inaccessible to this reason, and false knowledge itself remained with its sophistries in the grave dug by it … True philosophy can exist only in a union with heaven, for true knowledge lives by and is nourished not by earth but by heaven … We are accustomed to saying the sphere of the sciences, the sphere of knowledge, and to separating it from the sphere of faith; but strictly speaking, there is no sphere of sciences and can be no such sphere. Rather, there exists only a boundless sphere of faith, whose inwardness is divided among the sciences. Knowledge without faith is a middle without a beginning or end; whoever seeks not soulless fragments but a living reasonably whole must therefore necessarily unite knowledge with faith …What in general is true knowledge, if not a natural daughter of faith? And what is true faith if not the natural end and crown of all grounded knowledge?
Archbishop of Kherson, Innokentii Borisov

Ugly and indecent

With regard to women’s clothes one should not even talk. They have always been either ugly or indecent, and most often ugly and indecent at the same time. Western dress continuously changes and is determined by so-called fashion, and what results? Somewhere (mostly in Paris) a well-known circle of people change the style of dress or hairdo according to their whims while the rest of the French and, after them, other nations hurry to adopt the change no matter how ridiculous it may be, not even daring to doubt its beauty. Consider impartially the reasons for this aping, and you will be convinced that it springs from spiritual bondage to the pseudo-superior, and wherever bondage is involved there the heart loses its purity and nobility. National dress is the free custom of the people. Its alteration for the sake of comfort may in a sense show a certain freedom, and even the reasonableness of man (for custom itself is created in this manner), but imitation of Western dress is nothing but recognition of bondage to the taste of a pseudo-superior society. Let those who like such an admission be given the respect which they deserve, the respect which man shows for an ape.
Alexey Khomiakov

The thief on the left

Today’s iconoclasts...reject the Cross of the Lord. They allow pretty pictures of various biblical events to hang in their homes, but they repudiate the veneration of icons, which remind us that salvation is attained by following a difficult path, a narrow path, such as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself followed, a path of battling one’s sins and vices, a path of fasting and prayer. Those who want to see Christianity only as something rosy and attractive—who think it possible to enter the blessedness of eternity without any particular effort, without forcing themselves, without warring with their passions—they deny all this. They follow the path taken by the thief who hung on the left; they reject all the laws which the Lord Himself delivered and which He sent the Apostles to preach throughout the world; they reject those statues and writings which are sacredly preserved by the holy Orthodox Church.
St. John (Maximovich)

To continue with a theme...

…they are incapable from the debasement of their reasonings of raising their glances to the height of truth.
St. Basil the Great

Stay out of the dust...

For since what God giveth transcends reasoning entirely, it is but reason that we need faith. But the man that thinks meanly of it, and is contemptuous and vainglorious, will not effect anything at all. Let heretics hearken to the voice of the Spirit, for such is the nature of reasonings. They are like some labyrinth or puzzles which have no end to them anywhere, and do not let the reason stand upon the rock, and have their very origin in vanity. For being ashamed to allow of faith, and to seem ignorant of heavenly things, they involve themselves in the dust-cloud of countless reasonings.
St. John Chrysostom

A dissolved partnership

‘It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,' exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment, and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day.
Bleak House - Charles Dickens.

St. John refutes predestination and such

But perhaps someone will say, If all that the Father gives, and whomever He shall draw comes to You, if none can come to You except it be given from above, then those to whom the Father does not give are free from any blame or charges. These are mere words and pretences. For we require our own deliberate choice as well, because whether we will be taught is a matter of choice, and also whether we will believe. And here, by saying ‘which the Father gives Me’, He declares nothing else than that ‘believing in Me is no ordinary thing, nor one that comes of human reasonings, but needs a revelation from above, and a well-ordered soul to receive that revelation.’
St. John Chrysostom

Confusion leading nowhere

Applicable to Christianity, I believe:

I am a student of Chinese philosophy, and it is my belief that I must rely upon the Chinese traditional viewpoint, rather than follow the newly invented and untraditional arguments of modern scholars. To do the latter would result in depriving Chinese philosophy of all criteria of meaning and value; it would end in a state of confusion leading nowhere.
Gi-ming Shein (Professor of Fr. Seraphim Rose)

Countless reasonings

For since what God giveth transcends reasoning entirely, it is but reason that we need faith. But the man that thinks meanly of it, and is contemptuous and vainglorious, will not effect anything at all. Let heretics hearken to the voice of the Spirit, for such is the nature of reasonings. They are like some labyrinth or puzzles which have no end to them anywhere, and do not let the reason stand upon the rock, and have their very origin in vanity. For being ashamed to allow of faith, and to seem ignorant of heavenly things, they involve themselves in the dust-cloud of countless reasonings.
St. John Chrysostom

Khomiakov and Orthodoxy

As I promised yesterday I am going to offer up a few thoughts on Alexei Khomiakov's thought and it's relation to modern Orthodoxy. I am by no means qualified to do so but I will try to make something coherent.

Alexei Khomiakov (1804-1860) is most well known for his treatise on the unity of the Church entitled The Church is One and as the founder of the so-called “Slavophile” thought circle. [By the way: This page is linked only because it has a very good introduction to Khomiakov and his life. I in absolutely no way endorse anything else that may be found therein.] This essay was not published until after Khomiakov’s death so it is interesting to see the reception that Khomiakov had during his life and after his death in relationship to his writings. Khomiakov was first known as a poet (unfortunately I’ve only found one translated poem). Here is the one that I have found:

Oh, grief afflicts me! There descends thick gloom
In the distant West, the land of holy wonders:
The former lights are fading, burning out,
And the brightest stars are tumbling from the heavens…
Oh! Since creation earth has never seen
Above itself such fiery lights of heaven!
But grief! Their age has passed, a deathly veil descends
And covers up the West. There shall be gloom so deep…
So hear the voice of fate, arise in a new glow,
Awake, O sleep-bound East!

This poem illustrates the biggest question for Russia during the 19th century (now that I think harder it was a question longer than that, but I’ll leave it be…) – What is/should be Russia’s relationship to the West? Has, indeed, their age passed? This question was approached from different points of view, with different aims and with different goals. For Khomiakov, as a faithful Orthodox, this question, of course, was looked at from a spiritual point of view. He looked at the schism that had created by the Christians of the West by the breaking of unity with the Church:

In the ninth century the West, unfaithful to the tradition of the Church, appropriated the right to alter the ecumenical creed without consulting with its Eastern brothers and sisters… What was the inevitable logical consequence of this usurpation? When the logical principle of knowledge expressed in the exposition of the creed was separated from the moral principle of love expressed by the unanimity of the Church, a protestant anarchy was established in practice. … No sophistry can allow one to avoid this consequence. Either the truth of faith is given to the union of all and to their mutual love in Jesus Christ, or it can be given to every individual without regard to all other individuals.

For Khomiakov the schism was a breaking of the bond of love “because it [the West] received death itself into its bosom when it decided to imprison itself within a dead letter; because it condemned itself to death when it decided to be a religious monarchy without organic principle”.
Khomiakov, along with his associates, had many interactions and debates with the Westernizers from the 1830s to the 1850s; however most of this took place in verbal interactions in salons or in personal correspondence. The government was very weary of Khomiakov’s “extreme” patriotism. In the words of an attendant of the Empress Khomiakov

shocks polite society very much because he wears a beard and dresses like a peasant…Government people call him a red revolutionary, and consider it very daring for anyone to have a greater mind and greater patriotism than they.

For Khomiakov Russian patriotism and Orthodoxy went hand in hand as he saw the Russian social structure, which had always been based upon the mir--the organic village commune, as inherently Orthodox. Khomiakov’s patriotism was one of the main reasons why he wasn’t allowed to publish during his lifetime. The ecclesiological essays published during his lifetime were published under a pseudonym ignotus [The Unknown One] and in the foreign press. These essays are responses to various articles by Western Christians, and his responses are generally clarifications about Orthodoxy and, I won’t mince words, condemnation of “Romanism” and Protestantism.

However, for all Khomiakov critique of the spiritual path of the West he did not totally discount everything about it. He was quite interested in the mechanization/electrification of Russia and even exhibited an engine in London that he had invented.
…
So now I will just state some general thoughts on Khomiakov’s acceptance in the Orthodox world. [I realized I’m going to have to do a lot more research in that area.] Since Khomiakov’s time there have been many critiques of the “Slavophile” school and, of course, as Khomiakov was at its head these critiques mainly focus on him (at least the ones I’ve seen). After Khomiakov’s death in 1860 his works began to be published in Russia and an introduction to his collected works was written by his good friend and pupil Yuri Samarin in 1867. He concluded this glowing appraisal of Khomiakov with a bang in describing him as a “teacher of the Church”—one who “by a logical clarification of one or another side of Church teaching, could win for the Church a decisive victory over some error or other”. I’m not going to analyze the validity of this statement at the present time but I will just move on to something else…

St. Pavel Florensky wrote a short essay on Khomiakov in 1916 that is highly critical of the above statement of Samarin and of Khomiakov’s way of reasoning in his critique of Catholicism and Protestantism. I’m not in a capacity to completely analyze this critique so I will just put that fact out there.
Berdiaev wrote a book on Khomiakov of which I’ve read the three chapters that have been translated; however, I’m not even going to venture on that territory…

After all this reading I’ve realized that as with all Orthodox writers (and saints) one has to take out what is beneficial and, depending on the leftovers, not put on the same level or even disregard some of their thought. In Orthodoxy there is no one authority but Christ and all others are seen through his eyes.

One thing that I have noticed in all of this, as I have many times before, is the wonderful harmony we have in Orthodoxy between our various thinkers and saints, and that it takes all of them to make the world go round…

The expression of the Church

Certainly, Christianity has a logical expression contained in the Creed; but this is not separate from other manifestations. It also has a logical teaching, which we call theology. But this is only a branch of general teaching. To isolate it is a great error; to give it exclusive preference is madness; to see in it a heavenly gift tied to certain functions is a heresy. That would be to establish a sacrament of rationalism.
The Church does not recognize a teaching Church other than herself in her totality.
Alexey Khomiakov

The path of redemption

God has freely willed a synergistic path-of-redemption in which man must spiritually participate. God is the actor, the cause, the initiator, the one who completes all redemptive activity. But man is the one who must spiritually respond to the free gift of grace. And in this response there is an authentic place for the spiritually of monasticism and asceticism, one which has absolutely nothing to do his the 'works of the law'
Fr. Georges Florovsky

Stating the obvious

So when I was in high school my friends and I had a silly game that if someone stated the obvious you could punch them...this guy would be punched real hard:

Since for Xomjakov [sic] true philosophy could exist only in the realm of faith, in considering Xomjakov [sic] the philosopher one must consider Xomjakov [sic] the theologian. In his writings the line between philosophy, religion, and Orthodoxy often becomes dim, and the demarcation more convenient than precise. Conversely, his concept of sobornost’ although Christian, religious in character, has also ethical, ontological and epistemological significance.
Peter Christoff

It amazes me that a person could write a whole book on Khomiakov and yet state something like that. But on the other hand it makes perfect sense as he is approaching Khomiakov's thought, and Orthodoxy by association, in an academic and rationalistic way.

For those who disparage our modern holy fathers:

A man who does not express desire to link himself to the latest of the saints (in time) in all love and humility owing to a certain distrust of him, will never be linked with the preceding saints and will not be admitted to their succession, even though he thinks he possesses all possible faith and love for God and for all His saints. He will be cast out of their midst, as one who refused to take humbly the place allotted to him by God before all time, and to link himself to that latest saint (in time) as God had disposed.
St. Symeon the New Theologian

Still a mortal one

As I watched the first installment of Eisenshtein's Ivan the Terrible last night I realized that I needed to know more about this tyrant of a tsar and the surrounding history of his reign beyond the fable of a story presented in the film. So I found this apropos quote in the life of St. Philip Metropolitan of Moscow:

On the week of the Veneration of the Precious Cross, March 21, 1568 before the beginning of the Liturgy, the Metropolitan was standing on the cathedra (the raised place in the middle of the church). Unexpectedly, the tsar entered the church accompanied by a drove of oprichniks. All of them, the tsar including, were dressed up in tall black hats, black cassocks, with daggers and swords glistening from under the clothes. Tsar Ivan approached the Prelate from the side and three times bowed his head for a blessing. The Metropolitan was standing still, looking at the icon of Christ the Savior. At last the boyars said, "Metropolitan, the tsar demands your blessing." Philip turned to the tsar as if not recognizing him and said, "This strange attire makes our Orthodox tsar look unfamiliar to me, nor do I recognize him in what he is doing as our tsar. Oh, pious one, what pursuit led you to losing your grandeur? Since the beginning of times it was unheard of that a tsar would bring trouble to his own people. Tatars and heathens have order and fairness while we do not. We offer bloodless sacrifices even to our God, but beyond these walls the innocent blood of our Christians is shed. I lament not of the innocent murdered as martyrs and saints; it is your soul that I mourn over. Although a monarch blessed from above, you are still a mortal one, and you will have to account for all of your deeds before the Lord."

Self-Interpreting Scripture?

Spiritual knowledge is like a house built in the midst of Greek and worldly wisdom, in which house, like a tightly locked trunk, there is the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, and the unutterable treasure hidden in this knowledge of the Scriptures, that is, Divine grace. Those who enter this house cannot see this treasure if the trunk is not opened for them, but this trunk cannot be opened by any human wisdom. This is why people who think in a worldly way do not know the spiritual treasure which lies in the trunk of spiritual knowledge, And just as someone who lifts this trunk on his shoulders cannot by this alone see the treasure which is inside, so also even if someone were to read and learn by heart the divine Scriptures, and could read them all like a single psalm, he cannot by this alone acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is hidden in them. For just as what is hidden in the trunk cannot be revealed by the trunk itself, so also what is concealed in the divine Scriptures cannot be revealed by the Scriptures themselves.
St. Symeon the New Theologian

The justification of desire

As today is one of the feasts of the New-Martyr St. Hilarion receive a word from him:

...there is nothing easier than to re-interpret Christ's teaching according to one's personal taste and to invent 'Christianity,' passing off, under this name, the dreams of one's heart and the images of one's own idle fantasy. The sacred books of the New Testament were written by practical, unscholarly apostles. Throughout the centuries there have been 'correctors of the Apostles,' as Saint Irenaeus of Lyons calls them, ones who considered themselves higher than the Apostles, those 'Galilean fishermen.' Does it become a highly educated European [or American] of the twentieth century [or 21st] to accept on faith all that is said by some 'fishermen'? So many free themselves from the authority of the Apostles and desire to interpret Christ's teaching while being guided only by their personal whims. Leo Tolstoy, for example, bluntly declared that the Apostle Paul did not properly understand Christ's teaching; it follows that Tolstoy considered himself to be higher than the Apostle Paul. One can marvel greatly at how far people go in their 'interpretation' of Christianity. Whatever they might desire, they immediately find in the Gospel. It would appear that it is possible to cover one's every idle dream and even ill-intentioned thought by means of the Gospel's authority.
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

The slander of women

Miss Wisk’s mission, my guardian said, was to show the world that woman’s mission was man’s mission; and that the only genuine mission, of both man and woman was to be always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. …Such a mean mission as the domestic mission, was the very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman’s mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of Home was an outrageous slander on the part of her Tyrant, man.
Esther from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Breaking the seals

When the seal on the tomb is removed, then the seal of the many, totally obscure and unclear prophecies, is also removed. Christ resurrects and the mysteries become known. The seal of the tomb is removed not only from His body but also from the countless words and visions of the prophets. Christ resurrects and the prophetic words are also resurrected. Descending into Hades the Lord brought the heavenly light to the souls of the righteous fathers and prophets. By His resurrection, He brought their words and visions to the light of understanding and truth.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

Putting humanity right

If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body in order to bring the world back to his Father using gentleness and humility? And why was he stretched out on the cross for the sake of sinners, handing over his sacred body to suffering on behalf of the world? I myself say that God did all this for no other reason, except to make known to the world the love that he has, his aim being that we, as a result of our greater love arising from an awareness of this, might be captivated by his love when he provided the occasion of this manifestation of the kingdom of heaven’s mighty power—which consists in love—by means of the death of his Son.
The whole purpose of our Lord’s death was not to deliver us from sins, or for any other reason, but solely in order that the world might become aware of the love which God has for creation. Had all this astounding affair taken place solely for the purpose of forgiveness of sin, it would have been sufficient to redeem us by some other means. What objection would there have been if he had done what he did by means of an ordinary death? But he did not make his death at all an ordinary one—in order that you might realise the nature of this mystery. Rather, he tasted death in the cruel suffering of the cross. What need was there for the outrage done to him and the spitting? Just death would have been sufficient for our redemption—and in particular his death, without any of these other things which took place.
St. Isaac of Ninevah

The question of faith

…a great many people enter into the questions of faith and the Church solely as bold and decisive reformers who want to remake everything according to their own personal desires.
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

For the good of the deed

Find apropos reading here.

In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish ones lacked oil, it was said: ‘Go and buy in the market.’ But when they had bought, the door of the bridechamber was already shut and they could not get in. Some say that the lack of oil in the lamps of the foolish virgins means a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. Such an interpretation is not quite correct. Why should they be lacking in good deeds if they are called virgins, even though foolish ones? Virginity is the supreme virtue, an angelic state, and it could take the place of all other good works.
I, the humble one, think that what they were lacking was the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. These virgins practiced the virtues, but in their spiritual ignorance they supposed that the Christian life consisted merely in doing good works. By doing a good deed they thought they were doing the work of God, but they little cared whether they acquired thereby the grace of God’s Spirit. Such ways of life based merely on doing good without carefully testing whether they bring the grace of the Spirit of God, are mentioned in the patristic books: There is another way which appears as good at the beginning, but it ends at the bottom of hell (Prov. 16:25).
Anthony the Great in his letters to monks says of such virgins: ‘Many monks and virgins have no idea of the different kinds of wills which act in man, and they do not know that we are influenced by three wills: the first is God’s all-perfect and all-saving will; the second is our own human will which, is not destructive, yet neither is it saving; and the third will is the devil’s will—wholly destructive.’ And this third will of the enemy teaches man either not to do any good deeds or to do them out of vainglory, or for some other good, but not for Christ’s sake. The second, our own will, teaches us to do everything to flatter our passions, or else it teaches us to do good for the sake of good an not to care for the grace which is acquired by it. But the first, God’s all-saving will, consists in doing good solely to acquire the Holy Spirit as an eternal, inexhaustible treasure which cannot be rightly valued. The acquisition of the Holy Spirit is, so to say, the oil which the foolish virgins lacked. They were called foolish just because they had forgotten the necessary fruit of virtue, the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which no one is or can be saved, for: ‘Every soul is quickened by the Holy Spirit and exalted by purity and mystically illumined by the Trinal Unity’ (Hymn of Degrees, tone four, first antiphon). The Holy Spirit Himself takes up His abode in our souls, and this very settling into our souls of His Omnipotence and His abiding with our spirit of His Trinal Unity grants to us every possible means of acquiring the Holy Spirit which prepares in our soul and body a throne for God by means of His all-creating indwelling with our spirit, according to the unlying Word of God: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be to them a God and they shall be my people (2 Cor. 6:16).
This is the oil in the lamps of the wise virgins which could burn long and brightly; and these virgins with their burning lamps were able to meet the Bridegroom, Who came at midnight, and could enter the bridechamber of joy with Him. But the foolish ones, though they went to market to buy some oil when they saw their lamps going out, were unable to return in time, for the door was already shut. The market is our life; the door of the bridechamber which was shut and which barred the way to the Bridegroom is human death; the wise and foolish virgins are Christian souls; the oil is not good deeds but the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God which is obtained through them and which changes souls from one state to another—that is, from corruption to incorruption, from spiritual death to spiritual life, from darkness to light, from the stable of our being (where the passions are tied up like dumb animals and wild beasts) into a temple of the Divinity, into the shining bridechamber of eternal joy in Christ Jesus our Lord, the Creator and Redeemer and eternal Bridegroom of our souls.
St. Seraphim of Sarov

Let us go with Him

As the Lord was going to his voluntary passion,
He said to the Apostles on the way,
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,
And the Son of Man shall be delivered up, as it is written of Him.
Come, therefore, let us also go with Him,
Purified in mind.
Let us be crucified with him and die through Him
To the pleasures of this life.
Then we shall live with Him and hear Him say:
I go no more to the earthly Jerusalem to suffer,
But to my Father and your Father,
To my God and your God.
I shall raise you up to the Jerusalem on high
In the kingdom of heaven.
Stikhera of Holy Monday

Podvig

Take away the personal fire for podvig, and you have a shattered cluster of conflicting passions, which destroy a man from within and incite rebellion and chaos with whomever that man encounters.

The rights of women...(and men)

Many have attacked these imaginary rights of women; many more have defended them. But amidst all the eloquent verbiage that has aroused so many good souls and weak heads, no one has ever cited those principles of moral responsibility and world-wide truth upon which the concept of rights might depend, and about which a sensible controversy might at least have been carried on. ... The real subject of the controversy…was not the rights of men and women, but their mutual responsibilities that determine their mutual rights, those responsibilities of women and men that are obvious to every sensible creature. But it is quite natural that they did not realize this, because of their habit of considering rights as something independent and because of their blind faith in the science of the immaterial.
Alexey Khomiakov

The opposite of an error

…they created a new theological dogma of the Godhead [the Filioque] in direct opposition to the Arians under the influence of this same superficial logical thought — a dogma they regarded as true only because it was the direct opposite of one form of heresy, forgetting that the direct opposite of an error is generally not the truth, but only the other extreme of the same error.
Ivan Kireevsky

On the "social" Fathers

We should not forget that the word of the Prophet, of the Apostle and of the Saint is said according to the maturity and the spirituality of the people they address. If the word is imperfect, this is not because of the difference in the spirit of the Holy Father but is due to the inability of the people to grasp something loftier. It is not that the Father does not know, but that the flock is unable to grasp it. Not to mention that in many patristic works which have a social content, the hesychastic spirit is also clearly present.
Let me take the case of St. Chrysostom, as you mentioned before, to be more specific. St. Chrysostom is considered a social Father and appropriate to be read by people in the world. Many refer to his teaching about various social and moral questions, yet they forget that the same Father lived in a hesychastic and ascetic way, with watchfulness, with tears and mourning, with unceasing prayer, with the remembrance of death.
Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos

The Ideals of education

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)

Heavy and oppressed hearts

When one hears of so many modern doctrines ostensibly in sympathy with Christianity, but actually proclaiming openly the alleged impotence of Christianity and its inability to branch out into the tree of life, and insisting that it should surrender all spheres of life, except our inner consciousness, to some self-sufficient activities “after the rudiments of this world” (Col. 2:8), one’s heart feels heavy and oppressed indeed. For that is really worse than a direct challenge by unbelief, which hates Christianity, thus obviously crediting it at least with some power. This kind of theology is nothing short of the obsequies of Christianity, when the heat of battle is already past and one may say a good word even for the foe, already annihilated. These teachings, in praising Christianity, without allotting to it any domain of life, destroy it also as our inner possession: for if Christianity is to be driven out everywhere on the ground that a different order, having nothing in common with spirituality, is now to reign on earth, and that there is to be an autonomy all of its own henceforth, then the same thing will have to be said of emotional life, which is also subject to laws of its own, also autonomous throughout, it must have an absolute immanent stability and must in itself be God.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Sacred history

Only for the childish mind is the Old Testament set forth as 'sacred history,' as if 'history' comprises its essence for a Christian.
Fr. Michael Pomazansky

Church

...where the voices of men, of children, and of women, arise in our prayers to God mingling and resounding like the waves which beat upon the shore. This Church also enjoys a profound calm, and malicious spirits cannot trouble it with the breath of heresy.
St. Basil the Great

On the way

It was clearly stated on the posters that the whole proletariat must stand firmly on the way to industrial development. This enlightened Makar at once: first he must find the proletariat, underneath the proletariat would be the way...
Makar in Andrei Platonov’s Makar the Doubful

Denying the Church

If anyone denies the Church with its religious ideals, then Christ becomes for him only a teacher-philosopher in the category of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Lao-Tse and others.
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Something to remember on the journey to Church

Abba Daniel and Abba Ammoe were traveling. Abba Ammoe said, 'Father, when will we arrive at the cell?' (that is, so that they could to pray to God). Abba Daniel replied, 'And who is taking God away from us now?' The same God is in the cell and outside the cell. By this we are taught uninterruptedness of prayer, thoughts about God, and contemplation of God's works in us and around us. The Church facilitates prayer and intensifies it. So it is the same with solitude and confinement; each in its own way facilitates and intensifies it. He who does not want to pray will not be bound either by a church or a cell. Neither will he who has felt the pleasure of prayer be able to separate his nature or journeying from prayer.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

"Validity" of inspired texts

What is important is the Church’s judgment on the contents of the work and the use which she has made of it. Does not the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews say in quoting a psalm of David: ‘But one in a certain place testified…’? thus showing to what extent the question of authorship is of secondary importance in the case of a text inspired by the Holy Spirit. What is true of Holy Scripture is also true of the theological tradition of the Church.
Vladimir Lossky

Nothing further

The philosophical orientation towards autonomous rational thought which began in the West about the time of the Protestant Revolution, and whose first representatives in philosophy were Bacon and Descartes, has steadily grown and spread in the course of three and one-half centuries, sometimes proliferating into numerous separate systems, sometimes combining to produce their great summations, thus passing through all the stages of possible progress, and has finally attained the last, all-inclusive conclusion beyond which European man’s mind cannot aspire without completely changing its basic orientation. For when man rejects every authority except his abstract thinking, can he advance beyond the view which presents the whole existence of the world as the transparent dialectic of human reason, and human reason as the self-consciousness of universal being? Obviously, in this case, the ultimate goal which can be conceived by abstract reasoning separated from other cognitive faculties, is the goal he has been approaching for centuries, has now attained, and beyond which is nothing further to seek.
Ivan Kireevsky (1856)