🌟☦️ Orthodox volunteers of Saint Petersburg have a plenty of work to do due to many holy places of the region, mass services are often organized. Also social work and more.
☦️ Metropolitan Anthony:
Any political or nationalistic basis for autocephaly that places earthly interests above God's will leads to spiritual confusion, similar to that of Babylon.
Just as in Babylon, pride and the desire for independence led to the division of nations, so in the Church, division based on autocephaly, if reinforced by politics or nationalism, leads to the loss of conciliarity and grace. Unity in Christ is eternal and indivisible, and any attempt to replace it with human interests is dangerous. The primary task of the faithful is to preserve the unity of the Body of Christ and perceive autocephaly not as a symbol of political independence, but as a pastoral tool for growth in faith and salvation.
Translated from his speech in the original, photo from the UOJ site.
Any political or nationalistic basis for autocephaly that places earthly interests above God's will leads to spiritual confusion, similar to that of Babylon.
Just as in Babylon, pride and the desire for independence led to the division of nations, so in the Church, division based on autocephaly, if reinforced by politics or nationalism, leads to the loss of conciliarity and grace. Unity in Christ is eternal and indivisible, and any attempt to replace it with human interests is dangerous. The primary task of the faithful is to preserve the unity of the Body of Christ and perceive autocephaly not as a symbol of political independence, but as a pastoral tool for growth in faith and salvation.
Translated from his speech in the original, photo from the UOJ site.
In the Church we learn to love. We all are very different, sometimes it is not easy. However this is what we are called for. This is what Christ, the Apostles and Fathers taught us and showed with their own example. We are different, but we are one in Christ.
“With all your power, ask the Lord for humility and brotherly love, because God freely gives His Grace for love towards one’s brother. Do an experiment on yourself: one day ask God for love towards your brother, and another day – live without love. You will see the difference.” - Saint Silouan the Athonite
“With all your power, ask the Lord for humility and brotherly love, because God freely gives His Grace for love towards one’s brother. Do an experiment on yourself: one day ask God for love towards your brother, and another day – live without love. You will see the difference.” - Saint Silouan the Athonite
🌟☦️🙏 Ask for God’s help in this with warm and humble prayers; for this is His gift. And if you wish to receive it, you must first implant in yourself the conviction that not only have you no such consciousness of yourself, but that you cannot acquire it by your own efforts; then standing daringly before the Almighty God, in firm belief that in His great loving kindness He will grant you this knowledge of yourself when and how He Himself knows, do not let the slightest doubt creep in that you will actually receive it. Unseen Warfare
Often people say that they are ashamed to go to the Confession every Sunday and confess the same sins again and again. But God sees our heart and our efforts, we should not stop struggling.
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“The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that He will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervour will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope.”
- Saint Nektarios of Aegina
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“The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that He will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervour will they be conquered. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope.”
- Saint Nektarios of Aegina
From conversations with Saint elder Paisios of Mount Athos
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One time, some seniors from the Athonite School asked elder Paisios what they should watch out for most in their lives.
“Pay attention to the little, everyday things,” he answered.
“You sit there comfortably in your armchair, and you think that it’s not bad or a sin; you say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter if we eat a little more or if we ask for good food. It doesn’t matter if we sleep a little bit more. It doesn’t matter if I was a little short with my parents or someone else. This doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter…. We justify all these little wrongs. But not paying attention to these small things will lead us to do even bigger wrongs―and then we’ll say, ‘it doesn’t matter’ about them too. We shouldn’t let the body be lazy, because the body affects the spirit. We have to be vigilant.”
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One time, some seniors from the Athonite School asked elder Paisios what they should watch out for most in their lives.
“Pay attention to the little, everyday things,” he answered.
“You sit there comfortably in your armchair, and you think that it’s not bad or a sin; you say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It doesn’t matter if we eat a little more or if we ask for good food. It doesn’t matter if we sleep a little bit more. It doesn’t matter if I was a little short with my parents or someone else. This doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter…. We justify all these little wrongs. But not paying attention to these small things will lead us to do even bigger wrongs―and then we’ll say, ‘it doesn’t matter’ about them too. We shouldn’t let the body be lazy, because the body affects the spirit. We have to be vigilant.”
🌟 Тhese are the three lessons from two apostles: 1) unity of faith in vibrant diversity, 2) union of steadfast faith with active humility, and 3) partaking of the apostolic spirit at the Holy Chalice. May we receive all this, through the prayers of the former Galilean fisherman, and the former disciple of Gamaliel.
Archpriest Andrew Tkachev
Archpriest Andrew Tkachev
☦️ The Orthodox way: from our present fallen state to perfection of the Spirit.
"As the new-born child is the image of the full-grown man, so the soul is in a certain sense the image of God who created it. The child, on growing up, begins gradually to recognize its father, and when it reaches maturity, they dispose things mutually and equally, father with son and son with father, and the father's wealth is disclosed to the son. Something similar should have happened to the soul. Before the fall, the soul was to have progressed and so to have attained full manhood (Eph. 4:13). But through the fall it was plunged into a sea of forgetfulness, into an abyss of delusion, and dwelt within the gates of hell. As if separated from God by a great distance, it could not draw near to its Creator and recognize Him properly. But first through the prophets God called it back, and drew it to knowledge of Himself. Finally, through His own advent on earth, He dispelled the forgetfulness, the delusion.."
"As the new-born child is the image of the full-grown man, so the soul is in a certain sense the image of God who created it. The child, on growing up, begins gradually to recognize its father, and when it reaches maturity, they dispose things mutually and equally, father with son and son with father, and the father's wealth is disclosed to the son. Something similar should have happened to the soul. Before the fall, the soul was to have progressed and so to have attained full manhood (Eph. 4:13). But through the fall it was plunged into a sea of forgetfulness, into an abyss of delusion, and dwelt within the gates of hell. As if separated from God by a great distance, it could not draw near to its Creator and recognize Him properly. But first through the prophets God called it back, and drew it to knowledge of Himself. Finally, through His own advent on earth, He dispelled the forgetfulness, the delusion.."
🌟 Patriarch Kirill: In these recent times we face terrible temptations, when in a number of countries the choice in favor of sin is established and supported by the law, and those, who, following the conscience, fight such laws, forced by the minority, are repressed. It's a very dangerous apocalyptic syndrome...
We venerate and ask for intercession Theotokos and the Mother of God.
The Church calls her the Queen of Heaven and Earth as She is the Mother of the King of Kings of Heaven and Earth, blessed among all women, more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim.
“Assuredly she who played the part of the Creator"s servant and mother is in all strictness and truth in reality God»"is Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things.”, says saint John Damascene.
The Church calls her the Queen of Heaven and Earth as She is the Mother of the King of Kings of Heaven and Earth, blessed among all women, more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim.
“Assuredly she who played the part of the Creator"s servant and mother is in all strictness and truth in reality God»"is Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things.”, says saint John Damascene.
☦️🕯️Elder Ephraim was known for his extensive spiritual guidance and for spreading Athonite monasticism and the Orthodox faith in North America. He was a spiritual child of Saint Joseph the Hesychast and served as the abbot of Philotheou Monastery on Mount Athos before moving to the U.S. in the 1990s.🕯️☦️
☦️🕯️“Oppose no man in anything; do not quarrel, and do not lie, and do not swear by the name of the Lord your God. Be despised, and do not despise. Be wronged, and do not wrong. It is better for things of the body to perish with the body than for something pertaining to the soul to be hurt. Go to court with no man, but endure to be condemned, being uncondemned.”🕯️☦️
♰ St. Isaac the Syrian ♰
♰ St. Isaac the Syrian ♰