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.

The pre-existence of souls?

We already existed before this world, because our creation was decided by God long before our actual creation. Before our creation we therefore existed in the thought of God, we who later turned out to be intelligent creatures of the Divine Word. Thanks to Him, we are very ancient in our origin, because 'in the beginning was the Word.'
St. Clement of Alexandria

...the World-generating Reason also considered, in His mind's great representations, the images of the world formed by Him, this world which was generated later, but, which, for God was present even then. Everything is before God's eyes: what will be, what was, and what is now. For me such a division is set by time: that one thing is ahead, another thing behind. But for God all merges into one, and all is held in the arms of the Great Deity.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus

So I almost fooled you didn't I (or rather St. Clement did)? Upon the first few words you were thinking, "What's going on here?" But then you realized this is a much more lofty idea than some measly pre-existence of souls.

The fools for Christ

...seem to reject the Apostle Paul's admonition to accept any personal deprivation and sacrifice in order to avoid scandalizing the faithful (1 Cor. 8:13). But what kind of scandal is St. Paul talking about? It is something that causes confusion in the realm of truth, and may thus deprive others of the possibility of participating in truth--the possibility of salvation. If by eating food offered to idols you give your brother's 'weak conscience' grounds for supposing that there is some connection between idol worship and the truth and life of the Church, then the responsibility for the confusion you cause is great indeed.

The challenge of the fools, however, does not create confusion in people's faith, nor does it obscure the Church. It simply surprises those who have identified faith and truth with the secularized concept of moral uprightness and conventional decorum. Fools for Christ have the gift, and the audacity, to manifest openly the human fall and sin which is common to us all: this is the reality of our nature, and it is not cancelled out by individual cases of 'improvement,' nor by concealment behind social externals.

In this sense, every monk in the Orthodox East is a kind of 'fool for Christ.' He wears a garment of mourning, openly declaring that he accepts our common fall and sin; and he withdraws into the ascetic life, waging war on this fall and this sin on behalf of us all. This same acceptance is the calling of every member of the Church. If we persist in ignoring the Gospel of salvation and continue to identify the regeneration of man with the social recognition of individual virtues, with worldly success in gaining individual moral respectability, then the fault is ours alone--and it is an error which bars us from truth and life.

The prototype to which the Church has always looked is not individual moral self-sufficiency, but the monks' lament of repentance. This lament is ultimately joyful--a 'joyful sorrow'--and turns sin into a measure of the acceptance of Christ's love. Man is able to mourn and lament only when he knows exactly what he has lost, and experiences this loss as a personal deprivation, a personal thirst. This is why repentance, the personal sense of the loss of God, is also a first revelation, our first acquaintance with His person, our first discovery of the extent of His love.

In the case of the fools for Christ, certainly their shocking freedom from every law, rule, restriction or code of obligations is not simply didactic in its purpose, reminding us of the danger of identifying virtue and holiness with conventional social decorum and egocentric moral rectitude. No one can ever really teach simply by calling into question mistaken concepts and ways of life: one has to make the fulness of the saving truth incarnate in oneself. The shocking freedom of the fools is first and foremost a total death, a complete mortification of every individual element in their lives. This death is the freedom which can break and destroy every conventional form; it is resurrection into a life of personal distinctiveness, the life of love which knows neither bounds nor barriers.

The example of the 'fools for Christ,' then, is neither extreme nor inexplicable, as it may perhaps seem to many people. It is the incarnation of the Gospel's fundamental message: that it is possible for someone to keep the whole of the Law without managing to free himself from his biological and psychological ego, from corruption and death. And that on the other hand, it is enough is someone humbly accepts his own sin and his fall, without differentiating it from the sin and fall of the rest of mankind, trusting in the love of Christ which transfigures this acceptance into personal nearness and communion, into a life of incorruption and immortality.
Christos Yannaras

Quantity=Quality?

Having recently finished War and Peace I will have to concur with Turgenev for my summary:

The novel itself aroused my keen interest: there are tens of pages which are absolutely magnificent, first class--all the descriptive parts, the stuff of everyday life--a hunt, a drive at night, and so forth. But the historical addition, which is precisely the part which enraptures the reader, is sham and charlatanery. ...Tolstoy impresses the reader with the tow of Alexander's boot, the laugh of Speransky. He forces the reader to believe that he knows everything about his subject, if indeed he goes down to these minute details, but in reality he knows only these small details.
Ivan Turgenev

In the power of Christ

...I am going to mock the world.
St. Symeon of Emesa

Discerning evil

St. Gregory the Theologian had baptized a certain philosopher, Maximus by name, and liked him so much that he kept the philosopher in his home, sharing his table with him. However, this Maximus, was as dangerous and cunning as a serpent. After a period of time, through intrigue and bribes, he obtained recognition of some Constantinopolians as patriarch, in place of St. Gregory. When this temptation, after great confusion, was removed, some rebuked Gregory for keeping his greatest enemy with him. The saint replied: 'We are not to blame if we do not discern someone's evil. God alone knows the inner secrets of man. And to us is commanded by law, that with fatherly love, to open our hearts to all who come to us.'
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Delivered unto us

Holy Scripture, then, is not an objectified 'source' of Christian truth and revelation, like the 'theoretical' texts which outline the impersonal and objective principles of an ideology. Nor are their two sources of objective authority, Scripture and Tradition, as Roman Catholic rationalism would have it. Prior to any written formulation, Christian faith and truth is a fact, the fact of God's incarnation and man's deification. It is the unceasing realization and manifestation of this fact, its tangible embodiment in history--in other words, it is the Church

This order of precedence is a fundamental precondition for approaching the ethics of the Gospel--and, for that matter, the whole teaching of Scripture. The Gospel finds its manifestation in the fact of the Church; and if we overlook this fact, we are left with nothing but a disembodied teaching whose significance may be exceptional, but is bound to be relative. (As we know, Scripture formed the basis for all the heretical distortions of the event of salvation, and many who reject Christianity have devoted serious study to the text of Scripture without abnegating their rejection.)

Prior to any written formulation, the historical reality of the Church is the 'gospel,' the 'good news'--the news of incarnate truth and salvation. For this reason, we cannot think of the Bible as the 'founding charter' of the Church, containing theoretical 'statutes' for the Christian faith and a code of 'commandments' for Christian ethics. Christianity is not made up of 'metaphysical' convictions and moral directives which always require a priori intellectual acceptance. The Gospel of the Church is the manifestation of her life and her experience: and this experience was set down by the eyewitnesses of the resurrection, of the beginning of man's salvation: '...even as they delivered unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word' (Lk 1:2).
Christos Yannaras

Freedom and sin

The Catholic novelist believes that you destroy your freedom by sin; the modern readers believe, I think, that you gain it in that way.
Flannery O’Conner

Zacchaeus was a wee little man

Anyone who is chief among many in wickedness is little in spiritual stature, for the flesh and the spirit are opposites to one another, and for this reason he [Zacchaeus] cannot see Jesus for the crowd. Crowded in by a multitude of passions and worldly affairs, he is not able to see Jesus acting, moving, and walking about. Such a man as this cannot recognize Christian acts for what they are, namely, Christ acting and moving in us. But such a man, who never sees Jesus passing by and cannot perceive Christ in Christian acts, will sometimes change from negligence and come to his senses. Then he will climb up to the top of the sycamore-fig, passing by every pleasure and sweetness, as signified by the figs, and counting them as foolish and dead. Becoming higher than he was and making ascents in his heart, [Ps. 83:6] he is seen by Jesus and can see Jesus, and the Lord says to him, Make haste, and come down, which means, Through repentance you have ascended to a higher life; come down now through humility lest pride and high mindedness make you fall. Make haste, and humble yourself. If you humble yourself, I must abide at your house, for it is necessary that I abide in the house of a humble man. Upon whom shall I look, if not upon him who is humble and meek, who trembles at My words? [Is. 66:2] Such a man gives half of his goods to the destitute demons. For our substance is twofold: flesh and spirit. The righteous man imparts all his fleshly substance to the truly poor, the demons who are destitute of everything good. But he does not let go of his spiritual substance, for as the Lord likewise said to the devil concerning Job, Behold, I give into thine hand all that he has, but touch not his soul. [Job 1:12] And if he has taken any thing from any man by false accusation, he restores it to him fourfold. This suggests that if a man repents and follows a path that is opposite to his former way of wickedness, he heals his former sins through the four virtues, and thus he receives salvation and is called a son of Abraham. Like Abraham, he also goes out of his land and out of his kinship with his former wickedness and out of the house of his father, meaning, he comes out from his old self and rejects his former condition. He himself was the house of his father, the devil. Therefore, when he went out of the house of his father, that is, when he went out of himself and changed, he found salvation, as did Abraham.
Blessed Theophylact

The foundations of science

…Our entire understanding of life, our entire science (I speak not of theologial science but of science in general, the scientific spirit) is based on the idea of Logos, on the idea of God the Word. This holds true not only for science but even for the whole of life itself, for the whole structure of our soul. We conceive of everything under the category of the law, the measure of harmony. This idea of logism, an idea that is often distorted to the point of unrecognizability, is the basic nerve of everything that is alive and genuine in our mental, moral, and aesthetic life. The one universal, all-embracing 'Law' of the World, the hypostatic Name of the Father, Divine Providence, without the will of Which a hair does not fall from our heads, Which makes 'the lilies of the field' (Matt. 6:28) grow and feeds 'the birds of the air' (Matt. 6:26), God, Who depletes Himself by His creation of the world and by economy—that is the religious presupposition of our science, and outside of this presupposition, more or less abstratly formulated, there is no science. The 'unformity of the laws of nature'—that is the postulate without which all science is empty sophistry. But this postulate can be made a psychological reality only by faith in That word about Which St. John prophesies in the first verses of his paschal Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not' (John 1:1-5). Those are the 'foundations of science.' And if we reject them, a cruel revenge is inevitable: the fall of a science that is built on shifting and engulfing sands.
St. Pavel Florensky

Apropos to the feast of St. Mark of Ephesus

…may the Lord deliver us from such delusion: and may there be given to you a hatred against the serpent, that as they lie in wait for the heel, so you may trample on their head.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

A new ascetical exercise?

In the presence of men who have committed their lives to Greek Orthodox monasticism, Lagos tied a babushka under her chin and wore a long skirt. There must not be any distractions.

I would think it would be hard to tie a babushka under the chin but if you can do it you definitely deserve a place in heaven!

Further, since when do monks devote themselves to "Greek Orthodox monasticism" and not Jesus the Christ?

CCT yea you know me

Ecumenical alert!

So I read about this group some time ago in a certain publication but had forgotten about it until now. What is a year in Orthotime anyway?

The first questionable content of said article is the mention of an "ecumenical officer" - which I ask is exactly what? Maybe they are in charge of arresting those accused of "intolerance"? I did a little google search on these so-called "ecumenical officers" and evidently it is a hip term now with the ecumenical kids.

The article next states that "Christian Churches Together" began with an "effort to form 'a more credible Christian witness'". At this point one must ask: what "witness" can be more "credible" than the Truth that is Jesus Christ which is present in the Orthodox Church? From this groups webpage we read the following, "CCT is a new forum growing out of a deeply felt need to broaden and expand fellowship, unity, and witness among the diverse expressions of Christian faith today". I don't know about you but I always like it when degrees of heretical beliefs are referred to as "diverse expressions of Christian faith". I'll tell you one thing - that Arius had some nifty "diverse expressions"...

Moving right along to the real issue of social justice I will quote from the next paragraph: "Organizers said that tackling poverty would be the group’s first priority." ...no comment. And from the webpage: "CCT, out of its commitment to grow closer together in Christ, can offer a significant and credible voice in speaking to contemporary culture on issues of life, social justice and peace." I refer you to this post.

Now on to the meat of the matter we look at "The Chicago Statement" and find such statements as "We long for the broken body of Christ made whole, where unity can be celebrated in the midst of our diversity" and that "common witness will be visible through our: Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit through biblical, spiritual and theological reflection, Engaging in common prayer". So now we have Orthodox believing that the Body of Christ is broken and that they must go outside the Church, among heterodox, to seek the Holy Spirit through prayer with them?

Next you ask, "How do I become a member!?" And they answer, "All you have to do is confess Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the scriptures and you're in!" And you say, "Good because I thought Arius had the correct interpretation of the scriptures!"


P.S.: It is not by chance that I mention Arius - today is the feast of St. Athanasius who smashed that heretic of heretics.

Human glory

My friends, why do you partake of human glory to the point of intoxication, a glory that begins with a song and ends with lying in the mire?
The unanimous glory that comes from men is the most inglorious, because it is indifferent.
If your glory is a reward from the people, then you are a day laborer who has been paid off, and tomorrow the people can throw you off their fields.
Truly, no new day recognizes your contract with a day gone by. Every day opens a new field and makes a new agreement.
If your glory is the work of your mighty arms, your days will be anger and your nights will be fear.
If your glory is the work of your wisdom, wisdom will be a castration of your glory and you will be unable to move.
If you call your glory your own, Heaven will punish you for lying and stealing.
Stroll with your glory through a cemetery and see whether the dead will glorify you..
In truth, you are already strolling through a cemetery, and you are receiving flory from mobile tombs. Who will glorify you, after the mobile tombs become immobile?
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

To gain the Kingdom

If, at times, the dogmas of the Faith seem to be like solid food, first endeavor to fulfill the moral dogmas of Christianity, then the understanding of the dogmas of the Faith will be revealed to you. Inquisitive questioning of higher things without effort regarding the improvement of your life does not bring any benefit. At one time, the monks of Egypt reflected about Melchisedek and not being able to come to a clear understanding about the mysterious personality of this ancient king and high priest, invited Abba Copres to their assembly and asked him about Melchisedek. Upon hearing this, Copres struck himself three times on the mouth and said, 'Woe to you Copres! You left that which God commanded you to do and you question that which God does not require of you.' Hearing him, the monks were ashamed and dispersed. St. John Chrysostom writes, 'And, if we adhere to the true dogmas and are not concerned about our behavior, we will not have any kind of benefit; and in the same way, if we concern ourselves about our behavior and neglect true dogmas, we will receive no benefit for our salvation. If we want to be delivered from Gehenna and to gain the kingdom, we need to be adorned on both sides: correctness of dogmas and honorable living.'
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Christian yoga?

Noetic prayer must, however, take place within the climate of the Orthodox Tradition and in the framework of the asceticism of the Orthodox Church. I say this because some people are cutting noetic prayer away from the whole asceticism of the Church, with the result that it is being presented as a Christian yoga. Actually when prayer is cut off from repentance and godly mourning, from the keeping of Christ's commandments, by which the tripartite soul is purified, from the sacramental life of the Church, then it loses its value from the orthodox point of view, since it is done mechanistically, exoterically, in the manner of the Buddhistic exercises.
Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos)

The Kingdom of God is within you

All that belongs to God carries the seal of immortality. And, the Kingdom of God is immortal. If we desire to breathe the air of immortality, we must enter within ourselves, within our hearts, within the Kingdom of God. Outside of ourselves is the air of time, the air of transitoriness and decay in which the soul breathes with difficulty. ... We are constantly outside ourselves. The Lord wants to return us to ourselves, in His home and to His homeland. For us, the Kingdom of God is within us: outside of ourselves is a foreign land. In order to escape from a foreign land and find our true home, in which we directly encounter God, we must enter within ourselves, into our hearts. There is the King, there also is the Kingdom.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Just like the kingdom of God, the Spirit has both a gradual historical manifestation and a discontinuously eschatological manifestation, which are irreducible one to the other. Otherwise it is incomprehensible how the final state, the illumination of creation the expulsion of death, in a word, the 'future age' could be distinguished from the preliminary state of waiting, from 'this age,' in which death still reigns.

Thus, the ideas of the Kingdom of God and of the Holy Spirit resemble each other formally. But this resemblance is not only formal. In its general idea, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the Kingdom of the Father unquestionably has its roots in the Gospel, and it gets its verbal justification in the Apostle Paul: 'The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit' (Rom. 14:17)—Εν Πνευματι Αγιωι, 'in' or 'of the Holy Spirit,' i.e., in the righteousness, peace, and joy produced by the Holy Spirit. The subjective state of righteousness, peace, and joy produced by the Holy Spirit is that same Kingdom of God which is 'within' us (Luke 17:21), the barely noticeable mustard seed of faith sown in the soul. But growing and showing itself above the field of what is mine and only mine, above the domain of subjectivity, the sprout of the seed of faith becomes objective, cosmic, universal. Liturgy and the sacraments are the outward manifestations of the Kingdom of God in Church life. The working of miracles and contemplative insights reveal the same Kingdom in the personal lives of the saints.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

The habit of virtue is the restoration of the powers of the soul to their primordial nobility and the unification of the main virtues for action that is proper to the soul by its nature. This does not come to us from outside, but is innate to us from our creation, and through this we enter into the kingdom of heaven, which according to the Lord’s words is within us.
Nikitas Stithatos

Love

Brethren, God is Love which heaven lowers to earth; Brethren, man is love which raises earth to heaven.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On martyrs

…how did the Holy Martyrs confront the idol worshippers, and how did the New Martyrs confront the Muslims? Did they not confess the truth? Could we imagine them praying together with them? In that case we would not have any martyrs!
Holy Monastery of the Paraclete

Apropos to the feast of St. Gregory bishop of Nyssa

‘People said, Man is a microcosm …and thinking to elevate human nature with this grandiloquent title, they did not notice that they had honoured man with the characteristics of the mosquito and the mouse.’
St. Gregory of Nyssa

"church history"

Taken from an advertisement from a certain church in the local newspaper: "This class will outline the history of Protestants from the first-followers of Jesus, through the Reformation and Baptists in the -- area." I'm guessing they refer to the "first-followers" of Jesus referred to in John 6:66: "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." ... It is tempting to attend this course and it would be quite entertaining but a) it is on Sunday's during the divine liturgy and 2) it costs $20 - that kind of entertainment isn't worth $20.

Cheerfulness

I think here is an apropos application of the accustomed axiom "You've gotta' be kidding me".

Herb morphosis

Let none associate with the soul-destroying Manicheans, who by decoctions of chaff counterfeit the sad look of fasting, who speak evil of the Creator of meats, and greedily devour the daintiest, who teach that the man who plucks up this or that herb is changed into it.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

A new sacrament?

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.
Alexey Khomiakov

The righteous

From today's readings for Vespers:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
(Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-6)

But the righteous live for ever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them. Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and with his arm he will shield them.
(Wisdom of Solomon 5:15, 16)


Everything is transient, everything passes by, everything fades away. There is only One Who Abides, Αλη'θεια. Truth- Αλη'θεια is Unforgetfulness, that which is not licked off by the streams of Time; it is Solid Ground not eaten away by corrosive Death; it is Essence most essential in which there is no Non-being at all. In Truth, in the Incorruptible One, the corruptible being of this world finds its protection. From Truth, the Strong One, the world’s being receives strength-chastity. God gives victory over Time, and this victory is 'remembrance' by God Who does not forget. He Himself is above Time and can make everything commune with Eternity. How? By remembering it.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

A place of rest?

When I'm in the "sunset" of my days someone better let me spend them at the Sunset Home.

"Shred" auditorium

Am I the only one who sees Shredder in this "beautiful" bandshell?

Courting these days

"...do you know the new way of courting?" ... "No," replied Princess Mary. "To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy."
...
...She adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered much in life. ... Boris, entered more deeply into Julia's melancholy, and with these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with mournful sketches, maxims, and verses. ... Boris sketched two trees in the album and wrote: "Rustic trees, your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me." On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote: "Death gives relief and death is peaceful. Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge." Julia said this was charming. "There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy," she said to Boris, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book. "It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of consolation." In reply Boris wrote these lines: "Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul, Thou, without whom happiness would for me be impossible, Tender melancholy, ah, come to console me, Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat, And mingle a secret sweetness With these tears that I feel to be flowing." ...For Boris, Julia played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings Julia and Boris looked on one another as the only souls who understood one another in a world of indifferent people.
Leo Tolstoy

Let your women keep silence in the churches...

...for it is not permitted unto them to speak (1 Cor. 14:34). So the other day I was talking with a certain friend of mine and she brought up, once again, all the emotions and interpersonal politics she has encountered being in and of the choir at her Church. Having my own fair exposure to such "choral emotions", even as recently as on the feast of the Nativity!, I realized that maybe this verse of St. Paul is addressing this same issue in the choirs of yore?

Christmas with the convicts

At last the holidays arrived. On Christmas Eve very few convicts went out to work. A few went to the sewing sheds and the workshops; the rest of the men merely attended the work detail, and although they were assigned to various locations, almost all of them, either singly or in groups, went straight back to the prison, and after dinner no one left it at all. Even during the morning the majority of the convicts went about exclusively on their own business, and not on official tasks: some busied themselves with the illicit provision of vodka and the ordering of new supplies; others to see friends of both sexes, or to collect before the holiday the small amounts of money owing to them for work done earlier in the year. Baklushin and the men who were taking part in the stage show went to see certain acquaintances, mostly in the officers' detachment, and to obtain necessary costumes. Some men walked around looking preoccupied and fussed simply because others did, and although some, for example, had no prospects of getting any money from anywhere, they non the less acted as though they were indeed about to get some; in short, everyone seemed to be expecting some sort of a change to take place on the following day, something out of the ordinary. Towards evening the veterans who had gone to the market to do the convicts' errands came back laden with many different kinds of things to eat: beef, sucking-pigs, even geese. Many of the convicts, even the most plain-living and thrifty ones, who saved up their copecks all year round, considered it their duty to spare no expense on this occasion and to celebrate the end of the fast in a proper manner. The day that would come tomorrow was a real holiday, which the convicts could not be deprived of – it was formally recognized by law. A convict could not be sent out to work on this day; there were only three such days in the year.

And really, who can tell how many memories must have stirred in the souls of these outcasts as they rose to meet such a day! The days of the great feasts are sharply imprinted on the memory of the common people, beginning in childhood. These are the days when they rest from their strenuous labours, days when families gather together. In prison they must have been remembered with torment and anguish. Respect for the solemn feast even acquired a certain ritual majesty among the convicts; there was little merrymaking, everyone was serious and seemingly preoccupied with something, although many had practically nothing at all to do. But even the idlers and the merrymakers tried to preserve a certain air of importance ... It was if laughter had been forbidden. The prevailing mood was one of a certain exaggerated puctiliousness and irritable impatience, and any man who did anything to disturb this general atmosphere, even accidentally, would be set upon with shouts and curses by the others, as if he had aroused their anger by not having sufficient respect for the holy feast. This mood of the convicts was remarkable, and could even be quite moving. In addition to his inborn sense of reverence for the great day, each convict had an unconcious feeling that by observing this feast he was in some way coming into contact with the whole world, that consequently he ws not altogether an outcast, a lost man, a severed limb, and that as it was in the world of men, so it was in prison. They felt this; it was obvious and understandable.

Akim Akimych too was very busy preparing for the holiday, He had no family memories, for he had grown up as an orphan in a house belonging to strangers and had begun an arduous military service from the age of fifteen: there had been no particular happiness in his life, because he had always lived it with such regularity and monotony, afraid to stray even by a hair's breadth from the particularly religious, either, since probity had apparently swallowed up all his other human endowments and attributes, his passions and desires, good and bad. Consequently he was preparing to greet the solemn day without fuss or agitation, without being troubled by any anguished and entirely futile memories, but with a quiet, methodical probity which was exactly as great as was necessary for the execution of his duties and the performance of a ritual that had been established for once and for all. In general, he was not one to give matters much reflection. It seemed that he never bothered his head about the meaning of any fact; but once rules were explained to him, he would carry them out with religious exactitude. If tomorrow he had been required to do the exact opposite, he would have done it with precisely the same obedience and thoroughness. Once, once only in his life had he attempted to live according to his own perceptions – and had ended up in prison. The lesson had not been lost on him. And although fate had decreed that he should not have even the slightest understanding of what it was he had been found guilty of, he had none the less deduced from his adventure one saving maxin: never under any circumstances to use his reason, since this was 'no business of his mind', as the convicts expressed it among themselves. In his blind devotion to ritual, he even regarded his Christmas sucking-pig, which he had stuffed with buckwheat porridge and roasted (with his own hands, for he knew how it was done), with a kind of anticipatory respect, as if this were no ordinary sucking-pig, which one could buy and roast any time one liked, but a special, Christmas one. It is possible that he had been used from childhood onwards to seeing a sucking-pig on the table when Christmad Day came round, and I am convinced that if even once he had missed his taste of sucking-pig on that day he would have been left for the rest of his life with a nagging sense of quilt at not having done his duty. Until the holiday arrived he went around in an old jacket and a pair of old trousers, which although they were quite respectably darned were none the less threadbare. It now transpired that he had carefully preserved in his locked box the new suit of jacket and trousers which had been issued to him about four months previously, and had not touched it, smiling at the thought of how he would put it on for the first time when it was Christmas. And that was what he did. On Christmas Eve he took out the new suit, unfolded it, examined it, gave it a brush, blew the dust off it and, when he had attended to all this, tried it on. The suit fitted him perfectly, it turned out; everything was as it should be, the jacket buttoned all the way to the top, the collar, as if it were made of cardboard, propped his chin up high; the jacket was even drawn in at the waist, reminding one of a military uniform, and Akim Akimych fairly beamed with pleasure, turning from side to side, not without a certain dash and swagger, in front of his tiny looking-glass, the rim of which he had once, long ago, in a moment of idlenes, decorated with a border of gold paper. There was only one little hook on the jacket collar which did not seem to be in quite the right position. Taking note of this, Akim Akimych decided to move the hook; this he did, tried the jacket on again, and this time everything seemed fine. Then he folded the garments once more and hid them in his locked box with his mind at ease until the next day. His head was shaven in the approved manner; but as he viewed himself attentively in the looking-glass, he noticed that his head did not appear to be entirely smooth on top; a few little tufts of hair were just visible, and he went straight of to 'the major' to have himself shaved properly and according to the regulations. Although noone was going to inspect him the following day, he had himself shaved, purely in order to satisfy his conscience, so as to have carried out all his Christmas duties. A reverence for buttons, epaulettes and stripes had been indelibly impressed upon his mind from childhood onwards as a kind of unquestionable obligation, and upon his heart as an image of the highest degree of beauty a decent man could attain to. When he had set everything to rights, as the head convict in the barrack he gave orders for hay to be brought in, and carefully supervised the spreading of it over the floor. The same was done in the other barrcks. For some unknown reason hay was always spread on the barrack floors at Christmas. Then, when he had completed his labours, Akim Akimych said his prayers, lay down on his camp bed and immediately fell into a peaceful slumber like that of a young infant; so as to wake up as early as possible in the morning. All the convicts acted in exactly the same manner, however. In all the barracks the men went to bed far earlier than they usually did. Their usual evening occupations were neglected; no one even mentioned maydans. Everyone was waiting for the morning that followed.

At last it arrived. Early, before it was light, as soon as reveille had been sounded on the drum, the barracks were unlocked and the duty sergeant wished them all a merry Christmas. The men did likewise, replying in a friendly, affectionate tone. After hurriedly saying their prayers, Akim Akimych and a lot of other men whose geese and sucking-pigs were cooking in the kitchen rushed off to see what was being done to them, how they were being roasted, where they were being put, and so on. Through the small, snow-and-ice-encrusted windows of our hut we could see out across the darkness to where in all six ovens of both kitchens brights fires were burning, having been kindled well before dawn. Convicts were already poking about the courtyard in the dark, wearing their sheepskin coats aither arm-in-sleese or thrown carelessly over their shoulders; they were all swiftly heading for the kitched. There were some, however, only a very few, it must be admitted, who had already managed to pay a visit to the 'barmen'. These were the most impatient ones. In general, all the men behaved in a decent manner, peaceably and with a decorum that was somehow unusual for them. None of their usual quarrels and bad language were to be heard. They all knew that it was a day of great importance, a religious holiday of the first magnitude. There were some who went round the other barracks to give their greetings to men from their part of the country. Something akin to friendliness made its appearance. I will observe in passing that friendliness was something one hardly ever saw among the convicts: I allude not to any general spirit of friendliness – that was even less in evidence – but simply to the private friendship of one convict with another. This was something almost completely absent in the prison, and it was a remarkable feature of our life: things are different in freedom. All the men in the prison, with very few exceptions, were callous and sour in their dealings with each other, and this was a form of behaviour that had been accepted and established once and for all. I also left the barrack; it was just beginning to get lights; the stars were growing faint; a thin, frosty mist was rising into the air. The kitchen chimneys were emitting columns of smoke. Some of the convicts I met as I walked withed me a merry Christmas spontaneously and with real affection. I thanked them and responded in kind. Some of them were men who until now had not said a work to me all during the past month.

Right outside the kitched I was accosted by a convict from the military barrack, his sheepskin coat thrown over his shoulders. He saw me from halfway across the yard, and shouted to me: 'Aleksandr Petrovich! Aleksandr Petrovich!' He was on his way to the kitchen and in a hurry. I stopped and waited for him. He was a round-faced lad with a quiet expression in his eyes, he was very untalkative with everyone, and had not said a single word to me or paid me the slightest attention since I had entered the prison; I did not even know his name. He ran up to me breathlessly and stood right in from of me, staring at me with a meanngless, yet somehow blissful smile on his face.

'What do you want?' I asked him, not without astonishment, in view of the fact that he was standing and staring, smiling at me with all his might, yet not having started up any sort of conversation with me.

'Well, I mean, it's Christmas...' He muttered and, having surmised that there was nothing more to talk about, he left me and rapidly set off for the kitchen.

I will observe, incidentally, that we never had any close of dealings with one another after this, and hardly said a word to one another for all the rest of my time in the prison.

Around the blazing ovens in the kitchen there was a great deal of bustle and jostling, quite a crowd. Each man was looking after what was his; the cooks were getting on with the preparation of the prison food, for dinner would be eaten earlier than usual today. No one had begun to eatyet, however; although some would have liked to, they disisted out of a sense of decorum in the presence of others. A priest was expected, and only after his visit would the breaking of the fast begin. In the meanwhile it was sstill not quite lights, when outside the prison gate the corporal's summoning cry began to ring out: 'Cooks!' These cries rang out practically every minute and continued for almost two hours. The cooks were needed to receive the gifts of food which had been broughts to the prison from every quarter of the town. The food arrived in enormous quantities in the form of kalatches, bread, curd tarts, pastried, buns, blintzes and other fancy confections. I don't believe there was one merchant or artisan housewife in all the town who had not sent some of her baking as a Christmas present for the 'unfortunates', the convicts. Some of this charity was extremely generous – there were fancy loaves made of the finest flour, sent in large quantities. Some of it was very meagre – a half-copeck kalatch and two rye buns with a thin smearing of sour cream on them: this was the gift of pauper to pauper, from the last there was to spare. Everything was accepted with equal gratitude, without respect of gifts and donors. As they accepted the gifts, the convicts took off their hats, bowed, wished the donor a merry Christmas and took the offering back to the kitchen. When heaps of bakeries had accumulated, the head convicts from each barrack were sent for, and they distributed all the items equally among the barracks. There was no quarrelling, no bad language; the distribution was done fairly and equitably. Our barrack's share was divided up in the barack itself by Akim Akimych and another convict, who made the division and distributed the bakeries to each convict personally. There was not the slightest objection, not the slightest envy; everyone was pleased with what he got; there was not even any suspicion that the offerings might have been hidden or unevenly distributed. When he had seen to his business in the kitchen, Akim Akimych proceeded to his investiture; he dressed with the greatest of decorum and solemnity, not leaving one hook unfastened, and when he had finished he at once began to pray in earnest. He spent quite a long time in prayer. Many convicts, the elderly ones for the most part, were already standing in prayer. The younger convicts did not pray much: some of them might cross themselves when they got up in the morning, but that was all, even on a feast day. When he had finished praying, Akim Akimych came up to me and rather solemnly wished me a merry Christmas. I at once invited him to have tea with me, and he offered to share his sucking-pig with me. After a bit Petrov, too, came running up to me to wish me season's greetings. It seemed he had had a few drinks already, and though he was out of breath when he came running up to me, he did not say much, but merely stood in front of me for a short while and soon went off in the diretion of the kitchen. In the military barrack the men were making preparations to receive the priest. This barrack was designed differntly from the rest: in it the plank bed extended around the walls, and not into the middle of the room, as in all the other barracks, so that it was the only room in the prison that was not cluttered up in the middle. It had probably been designed in this way so that all the convicts could be mustered here if necessary. A small table, covered with a clean towel, had been placed in the centre of the room; an icon had been placed on the table, and a lamp lit. At last the priest arrived with the cross and the holy water. After he had prayed and sung the liturgy in front of the icon, he stood before the convicts, and they came forward to kiss the cross with genuine reverence. Then the priest went round all the barracks, sprinkling them with holy water. In the kitched he praised our prison bread, which was renowned for its fine taste in the town, and the convicts immediately expressed a desire to have two freshly baked loaves sent to him; a veteren was immediately charged with this task. The convicts escourted the cross out of the prison as reverently as they had received in among them. Almost immediately aftarwards, the Major and the prison governor arrived. The governor was liked and even respected by the men. He made the rounds of all the barracks accompanied by the Major, wished each man a merry Christmas, went into the kitchen and tried the prison soup. The soup was delicious; almost a pound of beef per convict had been added to it. In addition, millet porridge had been prepared and the men could have as much butter as they wanted. Thwn he had seen the governor off, the Major gave orders for the meal to begin...

We began to eat. Akim Akimych's sucking-pig was done to a turn. I don't know how it was, but immediately after the Major's departure, about five minutes after he had gone, there suddenly seemed to be an unusually large number of drunken convicts. Yet only five minutes earlier, nearly all the men had been completely sober. There were a lot of glowing, beaming faces. Balalaikas were produced. The little Pole with the violin was already following around some reveller who had hired him for the whole day to saw out lively dance-tunes for him. The conversation was growing noisier and more drunken. But the meal passed off without any serious desturbances. Everyone was full. Many of the older and moore sedate concicts went away to sleep, as did Akim Akimych, in the apparent assumption that this was what one always did after dinner on a major holiday.

...

Meanwhile it had begun to get dark. Sadness, depression and stupor began to show painfully through the drunkenness and merrymaking. A man who had been laughing an hour ago was now sobbing to himself somewhere, having drunk more than he could manage. Others had already contrived to get into a couple of fights. Yet others, pale and hardly able to stand, staggered about the barracks, picking quarrels with anybody they met. The very same men whose initial intoxication had been of the least provicative kind now looked in vain for friends in order to lay bare their souls to them and sob out their drunken misery. All this pathetic crowd had wanted to have a good time, to spend the holiday in high spirits and good humour. Yet God, how dreary and dismal the day was for nearly everyone. Everyone spent it looking as though they had been disappointed in some hope.

...

At last the claustrophobic day was at an end. The convicts fell asleep heavily on the plank bed. They talked and raved in their sleep even more than on other nights. Here and there men still sat at maydans. The long-awaited holiday was over. Tomorrow would be an ordinary day, with work again...

Fyodor Dostoevsky. The House of the Dead

On the Nativity

'Spiritual light,' sometimes combined with spiritual 'warmth' and 'fragrance,' is in fact the reasonable intuition we have been seeking, the intuition that includes the series of its own groundings. It is perfect beauty as the synthesis of absolute concrete givenness and absolute reasonable justifiedness. Spiritual light is the light of the Trihypostatic Divinity Itself, the Divine essence, which is not only given, but also self-given. Spiritual light is the 'light of reason,' the light that started to shine for the world at the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, as is sung in the Christmas troparion:

Thy birth, O Christ our God,
has shed upon the world the light of reason …

Spiritual light is the 'Light of Christ' that illuminates everyone. Spiritual light is the 'mental light' that makes 'the soul vigilant before Thee,' God, as the Holy Church tells us. It is the light of God’s love, about which we pray:

With love illuminate me, I pray
that I may see Thee, Word of God

Spiritual light is the light whose seeing constitutes the contemplation of God and therefore our salvation, the salvation of us who cannot be without God. Does not the Orthodox believer pray: 'Save me with Thy illumination'?
St. Pavel (Florensky)


Nativity Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

I behold a new and wondrous mystery!

My ears resound to the shepherd's song, piping no soft melody, but loudly chanting a heavenly hymn!

The angels sing!

The archangels blend their voices in harmony!

The cherubim resound their joyful praise!

The Seraphim exalt His glory!

All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead herein... on earth and man in heaven. He who is above now, for our salvation, dwells here below; and we, who were lowly, are exalted by divine mercy!

Today Bethlehem resembles heaven, hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices and, in place of the sun, witnessing the rising of the Sun of Justice!

Ask not how this is accomplished, for where God wills, the order of nature is overturned. For He willed He had the powers He descended. He saved. All things move in obedience to God.

Today He Who Is, is born ! And He Who Is becomes what He was not! For when He was God, He became man-while not relinquishing the Godhead that is His...

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him angels, nor archangels, nor thrones, nor dominions, nor powers, nor principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Yet He has not forsaken His angels, nor left them deprived of His care, nor because of His incarnation has He ceased being God. And behold kings have come, that they might serve the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven; Women, that they might adore Him Who was born of a woman so that He might change the pains of childbirth into joy; Virgins, to the Son of the Virgin...

Infants, that they may adore Him who became a little child, so that out of the mouths of infants He might perfect praise; Children, to the Child who raised up martyrs through the rage of Herod; Men, to Him who became man that He might heal the miseries of His servants;

Shepherds, to the Good Shepherd who was laid down His life for His sheep;

Priests, to Him who has become a High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek;

Servants, to Him who took upon Himself the form of a servant, that He might bless our stewardship with the reward of freedom (Philippians 2:7);

Fishermen, to the Fisher of humanity;

Publicans, to Him who from among them named a chosen evangelist;

Sinful women, to Him who exposed His feet to the tears of the repentant woman;

And that I may embrace them all together, all sinners have come, that they may look upon the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! Since, therefore, all rejoice, I too desire to rejoice! I too wish to share the choral dance, to celebrate the festival! But I take my part, not plucking the harp nor with the music of the pipes nor holding a torch, but holding in my arms the cradle of Christ!
For this is all my hope!

This is my life!

This is my salvation!

This is my pipe, my harp!

And bearing it I come, and having from its power received the gift of speech, I too, with the angels and shepherds, sing:

'Glory to God in the Highest! and on earth peace to men of good will!'

I can

Here, in the West, culture has long ago become an object of consumption, a consumer property. What does culture mean for them? Culture is what I can have. As a result of my being free. And what does it mean free? — I am free to have what everyone here has. Does culture exist in the West? It does. Thus I can and I have the right to use it. And what does it mean: I can? Well, just — physically, pragmatically — I can.
Andrei Tarkovsky

Be fruitful and multiply.

...young couples should keep God's commandments without deviation and have many children. Those who refrain from having more than two children are transgressors of God's commandment which says Be fruitful, and multiply (Gen. 1:28), since they being two individuals bring two children into the world and do not increase the population. Increase, that is, from zero population. The Lord is clear, and His commandment in this case is twofold. First He said 'be fruitful' and then He said 'multiply.' So, whichever couples have four children fulfill the first commandment, that is, 'be fruitful.' Whichever ones, again, have five or more please God, because they fulfill both of His commandments, both to be 'fruitful' and to 'multiply.'
Fr. Anthimos of St. Anne's Skete

Another kind of salvation is offered.

It is not to flee our land by sea, saving our despicable worldly goods, but, saving our souls, not going out of the state, each of us ought to save himself in the very heart of the state. It is on the ship of his position and service that each of us ought now escape the whirlpool, our eyes fixed on the Divine pilot. Even he who is not in the service now ought to join the service and grasp his position as a drowning man grasps his plank, without which no one will be saved. Each of us ought now to serve, not as he would have served in old Russia, but as he would in the celestial state, the head of which is Christ himself, and this is why we ought to fulfill all our obligations in the same way as Christ and no other has commanded, whoever may be the authorities over us, those equal to and surrounding us, as well as those below and under us. And certainly this is not the moment to pay attention to any slights to our vanity and self-love which may be inflicted on us by whomsoever it might be—let us remember only that our obligations are undertaken by the grace of Christ, and this is why they ought to be fulfilled as Christ and no other has commanded. Only by this means can each of us now be saved. And ill luck will befall him who does not reflect on this now. His intelligence will be dimmed, his thoughts will become clouded, he will find no corner where he may hide from his fears. Remember the darkness of Egypt, produced with so much strength by King Solomon when the Lord, wishing to punish only the Egyptians, sent mysterious and incomprehensible fears upon them. Blind night enveloped them suddenly in broad daylight; frightful forms were raised up before them on all sides; sinister scarecrows with dismal faces came before their fascinated eyes; a dread which had no need or iron chains locked them all and deprived them of all sense, all movement, they lost all their strength, only fear remained. This happened only to those whom the Lord had punished. The others, during this time, saw no terrors; for them it was day and light.

See that the same thing does not happen to you. Rather, pray and implore God that He make you understand that you ought to be in your position and in it accomplish everything in accordance with the law of Christ. This is now no joke. Before becoming confused because of the disorders surrounding us, it would be well for each of us to look into his own soul. Do you look into yours. God knows, perhaps there you will see the same disorder for which you abuse others; perhaps there dwells a troubled, disordered anger, capable at any moment of possessing your soul, to the greater glory of the enemy of Christ; perhaps there lodges a cowardly ability for falling into dejection at every step—pitiful daughter of lack of faith in God; perhaps, again, there is hidden a vain desire to chase after what glitters and to profit from worldly reputation; perhaps there dwells a pride in the personal qualities of your soul, capable of reducing to nothing all the good that we have in us. God knows what there can be in our souls. It is better and more worthwhile to be troubled by what is inside us than by what is beside and around us.
Nikolai Gogol

To the strengthening of faith

Many do not allow even the thought that an intellectual man of our time could have such a lively and sincere faith as the simple masses do out of ignorance. But this is a great mistake. An educated man, once he gets past a certain [point] is able to believe much more deeply and ardently than an ordinary person who believes partly by habit (following the example of others), partly because his faith, his vague religious ideas are not troubled by any opposing ideas. There is nothing for him to conquer, no intellectual battles to fight. For him, what he must conquer in the spiritual arena are not ideas but passions, feelings, habits, anger, rudeness, malice, envy, greed, drunkenness, depravity, laziness, etc. For an intellectual the warfare is much more difficult and complex. Like the ordinary person he must battle all these passions and habits, but in addition he must also break his intellectual pride and consciously subjugate his mind to the teaching of the Church. Once we get past this mystical threshold, which I mentioned earlier, then our erudition will itself begin to help us in strengthening our faith.
Konstantin Leontiev

Extravagant insolence

Everything is subordinated to external appearances here. Being polite means never contradicting anyone; being amiable means babbling anything that comes into your mind—here are the two rules you have to follow in order to be un home charmant. Thinking over everything I have seen here I can say without being mistaken that the people here are not really living, that they are not really tasting of true happiness, and that they do not even have any comprehension of it. An empty brilliance and extravagant insolence in the men, a shameless indecency in the women—apart from these truly I see nothing else. You can imagine how we found all this to our great displeasure.
Denis Fonvizin, Paris 1778

And what would Fonvizin say about Paris 2006? Or for that matter any other city 2006?

Words that were spoken

"I feel like a whore when I'm single because I just have sex with random people."

The rewards of riding the buses in Chicago...priceless?

Pastures of doctrine

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

The bondage of words

…wherever the main purpose of speech is flattery, there the word becomes corrupted, and necessarily so. And instead of genuine communication, there will exist something for which domination is too benign a term; more appropriately we should speak of tyranny, of despotism. On the one side there will be sham authority, unsupported by any intellectual superiority, and on the other a state of dependency, which again is too benign a term. Bondage would be more correct. Yes, indeed: there are on the one side a pseudoauthority, not legitimized by any form of superiority, and on the other a state of mental bondage.
Josef Pieper

The purity of faith

...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

"Everyone is entitled to know everything."

But this is a false slogan of a false era; far greater in value is the forfeited right of people not to know, not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person whose life and work are meaningful has no need for this excessive and burdening flow of information.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Unnecessary

In my computer's Oxford dictionary:
unnecessary
adjective
not needed: a fourth Chicago airport is unnecessary.

A fourth airport might not have been necessary but a third one was nice...

Elevensies?

It seems like I finally found a place to get my Elevensies. Lets hope they're covered under "And Many more"...

On abilities

Business inspiration from an unexpected source:

Executive ability is prominent in your make up.

A genius of a name for make up for the professional woman - found in a fortune cookie. If only I had the capital to start such a company...

The exhaustion of faith

'My elder! Tell me sincerely, I bet of you in the name of God, tell me what you think of this: why did the evil spirits appear before the eyes of people in ancient times, as the sacred tradition tells us, and why do they no longer present themselves before our own eyes?'
Father Arseny glanced at me attentively and keenly. In his eyes, as I recall, the flame of a certain joyous faith was suddenly kindled, and after pondering for a while, he answered me thus:
'In those days all men, even the pagans, had a great deal of faith. Now men have become powerless, and faith is weakening. The earth itself is growing old, and men are growing senile in both spirit and flesh. With the exhaustion of men's strength, faith has also become exhausted. Now it is more profitable for the spirits of temptation not to be seen by us. They say to themselves, 'Things are well as they are!' Should a man of weak faith of a godless man see a demon before him and understand this, he would as a consequence begin to have a firmer faith in goodness.'
Konstantin Leontiev

A hundred horse, of course...

If an American is automobiling alone, he, the model of chastity and virtue, will slow down and stop in front of every lone, pretty female pedestrian, bare his teeth in a smile, and lure her into the auto with a wild rolling of his eyes. A lady who fails to understand his situation will qualify as a fool who does not comprehend her own good fortune—the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the owner of a hundred-horse-power automobile.
Vladimir Mayakovsky

Excellent intentions...

Unfortunately, but very significantly, the task of criticism today has been virtually identified with that of apology; the role of the critic is generally seen to be no more than that of explaining, for the uninstructed multitudes, the latest 'inspiration' of the 'creative genius.' Thus passive 'receptivity' takes the place of active intelligence, and ‘success' – the success of the 'genius' in expressing his intention, no matter what the nature of that intention – replaces excellence.
Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

The good of the ascetic

For it is not fasts and other bodily exercises, not tears and good works that are the goods of an ascetic, but a personality restored in its integrity, a personality that has regained its chastity. “Nothing,” says St. Methodius, “is evil by nature. Things become evil by the mode of their use.”
St. Pavel Florensky

The simplicity of belief

If thou believest, suffer all things; if thou dost not suffer, thou dost not believe.
St. John Chrysostom

The responsibility of the artist

During the last one hundred years one has somehow arrived at the false conclusion that an artist can manage without the spiritual; the act of creating has suddenly become something instinctive! The consequence of this is that the artist's talent, or gift, does not necessarily put him in a position of responsibility. This is why we have arrived at this lack the spiritual element which characterizes contemporary art to such a large degree.
Andrei Tarkovsky

Relinquishing the booty

The human body, even though it is plain mud
Because of the soul, by God, to us, it is given.
If, with sin, the body we defile,
Of our soul, we are breaking the wings,
From the Living God, we are separating it,
And to the unclean one, we give it as a booty.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

Seeking salvation

But if you were to see how proud is that mighty spirit which created this colossal embellishment and how proudly convinced this spirit is of its victory and its triumph, then you would shudder for those over whom this proud spirit hovers and rules. In the presence of such enormity, in the presence of such gigantic pride in the sovereign spirit, in the presence of the triumphant finality of that spirit's creations, even the hungry soul often comes to a standstill, grows humble, bows down, seeks salvation in gin and depravity, and begins to believe that everything is as it should be.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Monarchical socialism?

I shall even say more: if socialism—not as a nihilistic revolt and delirium of self-negation, but rather as a lawful organization of labor and capital, as a new kind of corporate, coervice serf-state imposed upon human societies—has any future at all, then nothing but a monarchical government will be able to create this new order...
Konstantin Leontiev

The consolation of progress

Yes, sir, now we have been completely consoled; we have consoled ourselves. So what if not everything around us now is still not very beautiful; we ourselves are so wonderful, so civilized, so European that even the people are ready to vomit from looking at us. The people now regard us as complete foreigners; they do not understand a single word, a single book, a single thought of ours—but, as you wish, that is progress. ...the soul is a tabula rasa, a piece of wax from which the real man can be immediately molded, the general, universal man, the homunculus—you need only apply the fruits of European civilization and read two or three books. ...And all this is progress, as you wish!
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The end of reason

Western man, having through the exclusive development of his abstract reason lost faith in all convictions not derived from it, has now owing to that same development, lost his last faith-faith in the omnipotence of that reason.
Ivan Kireevskii

The truthful historian

St. Gregory [of Tours] is an historian; but this does not mean a mere chronicler of bare facts, or the mythical 'objective observer' of so much modern scholarship who looks a things with the 'cold scrutiny' of the 'remote observer.' He had a point of view; he was always seeking a pattern in history; he had constantly before him what the modern scientist would call a 'model' into which he fitted the historical facts which he collected. In actual fact, all scientists and scholars act in this way, and any one who denies it only deceives himself and admits in effect that his 'model' of reality, his basis for interpreting facts, is unconscious, and therefore is much more capable of distorting reality than is the 'model' of a scholar who knows what his own basic beliefs and presuppositions are.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

The Popes of yore

What will you say to Christ, Who is the Head of the universal Church, in the scrutiny of the last judgment, having attempted to put all His members under yourself by the appellation of Universal,... Certainly Peter, the first of the Apostles, himself a member of the universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, - what were they but heads of particular communities. ... And of all the saints, not one has asked himself to be called universal. ... The prelates of this Apostolic See, which by the Providence of God I serve, had the honor offered them of being called universal ... But not yet one of them has ever wished to be called by such a title, or seized upon this ill-advised name, lest if, in virtue of the rank of the pontificate he should take to himself the glory of singularity, he might seem to have denied it to all his brethren.
St. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome

The glue that is art

For if the sun does not strike us with wonder, from its being customary, much more do works of art fail, and we only look at them like things of clay. … He instituted arts, that our present state of existence might be held together by them, not that we should separate ourselves from spiritual things, not that we should devote ourselves to the base arts but to the necessary ones, that we might minister to one another's good, and not that we should plot one against another.
St. John Chrysostom

The law of action

Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have to motive but their own ‘natural’ impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
C.S. Lewis

Per the Colonels request

'Don’t you read or get read to?' [Mr. George]
The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. 'No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don’t pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!' [Grandfather Smallweed]
Bleak House

Worthy to be a duchess...or queen as it were

'My dear,' he returned, 'when a young lady is as mild as she’s game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a Queen, and that’s about what you are yourself.'
Mr. Bucket to Esther. Bleak House.

Of Soils

As He sowed, that is, as He taught, some seed fell along the road. He did not say that the sower threw the seed along the road, but instead that some fell there. Christ the Sower sows and teaches, and His word falls upon his listeners everywhere, and it is they who show themselves to be like a road, or a rock, or thorns, or good soil. When the disciples ask about the parable, the Lord says, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, that is, unto you who desire to learn, for everyone that asketh, receiveth. [Mt. 7:8] To the others who are not worthy of the mysteries, He speaks obscurely. They think that they see, but they do not; they hear, but they do not understand. And this is to their benefit. The Lord hides these things from them so that they will not fall under greater condemnation for understanding the mysteries and then disregarding them. He who understands, and then disregards, deserves a more severe punishment.
Blessed Theophylact

Powerpoint Moses?

Climate activists, following in the tradition of prophets depicted in the Bible, have carried out a daring night time 'art attack' in the name of combating climate change.

I have no claim to a great biblical knowledge but I don't ever remember there having been a video projector mentioned...

Integrity of the saints

For it is not fasts and other bodily exercises, not tears and good works that are the goods of an ascetic, but a personality restored in its integrity, a personality that has regained its chastity.
St. Pavel Florensky

Let the bells peal

Act of Canonical Communion

We, the humble Alexy II, by God’s mercy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, jointly with the Eminent Members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, having gathered at a meeting of the Holy Synod (date) in the God-preserved city of Moscow; and the humble Laurus, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, jointly with the Eminent Bishops, members of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, having gathered (time, place);

Being guided by the effort towards reestablishing blessed peace, Divinely-decreed love, and brotherly unity in the common work in the harvest-fields of God within the Fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church and her faithful in the Fatherland and abroad, taking into consideration the ecclesiastical life of the Russian diaspora outside the canonical borders of the Moscow Patriarchate, as dictated by history;

Taking into account that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia performs its service on the territories of many nations;

By this Act declare:

1. That the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, conducting its salvific service in the dioceses, parishes, monasteries, brotherhoods, and other ecclesiastical bodies that were formed through history, remains an indissoluble part of the Local Russian Orthodox Church.

2. That the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is independent in pastoral, educational, administrative, management, property, and civil matters, existing at the same time in canonical unity with the Fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church.

3. The supreme ecclesiastical, legislative, administrative, judicial and controlling authority in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is her Council of Bishops, convened by her Primate (First Hierarch), in accordance with the Regulations [Polozheniye] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

4. The First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is elected by her Council of Bishops. This election is confirmed, in accordance with the norms of Canon Law, by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

5. The name of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the name of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are commemorated during divine services in all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia before the name of the ruling bishop in the prescribed order.

6. Decisions on the establishment or liquidation of dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are made by her Council of Bishops in agreement with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

7. The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are elected by her Council of Bishops or, in cases foreseen by the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, by the Synod of Bishops. Such elections are confirmed in accordance with canonical norms by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

8. The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are members of the Local Council [Pomestny Sobor] and Council of Bishops [Arkhiereiskij Sobor] of the Russian Orthodox Church and also participate in the meetings of the Holy Synod in the prescribed order. Representatives of the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia participate in the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in the established manner.

9. The supreme instances of ecclesiastical authority for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are the Local Council and the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.

10. Decisions of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church extend to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with consideration of the particularities described by the present Act, by the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and by the legislation of the nations in which she performs her ministry.

11. Appeals on decisions of the supreme ecclesiastical court of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are directed to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

12. Amendments to the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia by her supreme legislative authority are subject to the confirmation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in such case as these changes bear a canonical character.

13. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia receives her holy myrrh from the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

By this Act, canonical communion within the Local Russian Orthodox Church is hereby restored.

Acts issued previously which preclude the fullness of canonical communion are hereby deemed invalid or obsolete.

The reestablishment of canonical communion will serve, God willing, towards the strengthening of the unity of the Church of Christ, of her witness in the contemporary world, promoting the fulfillment of the will of the Lord to “gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52).

Let us bring thanks to All-Merciful God, Who through His omnipotent hand directed us to the path of healing the wounds of division and led us to the desired unity of the Russian Church in the homeland and abroad, to the glory of His Holy Name and to the good of His Holy Church and Her faithful flock. Through the prayers of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, may the Lord grant His blessing to the One Russian Church and Her flock both in the fatherland and in the diaspora.

The making of relics

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

To Live

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

Paris...or the modern world

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

The way of progress

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

Fit to size

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

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

The ascent of the flesh

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

Truth seekers

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

Time to prepare for the "Holidays"

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

Basic beliefs

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

True environmentalism

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

On "institutes"

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

What's better than a good reputation?

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

Biding time

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

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

In a word, no.

Peace kills

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

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

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

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

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

The sheep fold

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

Theology

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

The human imagination cannot conceive...

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