MYSTAGOGY RESOURCE CENTER

Saints Galaktion and Episteme: Models of Love, Faith and Sacrifice

2026-11-05T15:18:54.522-05:00

By Lambros K. Skontzos

Among the saints of our Church are many blessed couples who attained holiness within marriage, living a truly Christian life.

Among them is the holy couple Saints Galaktion and Episteme, a holy pair who lived during the third century AD and whose lives revealed the beauty of the Christian faith, purity of heart, and absolute devotion to Christ.

Their lives include several interesting details that further illuminate their spiritual greatness.

The Miraculous Birth of Saint Galaktion

Galaktion's father, Cleitophon, was a wealthy and prominent pagan from Emesa in Phoenicia (in the region of present-day Syria).

His wife, Leucippe, was unable to have children and was greatly distressed by this.

One day, she met a Christian monk, Saint Onouphrios (according to certain Synaxarion sources), who spoke to her about Christ and prayed for her.

She secretly came to believe and received the promise that she would have a child. Indeed, she gave birth to Galaktion and raised him according to Christian principles, insofar as this was possible in a pagan environment.

His Education and Virtue

Galaktion was distinguished by his sharp intellect, wisdom, and love of learning. He received an excellent education by the standards of his time and quickly became known for his virtuous character.

Although he had every qualification for a successful secular career, he sought a deeper understanding of the truth and a relationship with God.

His Meeting with Episteme

His parents betrothed him to the young Episteme, the daughter of an aristocratic family. When Galaktion revealed to her that he was a Christian, however, she was impressed by his teaching and way of life. She studied the faith, was baptized, and dedicated herself to Christ.

It is noteworthy that she was not persuaded through coercion or emotional pressure. She was persuaded by Galaktion's example of life.

This is also a powerful message for today: people are influenced more by our example than by our words.

The Monastic Life

Rather than proceeding to an ordinary marriage, they mutually decided to follow the ascetic life. They withdrew to a mountain near Emesa, where there were monasteries for men and women.

Galaktion became a monk in a monastery for men, while Episteme entered a monastery for women. Although they lived separately, they maintained spiritual communication and strengthened one another in their spiritual struggle through prayer and examples of virtue.

Their Martyrdom

During the persecution of Christians, Galaktion was arrested first. His executioners attempted to force him to deny Christ through torture.

When Episteme learned of his arrest, she presented herself to the persecutors and confessed that she, too, was a Christian.

This act reveals her courage. She did not attempt to save herself or hide. She chose instead to stand beside her fellow combatant in the spiritual struggle.

The two Saints were cruelly tortured and ultimately suffered martyrdom, remaining faithful to the end. Their memory is commemorated on November 5.

The Messages of the Saints for the Modern Age

1. True Love Leads to God

In our time, love is often confused with emotion, self-interest, or temporary pleasure. Saints Galaktion and Episteme show us that genuine love does not confine a person to himself, but leads him toward God. Each became a cause of salvation for the other, supporting the other in the spiritual struggle. Every human relationship acquires true meaning when it is founded upon faith, respect, and a shared journey toward holiness.

2. Faith Transforms Life

Episteme changed her entire life when she came to know Christ. Her example reminds us that no one is excluded from the grace of God. Conversion is not simply a change of ideas, but a renewal of the heart and a new way of life. Even today, in a world full of uncertainty, a person can find meaning, direction, and inner peace in Christ.

3. Steadfastness in One's Values Is Strength

The Saints did not yield in the face of threats and torture. In today's society, we may not experience persecutions of the same kind, but we are often pressured to abandon our principles, values, and faith.

Their example teaches us that a person who has a firm spiritual foundation is not easily swept along by the changes of the times.

4. Sacrifice Is Not Defeat but Victory

The world considers power, wealth, and public recognition to be success. Saints Galaktion and Episteme demonstrate that the greatest victory is faithfulness to God and to the truth.

They preferred to lose their earthly lives rather than lose Christ. Sacrificial love, patience, and self-offering remain, even today, the marks of truly great people.

5. Holiness Does Not Hinder Love

The Saints did not reject one another for the sake of God. On the contrary, they loved God so deeply that their relationship with one another became even purer and more spiritual.

6. Confession of Faith Begins in Everyday Life

Most of us will not be called upon to bear witness to Christ through the shedding of blood. We are, however, called to confess Christ through our honesty, forgiveness, love, and faithfulness in the small trials of everyday life.

Conclusion

Saints Galaktion and Episteme offer a rare example of a spiritual couple, in whom love, faith, and sacrifice were united in a shared journey toward holiness and martyrdom.

They do not belong only to the past. Their message remains timely and alive. They call us to cultivate relationships that lead to God, to remain steadfast in our faith, not to fear difficulties, and to remember that true success is found in union with Christ.

Let us beseech Saints Galaktion and Episteme to intercede with the holy God on behalf of us all, so that we may journey with faith, love, and hope along the path of salvation.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

November: Day 5: Teaching 3: Holy Apostle Hermas

2026-11-05T08:52:20.820-05:00

November: Day 5: Teaching 3:
Holy Apostle Hermas

(An exposition of the commandments by which one can save one's soul.)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the day of Saint Hermas, the apostolic man, whom the Holy Apostle Paul highly praises (Rom. 16:14), and who is known for his book titled The Shepherd, which in the early centuries was read even in churches alongside the Apostolic Epistles, we think it will be beneficial to become acquainted with those soul-saving commandments set forth in this book, which by fulfilling one can save one's soul. We think that the words of an apostolic man will be more persuasive to you than our own feeble discourse. He begins his exposition of them as follows:

II. “I was praying,” he says, “in my house, and afterward I sat down on my couch. Then I saw a man enter whose appearance inspired respect. He was dressed in the clothing of a shepherd. A white cloak was thrown over him, a knapsack hung over his shoulders, and he held a staff in his hand. He greeted me, and I greeted him in return. Then he sat down beside me and said: ‘I have been sent to you in order to remain with you for the rest of your life.’

When he said this, I thought that he was testing me, and I asked him: ‘Who are you? For I know well the one to whom I have been entrusted.’

‘Do you not recognize me?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I replied.

‘I am the shepherd to whom you have been entrusted,’ he said.

With these words, his appearance changed, and I recognized in him my guardian angel. I became ashamed, and fear and sorrow began to trouble me; but he reassured me, saying: ‘Do not be afraid. I have been sent to show you everything by which you can save your soul. Listen attentively and write everything down for remembrance, so that, by rereading it from time to time, you may refresh your thoughts and strengthen your wavering will. If you preserve everything revealed to you with a pure heart, you will receive from the Lord all the blessings that He has promised to His faithful ones. But if, after hearing my instructions, you not only fail to amend your ways but, on the contrary, begin adding sins to sins, the Lord will send one calamity after another upon you, until He breaks either your heart or your bones.’

Having said this, my shepherd, the angel of repentance, presented me with twelve commandments, in the following order:

1. Believe in the one God, worshipped in the Trinity, the Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, Who called all creatures into being out of nothing and bestowed upon them as many perfections as each is capable of containing.

2. Live in simplicity and blamelessness. Do no harm to your neighbor, even by word; on the contrary, help everyone in their needs, without distinguishing who asks or to whom you give.

3. Let no corrupt word proceed from your mouth: love the truth and flee from falsehood.

4. Guard marital fidelity as the apple of your eye, for it is the immutable law of the Creator that one be pure and blameless before His face, either in virginity or in an honorable marriage faithfully preserved. If you have married, do not seek release from your marriage or another wife; if you have resolved to remain in virginity, do not seek a wife. Likewise, when a husband or wife dies, the surviving spouse does not sin by entering into a second marriage; but that person is deemed worthy of greater honor from God when he or she resolves to preserve widowhood in purity and blamelessness.

At these words, I asked him: ‘What, then, should someone do who sins?’

‘Repent,’ the angel-shepherd answered me.

I said to him: ‘I have heard that there is no other repentance apart from Baptism, and that, when we immerse ourselves in the waters of rebirth, we receive forgiveness for all our sins and must by no means sin afterward.’

The angel answered me: ‘Baptism is not called repentance. God established repentance for those who, having been called through Baptism into the number of the faithful, subsequently fall into sins through the devil’s schemes. God, Who is merciful, accepts the repentance of such people; but one must understand that frequent falling into sin, even when corrected by frequent repentance, makes repentance itself suspect. One may finally fall so deeply that, after that fall, there will be no possibility of rising again and beginning to live for God. Let everyone who regards sins lightly fear this.’

Having said this, the shepherd again began to set forth the commandments of God that are saving for us:

5. As you walk along the path of the commandments, you cannot avoid obstacles and hardships. Be courageous, and let your heart be strengthened: persevere in doing good deeds and in bearing all the hardships encountered along this path.

6. Remember that every person has two angels: a good one and an evil one. One draws him toward good deeds, while the other draws him toward sins and vices. Therefore, be attentive to yourself: incline toward the first and reject the second, discerning from the inner thoughts of your heart which of them is instructing you at that moment and wishes to rule over you.

7. Fear the one God, your Creator, the One who watches over you, and your Savior, and do not diminish your childlike devotion to Him and your firm trust in Him through an empty fearfulness of the powers of darkness.

8. Take care to show yourself a zealous fulfiller of all the commandments of God, without exception, and a diligent doer of all the deeds that the angel inspires in your heart or that the circumstances of your life indicate; and you will be a son in the house of God, and not a slave.

9. Pray; exert yourself greatly in prayer; pray without ceasing, so that whenever it is necessary, power may descend upon you from above to do good, and help may be given you to turn away from evil. Prayer makes one born of the earth a citizen of heaven and clothes him in heavenly purity and holiness.

10. Flee from false prophets, diviners, and sorcerers [spiritualists, that is, those who summon spirits, who appeared in great numbers at that time. Simon the Magician and his disciples were among them], through whom the enemy destroys the servants of God. Those who are weak in faith turn to these deceivers, and they, answering according to the desires of their hearts, fill their minds with fanciful hopes. At the same time, mixing a sea of falsehood with a drop of truth, they deceive them and once again lead them astray into paganism. Whoever believes sincerely and has surrendered himself to God will not go to them. Such a person seeks heaven, whereas divination usually concerns only earthly things.

11. Let the Church of the living God be your teacher, your only teacher—the pillar and foundation of the truth. In her is the light of knowledge that is unchangeably true. Outside her are darkness and gloom. There the prince of this world has established his teaching seat, and he blinds the minds of those who listen to him and do not wish to hear the voice of the Church because they are worldly.

Here is a test for you: whatever disagrees with the teaching of the Church is the voice of the father of lies! Be attentive and keep yourself pure from this fall. Here is another sign! The word of truth establishes deep peace, tranquility, and sweetness in the believing heart; but the word of the deceitful raises up fantasies and doubts and, like salt water, inflames the thirst for knowledge, shutting the mind up like a prisoner in an undefined, gloomy wilderness.

12. Without spiritual guides close at hand, one cannot live in holiness on earth. You will find them in the Church, where the Holy Spirit appoints them to shepherd the flock of Christ. Entreat the Lord to grant you one who is suitable and beneficial for your needs. At the necessary hour, even without your asking, he will speak a word of consolation to you. The Spirit of God will teach him what it is fitting to say to you, and you will hear from him what God desires of you. Nevertheless, beware here also of deceitful spirits. Humility and gentleness adorn a true spiritual guide. But where there is pomp—that is, outward brilliance in word and life—there is deception. Pay attention to this, and you will be saved.

These are all twelve commandments that the angel-shepherd gave me. After hearing them, I said to him: 'These are excellent rules, but is there anyone who could fulfill them as he ought?'

To this the angel answered me: ‘Receive them into your heart in simplicity, without deliberation, and you will encounter no difficulty in fulfilling them. But as soon as you begin to analyze in your mind whether and how this or that can be fulfilled, and whether there might be some way to free yourself from this yoke, the enemy will creep in, place weakness in your heart, and make you incapable of doing any good. But why say more! Know that if you fail to fulfill something, there is no salvation for you; there is no salvation for you, nor for your children, nor for your household.’

Having said this, the angel's appearance changed, and he became so terrifying that I do not know whether there is anyone who could have endured his gaze at that moment. I was frightened. The angel, seeing my distress, began speaking gently to me, with a countenance capable of filling the heart with gladness:

‘How can you think and speak in this way? Have you forgotten the omnipotence of God? Is it possible that He Who has subjected everything beneath your feet would not give you the strength to fulfill His commandments? Know, then, that whoever always has God in his heart will easily fulfill these commandments. But whoever has Him only at the tip of his tongue will fall beneath their weight, considering them impossible to fulfill.’

I remarked in response: ‘Who does not ask God for strength to fulfill His holy commandments? But the enemy is powerful: he tempts the servants of God and keeps them under his power.’

‘No,’ the angel answered me, ‘the enemy has no power whatsoever over the servants of God. Those who believe in God with all their heart he can tempt, but he cannot rule over them. Resist him courageously, and he will flee from you.’"

With this ended the angelic instructions set forth in the second book of Saint Hermas, titled The Shepherd.

III. “For our part, we do not dare to add anything to all this!” says the disciple of the Apostles, the apostolic man. And indeed, what purpose would our feeble words serve here? We shall say only this: how comforting it is to know that even in our own time the same things are being said as were said in the time of the Apostles and immediately after the Apostles, and that, consequently, throughout eighteen and a half centuries, one and the same unchanging word of truth has been heard in the Church of God.

If every word shall be established by two or three witnesses, how firmly must the word of truth preached in the Church of God stand, when such an immeasurable multitude of witnesses stands behind it! Brethren! Let us beseech the Lord to grant us His gracious help to fulfill these saving instructions, delivered through the holy apostolic man. Amen.

(Compiled by Priest Grigory Dyachenko, from the Words to the Flock of Tambov by Bishop Theophan.)

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 5 and 6

2026-11-05T03:08:26.338-05:00

The Month of November

Day 5

67. How One Should Act During Public Calamities

(From the Life of Jonah, Archbishop of Novgorod - November 5, Menaion. The Commemoration of the Fiery Ash That Fell from the Air Because of Human Sin, during the Reign of Leo the Great - November 6, Menaion.)

Here on earth, we are often afflicted not only by personal calamities but also by public calamities, which are especially terrible for us. In a personal calamity, either one person or one family suffers; perhaps even several may suffer. But in such sorrow, however great it may be, good people can always help and alleviate it. But what can one do in a public calamity? For example, a lack of rain, unfavorable weather, famine, or plague—who can prevent these things? Who can escape them? Who can put an end to the evil they cause? Certainly no one; there is no point in even discussing this. How, then, should we act during such calamities? By what means can we be delivered from them? Whose help should we hope for? To whom should we turn?

Once, during the lifetime of Saint Jonah, Archbishop of Novgorod, a plague broke out in Novgorod. The people fell into hopeless despair, and only Saint Jonah remained courageous in spirit. He comforted the inhabitants and told them: “Know that the plague has befallen us because of our sins, and therefore we must, first of all, repent of them.” The people took the Saint’s final counsel to heart, held a public prayer service, and built a church in the name of Saint Symeon. And immediately, it is said, “the plague ceased, and the people recovered their health” (November 5, Menaion).

Another instance: During the reign of the Greek Emperor Leo the Great in Greece, one day, at noon, the entire sky became covered with dark clouds, and it grew as dark as night in the middle of the day. Then the clouds became as though they were made of fire, and this phenomenon continued for about forty days. Everyone thought that the whole earth would be burned, just as Sodom and Gomorrah had once been burned, and all were in great fear and perplexity, thinking that a rain of fire would fall from the clouds.

Then the emperor and Patriarch Gennadios, together with all the priests and the people, began going out every day with crosses and holy icons into the public squares of the city. There they held prayer services, and all, with tears, implored God to turn away His righteous wrath. And the prayer of the entire people was not in vain. The Lord, the Lover of Mankind, it is said, turned His chastisement into mercy, and instead of a rain of fire, only black ash fell from heaven, as a warning to sinners. It covered the earth and burned only the grass. At that time, the people wept bitterly, cried, and lamented from the very depths of their hearts. After this, the Lord soon sent abundant rain, and the calamity came to an end completely (November 6, Menaion).

Thus, this is how we should act during public calamities: first, we must not fall into hopeless despair, but, following the example of Saint Jonah, remain courageous and encourage others; second, we must remember that, as the same hierarch told the people of Novgorod, public calamities are sent to us principally as punishment for our sins. Keeping this in mind, we must first of all repent of them, and not merely repent, but do so with tears and contrition of heart; and third, as was done in Novgorod and Greece, we must go out with crosses and holy icons into the public squares of cities or villages, hold prayer services there, and implore God with tears to turn away His righteous wrath.

As we have seen, such means proved effective in bringing an end to the calamities among both the people of Novgorod and the Greeks; and undoubtedly, they will prove equally effective for us as well. Why? Because God Himself assures us of this. “Turn to Me,” He says through the Prophet Joel, “with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning... Gather the people... Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say: ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your inheritance over to reproach...’ Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and will spare His people” (Joel 2:12, 16–18).

Therefore, let us repeat once more: do not forget, brethren, that weeping over our sins, sincere repentance for them, and the prayer of the entire people for mercy are the foremost and most effective means of bringing an end to public calamities. Amen.

Questions for Discussion 67:

1. What disposition did Saint Jonah, Archbishop of Novgorod, maintain when the people fell into hopeless despair because of the plague?

2. According to Jonah, what must people do first, since the plague had befallen them because of their sins?

3. What did the people do after taking the Saint’s counsel to heart?

4. What did the people do, besides holding a public prayer service, after which the people recovered their health?

5. With what did Emperor Leo the Great and the Patriarch, together with all the priests and the people, begin going out into the public squares of the city, while all implored God to turn away His righteous wrath?

Source: The Cheti-Minei: Homilies for Every Day of the Year (Book 1: September, October, November) by Archpriest Viktor Guryev. Publication of the Russian Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos, 1896. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Greek Orthodox Theology in the 20th and 21st Century

2026-11-04T17:21:13.857-05:00

Metropolitan Theodoritos of Laodicea (Polyzogopoulos), Director of the Office of Representation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Athens, spoke to To Vima recently about the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the contemporary world. In this interview he also spoke about his recent book Theological Portraits of the Twentieth Century: Studies and Essays on the Renewal of Orthodox Theology (Armos, 2026), where he gave a brief summary of the development of Greek Orthodox theology in the 20th century and its role in the 21st century.

The Dialogue between Orthodox Theology and Modernity in the Twentieth Century

How does the objective of these academic lectures relate to the undertaking of your recent book, "Theological Portraits of the Twentieth Century: Studies and Essays on the Renewal of Orthodox Theology" (Armos, 2026)?

I studied Theology in Thessaloniki in the early 1980s, a period of flourishing in Theology, when students engaged in intense discussions and journals such as Synaxis, which was being published for the first time, appeared and were eagerly read by us from cover to cover.

The lecture halls were full, and the most interesting discussions took place during the intervals between lectures. In other words, there was no empty time; it was always filled with discussions, people, and groups of friends.

Behind all these things, then, lay an effort that had begun primarily in the 1960s, when important theological monographs and dissertations suddenly began to appear, charting new paths.

Patristic texts began to be published in scholarly editions, but popular editions also appeared, and we rediscovered the art of iconography.

All these developments shaped an era in which we were discovering unprecedented things within this Orthodox theological heritage.

Now, as one grows older, one can broaden the picture somewhat and say that it was not only the 1960s; all these developments also had other underlying conditions.

Thus, we find that, in our own Greek context, an important generation emerged during the interwar period, with distinguished professors such as Amilkas Alivizatos, Panagiotis Trembelas, and Ioannis Karmiris, who began to change the climate of theological studies in Greece, at the Athens School, where the only School of Theology was then located.

From a peripheral, confessional-type school, which followed the models of European universities, particularly German ones—and did so with a considerable time lag—the foundations began to be laid for an Orthodox Theology that was open and engaged in dialogue, incorporating research from universities abroad.

This was a theology that sought to liberate us from a colonial-type understanding of theological scholarship in a peripheral country such as Greece.

All this fostered an outward-looking orientation, which Professor Amilkas Alivizatos, in particular, gave concrete expression to by organizing the first major Pan-Orthodox Congress in Athens in 1936. He had been preparing it for approximately ten years, since the late 1920s.

For the first time, Orthodox theologians from various countries gathered in Athens, and at this congress the question of the identity of Orthodox Theology was raised for the first time. By then, Orthodoxy had already received, consciously or unconsciously, numerous influences from Western theology, beginning in the period of Ottoman rule, or, in the case of Russia, from the time of Peter the Great.

We had reached the point—and one can see this in the famous Confessions of Faith of the seventeenth century—where Orthodox Christians were adopting their way of doing theology, their arguments, and their method entirely from the Western Christian tradition.

And there emerged the paradoxical phenomenon of our having a confessional spirit as Orthodox Christians that was exhausted simply in confronting Roman Catholics with Protestant arguments and criteria, and Protestants with arguments of a Roman Catholic type. In other words, somewhere along the way we had lost our own identity and self-awareness of our own tradition. Even Orthodoxy itself was being defined in a Western manner.

And here one can see that our difficulty lay in fruitfully receiving the modern spirit that was coming from the West.

So we “threw ourselves headlong into it”; we took it in without assimilating it. For this reason, the patristic tradition and thought, the great heritage that Byzantium had given us through the synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity, came to be regarded as secondary.

Thus, in Athens in 1936, this demand and the need to rediscover Orthodox self-awareness were brought to the fore. Father George Florovsky, who was present in Athens at the time as a young man, spoke of the “Babylonian Captivity of Orthodoxy in the West.”

The expression, of course, had a Western origin, since it had been used, on the one hand, for the period during which the Pope had been transferred to Avignon under the influence of the power of the French king (1309–1377), while Luther had spoken of the “Babylonian Captivity in Rome” when he began the Reformation.

Father Florovsky, however, was someone who followed developments in the inter-Christian sphere. He was not a traditional theologian who wanted us to shut ourselves away in our shell.

He wanted us to open ourselves up and become acquainted with our tradition, but in a way that remained open and engaged in dialogue with all other Christians in the contemporary world.

This movement came to be called the “neo-patristic synthesis.” More than anything else, it was a vision and an effort to bring the great heritage of the theology of the Greek Fathers of the Church up to date.

It gradually began to take shape, first in the diaspora abroad. In Greece, this development was delayed because of the circumstances following 1936: the Metaxas dictatorship, the Occupation, the Second World War, Liberation, and the Civil War.

Only in the 1960s did a golden age begin for Greek society as a whole. Everything flourished: theater, literature, in which we had two Nobel Prizes, letters, the arts, modern Greek cinema, and so on.

And during this decade, the first cracks also appeared in a theology that had until then been on autopilot and was purely academic.

Things began to change then, and this development entered the university, both in Thessaloniki, which had begun to have a serious School of Theology as early as the 1950s, and in Athens.

We witnessed a kind of return to tradition, but also a kind of opening toward the world. My conclusion, therefore, is that the twentieth century was a rich century theologically.

Consequently, it was important for me to show which individuals played leading roles through their work, what they wrote, why they wrote it, how they engaged in dialogue, what problems they encountered, and what gaps, ruptures, and discontinuities can be observed along this course. For things were not all rosy from the beginning.

It is a course that contains remarkable moments of theological discourse, but also ruptures and problems. I wanted to show these things so that the study of the great moments of theology in Greece would be complete.

For this reason, I did not limit myself to Greek theologians. Since this entire movement also took place in the inter-Orthodox sphere, with the Russian theologians of the diaspora as its principal contributors, such as Father George Florovsky, I have included certain figures from the Russian diaspora, as well as representatives from both Athens and Thessaloniki.

I conclude the twentieth century, above all, with four theologians of the generation of the 1960s: Nikos Nissiotis, Christos Yannaras, Ioannis Zizioulas, and Panagiotis Nellas. This opens the curtain on the twenty-first century.

New Theological Movements and Trends in the Twenty-First Century

Are there new theological movements and trends in the twenty-first century?

Many theologians, especially among those I have just mentioned, have influenced the younger generations of theologians who are active at the transition between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In the twenty-first century, we have new movements in our theology, which is more open and has new tools, means of communication, and publications that have changed the landscape.

New problems are also emerging, however. Whereas in the twentieth century we had broader syntheses that led to renewal, we now also have movements returning to more closed and self-sufficient frameworks, associated with an intolerance of dialogue and of what is new.

The movement of returning to tradition and the popularization of patristic theology also gave rise to problematic situations, such as a rigid attachment to the letter of the patristic texts and a difficulty in interpreting the patristic tradition in a way that is relevant to the present day.

That is, we must embody it anew and carry out the process of inculturation of the patristic tradition. In other words, we must transfer it from a cultural climate that prevailed almost until the Fall of Constantinople into another sphere, such as that of modernity.

Another related problem is that we often embellish tradition and idealize it. Instead of functioning in the present, we enter a time capsule and travel back into the past. Another problem is the ethnocentric character that has developed in many theological movements.

It is true that Orthodoxy was often shaped together with the people through liberation movements. Today, however, an excessively ethnophyletist approach often prevails, combined with a bureaucratic ecclesiology.

Moreover, although we claim to the West that the Orthodox Church is the Church of the councils, conciliarity does not permeate every level, down to the bishopric and the parish. There is a problem with the position of the laity, and women in particular.

A new generation of theologians has therefore been emerging over the past thirty years, seeking to develop a critical and interventionist theological discourse in an effort to bring together postwar theological discourse and the social and cultural conditions of our own era. One theological movement concerns the prophetic manner in which Christian eschatology is called to be interpreted.

We move from liturgical and ascetic life into contemporary historical, social, political, and cultural conditions in order to see what the prophetic witness of the Church in the world means.

The Need for a Synthesis between the Bible and the Fathers, Therapeutic and Eucharistic Ecclesiology, Institution and Charisma, Ontology and Ethics

Which Syntheses Are Most Necessary in the Present Age?

Today, there are theological tendencies that are more biblical and others that are more patristic, and these stand in tension with one another. A synthesis is being sought, since the Fathers of the Church were interpreters of the Bible.

A synthesis is also being sought between the therapeutic and Eucharistic approaches within the Church, as well as between institution and charisma. Of particular interest is missionary theology through intercultural dialogue, as well as what is called the “return of ethics,” understood as a connection with a theology of responsibility.

The dialogue between Orthodoxy and the sciences is also important, as is its dialogue with cinema, literature, and contemporary forms of thought.

We are moving beyond a culturalism of closed identities and understand identity as something that engages in dialogue and is continually enriched and brought up to date.

A similar open identity of Orthodoxy, engaged in dialogue in the twenty-first century, can encounter the person living in adversity, who is a citizen of the world and not of a local and limited tradition.

The book, therefore, is addressed primarily to the young theologians of the twenty-first century and to the younger generations, seeking to remedy a deficiency in historical memory.

The book does not say, “Look how great the twentieth century was; that is where we must return.” Rather, its purpose is for us to take up a thread and continue it in our own era.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Saint George Karslides: One of the Most Important Holy Figures of the 20th Century

2026-11-04T17:02:03.071-05:00

By Lambros Skontzos

Saint George Karslides (1901–1959) is one of the most distinctive and important holy figures of the twentieth century! His life seems to recapitulate the lives of many other saints whom we read about in the Synaxarion.

After all, he is not simply a Venerable of the Church, but also a confessor and martyr who lived through particularly harsh days of trial and martyrdom during the period of Communist rule in Georgia. The culmination of these trials, of course, was his confrontation with the firing squad.

The monk Symeon, the name given to the Saint when he was tonsured, having previously been called Athanasios, received several bullets from the firing squad, but chiefly in his legs! Thus, the wounds were not fatal. For this reason, his life was subsequently spared, since a law provided that anyone who survived a firing squad was entitled to a pardon!

Even now, we feel ourselves being overwhelmed by the divine grace of which he himself was a bearer, as we too participate in the martyric life of this relatively recent saint of our Church. His canonization by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate took place in 2008.

Throughout his entire life, this confessor and martyr, our Saint, lived as a grace-bearing holy Elder, a Venerable and an ornament of the Church and the world! He stood beside the suffering people of his time, even amid particularly adverse conditions for survival, periods of uprooting and refugeehood, world wars, occupation, civil war...

It was an era in which the traditions of the land, both ecclesiastical and those of the ancestral way of life, suffered particularly severe blows, indiscriminate revisions, and questioning. Yet he stood as an image of the manifestation of Christ in the midst of his own century, a generous manifestation of divine grace in a troubled world!

The Saint, who was born in Georgia to parents of Pontic refugee descent, experienced many deaths and attempted murders from an early age, both bodily and psychic and spiritual. At the age of just three, he lost his parents to a cholera epidemic; a little later, he lost his second mother, that is, his grandmother, and subsequently his beloved sister, at whose grave a light was seen. Indeed, when her relics were exhumed, they bore signs of holiness!

But these were not the only hardships. The young Athanasios also endured martyrdom at the hands of his brother, and he was constantly an outcast, sometimes finding his final refuge in his parents’ graves! Eventually, he decided to leave his brother’s hostile and harsh household, alone and abandoned. Thus, he began wandering through the snow-covered Caucasus in the middle of the bitter winter!

From this point onward, however, the young Athanasios seems to have remained face to face with God. And so God Himself, through His saints, would personally take him under His care, support him, and guide him. First came the appearance of the Three Hierarchs, who allowed him to taste the grace and splendor of Paradise; then Saint George, who placed him on his horse and carried him somewhere far away, so that he might begin a different life! For this reason, he regarded Saint George as his protector, and thus he also received his name at his ordination.

Particularly significant, however, was the ceremony of his tonsure (July 20, 1919), during which the ringing of bells was heard! At that time, such a thing was forbidden. Thus, the abbot, initially terrified, immediately performed a new service when he realized exactly what had happened, making him a Great Schema monk!

The Saint was a constant support to the people of the region in every circumstance of their lives. He was an ever-vigilant and tenderhearted spiritual father who was deeply concerned for their spiritual lives. He was also a wonderworking physician, a merciful and suffering heart for all the inhabitants. He was a friend to children and a protector of the young!

Those who knew him personally experienced, on numerous occasions, extraordinary and revelatory signs of his holiness, such as visits from saints; his paradisiacal conversations with them, in a language and with sounds reminiscent of the singing of birds; his unexpected visits and appearances in various places; his complete knowledge of people, their thoughts and reflections; and his revelations concerning events in their lives known only to them, and concerning relatives of theirs who had disappeared in Asia Minor!

He even informed them about the condition of the souls of their departed relatives and how they should attend to them spiritually! And, of course, to this day he has not ceased working miracles and offering his support to those who ask for it with love and faith.

This is one of those very cases of saints whom we are accustomed to describe as a gift of God to the Church, to society, to humanity, and to the whole world! It is only necessary, however, that we not diminish the particular zeal and wholehearted devotion of these saints, who offered and continue to offer their entire selves to God Himself!

For in this way, through their wholehearted devotion, they become filled with grace and truly become gifts, as well as manifestations of God in the world! May the Venerable George, who lost both his parents to an epidemic of plague, be our helper and protector during the difficult days of the pandemic through which we are living, both in our bodily weaknesses and health concerns, and in our inner spiritual and heartfelt condition. May we have his blessing! But perhaps, first and foremost, we ought to thank him? Probably!

We thank him from the depths of our soul and heart!

The information about the holy life of the Venerable George Karslides was drawn from the book "The Venerable George of Drama: The Saint of the Poor and the Suffering," published by the Holy Monastery of the Ascension of the Savior, Taxiarches (Sipsa).

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Narration on the Lamentation of the Prophet Jeremiah Over Jerusalem, Its Fall, and on the Ecstasy of Abimelech

2026-11-04T15:21:14.307-05:00

The illustration depicts Abimelech asleep beneath the fig tree, with his basket of figs and Jerusalem in the distance. It is an artistic reconstruction in a Byzantine-inspired style, not a reproduction of a historical icon.

Introduction

On November 4, the Greek Orthodox Synaxarion preserves an unusual narrative concerning the Prophet Jeremiah, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the miraculous seventy-year sleep of Abimelech. According to the account, as the Babylonian armies prepared to capture Jerusalem, Jeremiah was instructed by God to conceal the sacred vessels of the Temple in a rock. Abimelech, an Ethiopian who had previously rescued the Prophet from a cistern, was sent to the vineyard of Agrippa to gather figs for the sick. There, beneath a tree, he fell asleep and remained asleep for seventy years, awakening only after the Babylonian captivity had run its course. Unaware of the passage of time, he returned to Jerusalem carrying the same figs, which had miraculously remained fresh. His bewilderment upon discovering that the city and its inhabitants had changed, and his eventual conversation with an elderly man who explained what had happened, form the central episode of the narrative.

The account has a much older literary background. It belongs to the tradition of the Paralipomena of Jeremiah (Παραλειπόμενα Ιερεμίου), also known as the Rest of the Words of Baruch and associated with 4 Baruch, an ancient apocryphal work transmitted in both Greek and Ethiopic. Its distinctive episodes, particularly Abimelech's prolonged sleep and the preservation of the figs, are part of this wider literary tradition.

The Bollandists, in their Acta Sanctorum under November 4, take particular note of the narrative's place in the Greek liturgical calendar: “Abimelech's ecstasy, which, if credence is to be given to a small apocryphal work, written in Ethiopian and Greek, took place at the time of the Babylonian captivity, is commemorated today in the Synaxarion of the Greeks.” They reproduce its Greek title from the November Menaion published in Venice in 1843 by Bartholomew of Koutloumousiou. They also identify the account with an apocryphal work preserved in Greek and Ethiopic, referring readers to editions and studies by August Dillmann, Antonio Maria Ceriani, James Rendel Harris, and Alexander Vasiliev. The Bollandists characterize the material as belonging chiefly to the genre of legendary narratives, and their discussion does not attempt to establish its historical authenticity.

Further evidence of its place in the liturgical manuscript tradition appears in Hippolyte Delehaye's study of the Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, published in the Bollandist Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum Novembris in 1902. There, the narrative of Jeremiah's lamentation is listed among the longer, spiritually beneficial accounts transmitted in a particular family of Synaxarion manuscripts. Thus, the November 4 reading is not merely an incidental entry in a modern calendar, but a narrative with a documented place in the Greek Synaxarion tradition. The precise reason for its assignment to this particular date, however, has not been established other than it being spiritually beneficial.

An interesting feature of the text is the critical treatment it received from Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite in his Synaxarion of the Twelve Months of the Year. In the notes accompanying the narrative, Saint Nikodemos distinguishes between its contents and what he considers to be supported by Holy Scripture. In particular, he challenges the account that Jeremiah went to Babylon, arguing instead, on the basis of the Book of Jeremiah and the testimony of Theodoret of Cyrus and Theophylact of Bulgaria, that the Prophet went to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem. He also explains why he deliberately omitted certain episodes that he considered contrary to Scripture. His comments are therefore valuable not only for understanding the narrative but also for seeing how a later Orthodox compiler approached the apocryphal material preserved in the liturgical tradition.

The following is the account as transmitted in the Synaxarion, together with the explanatory notes of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite.

On this day we relate a narration about the Prophet Jeremiah’s Lamentation over Jerusalem, and its fall, and about Abimelech’s ecstasy.

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

Verses

Why do you lament in vain over the insolent city,
O you who are the most sorrowful of the Prophets?

The great Prophet Jeremiah was from a village called Anathoth. He prophesied many things concerning Jerusalem and Babylon, and likewise concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God, in which the full power and might of prophecy are revealed. Once, Pashhur, the son of Immer, the chief officer of the house of the Lord, severely beat this Prophet. He also placed him in the stocks because Jeremiah was mourning and grieving over the enslavement that Jerusalem was destined to suffer. But since the providence of God delivered the Prophet from the stocks, he, having been set free, prophesied and said to Pashhur: “Your name shall become that of an exile and a stranger from this land of Jerusalem, and your apostasy shall also bring you under condemnation, for cursed is the man who performs the work of the Lord negligently.” “Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly” (Jeremiah 31:10).

In the days of King Jehoiakim, Jeremiah lamented over Jerusalem. The false prophets urged the priests to put him to death. But Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, who was with Jeremiah, prevented them from killing him. Then the Lord said to Jeremiah: “Make wooden bonds for yourself and put them around your neck. And I will send you to the kings of Moab, Idumea, Tyre, and Sidon.” Having done this, the Prophet placed them around his neck. Then Hananiah, the son of Azzur, the false prophet, arose, took the bonds from Jeremiah’s neck, and broke them before the eyes of the people, saying: “Thus has the Lord spoken to me: I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon from the necks of all the nations.” Then Jeremiah said to the false prophet: “Deceitful are your lips, and your heart belches forth poison, for this is what the truth and God say: You have broken wooden bonds? In their place I will make iron bonds, says the Lord Almighty, and I will place them upon the necks of the nations. But you, Hananiah, will soon surrender your soul.” And, behold, a wonder! The deed followed the Prophet’s words, for that man died seven months later.

In the eighteenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, Jeremiah was lamenting over Jerusalem. For this reason, he was put in prison when the Chaldeans and Babylonians had almost approached Jerusalem. But I do not know how the Prophet came out of the prison and went to the land of Benjamin on an errand he had to attend to. There he was seized by the people of the Chaldeans, beaten by them, and thrown into prison.

After Jeremiah had spent a considerable time there, King Zedekiah sent for him and secretly brought him out of prison. Then he said to him: “Since you have received a kindness from me, tell me what is going to happen during my reign.” The Prophet replied: “It is not I who speak to you, O king, but the Spirit of God speaks within me. And what I have written, I have written; that is, what I have written is true and unalterable.” Thus the blessed Prophet was put back in prison. The accusers again troubled the king, saying that Jeremiah, even while in prison, was discouraging the hearts of the warriors, since he proclaimed not peace but war and turmoil. Therefore, they said, it would be better for one man to be put to death for the salvation of the many. The king said to them: “Behold, he is in your hands.” Then they threw Jeremiah into the cistern of Malchiah and into the mire of the dead.

When Abimelech learned of this, he said to the king: “Why have you mistreated the man Jeremiah, O king?” The king replied: “I did not do this of my own will, but because of fear of the people.” Then he said: “Take thirty strong men with you, go, and bring him out of the cistern.” Abimelech went quickly and, by the power of God, brought Jeremiah out unharmed. Then the king, taking Jeremiah aside, said to him: “Do not conceal from me what I am about to ask you.” Jeremiah replied: “Why do you turn away from the truth, O king? I am not a herald of falsehood, even if you put me to death many times.” The king swore, saying: “As the God of my fathers lives! I will not kill you for anything you may tell me, nor will I hand you over to the hands of bloodthirsty men.” Then Jeremiah said to the king: “If you heed my counsel, O king, and go out and surrender to the Babylonians, know that you will save your life, and this city of Jerusalem will not be destroyed. But if you stand against them, know that you will not escape from their hands, and this city will be destroyed by fire.” But because the king considered the Prophet’s words mere foolishness, he did not escape the war and the onslaught of the Babylonians. They came, therefore, surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and, by preventing the food that came from outside from entering it, caused a great famine in the city.

The king, fearing that he would be killed inside the city, fled by night together with his men. The Chaldeans pursued him, captured him, and killed his sons before his eyes. They put out the eyes of King Zedekiah, bound him, and took him down to Babylon, where they placed him inside a mill, treating him as a plaything. He remained in this punishment until the final days of his life. Nabuzaradan, the chief cook of King Nebuchadnezzar, entered Jerusalem, burned it, and reduced the Temple of God to dust, in accordance with Jeremiah’s word. After seventy years, the enslavement of Jerusalem was brought to an end, as will be related later.

But how the capture and enslavement of Jerusalem took place, and what the things spoken by the Lord to Jeremiah were, we shall now relate here.

In those days, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah, saying: “Jeremiah, go out of the city together with Baruch, for I will destroy it because of the multitude of the sins of the people who dwell in it. For your prayers are like immovable pillars in the midst of this city, and they surround it like a wall of adamant. Therefore, go out of it before the power and army of the Chaldeans surround it.”

Then Jeremiah spoke to God, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, grant me, Your servant, permission to speak before You.” And the Lord said: “Speak.” Then Jeremiah said: “Lord, are You handing this city over into the hands of the Chaldeans so that they may boast and say that they have conquered it? My Lord, if it is Your will that this city be destroyed, let it be destroyed by Your hands, and not by the Chaldeans.” And God said: “You must rise and go out of it. The Chaldeans will not boast, for unless I open the gates of Jerusalem to them, they cannot enter it by themselves. Go to Baruch and tell him what I am telling you. At the sixth hour of the night, come to the walls of the city and look, for unless I open them to the Chaldeans, they cannot enter Jerusalem by themselves.”

After the Lord had said these things, He departed from Jeremiah. Jeremiah went to Baruch and revealed these things to him. Then the two of them went to the Temple, tore their clothes, placed ashes upon their heads, and lamented over the city of Jerusalem. When they came to the walls of the city at the sixth hour of the night, they heard the sound of trumpets. For Angels had come down from Heaven, holding torches in their hands, and had taken their places upon the walls of the city. When Jeremiah and Baruch saw them, they wept and said: “Now the word that God spoke is true.” And they said to the Angels: “We beseech you, do not destroy the city until we have spoken to God.”

Then Jeremiah spoke, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, command that I may speak before You.” And the Lord said: “Speak.” Jeremiah said: “Behold, we have been informed that You will hand Jerusalem over into the hands of its enemies, and that Your people Israel will go as captives to Babylon. What, then, are we to do with the holy vessels of Your Temple?” And the Lord said: “Entrust them to the earth, saying: ‘Hear, O earth, the voice of God, who established you upon the waters and sealed you with seven seals and seven times, and who, after these things, will restore your beauty. Guard the holy vessels of the liturgy until the gathering together of the beloved people.’”

Then Jeremiah spoke again, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, what am I to do concerning the Ethiopian Abimelech, who has shown many kindnesses to me, Your servant? For he brought me out of the muddy cistern into which they had cast me. I do not want him to witness the destruction of the city, lest he become paralyzed and die from fear, since he is timid and fainthearted.” And the Lord said to Jeremiah: “Send him to the vineyard of Agrippa, and I will shelter him beneath the shadow of the mountain until the people return from captivity.”¹

Then Jeremiah, in accordance with God’s command, took the holy vessels of the liturgy and placed them inside a rock. He sealed it with his ring, inscribing upon it the name of God, that is, the Tetragrammaton, Jehovah, which, according to the Seventy, means “Lord.” And, behold, a wonder! The impression of the seal became so deep that it looked as though it had been engraved with an iron chisel. A cloud covered the rock, so that it would be difficult for people to recognize it. This rock is in the wilderness where the Ark of God had previously been constructed in the time of Moses.²

In the morning, Jeremiah said to Abimelech: “Take the basket, child, and go to the vineyard of Agrippa by way of the mountain road, and bring figs so that the sick among the people may eat, for their joy is in you, and their glory rests upon your head.” He immediately went to the vineyard. When he arrived there, the sun had set. And behold, the armies of the Chaldeans came and surrounded Jerusalem. Then the great Angel sounded a trumpet, saying: “Let the entire army of the Chaldeans enter the city, for behold, the gate has been opened for you.”

Then Jeremiah took the keys of the Temple, went out of the city, and threw them down before the sun, saying: “Take these and guard them until that day on which the Lord will call you to account for them, for we have not been found worthy to guard them.”

Abimelech, meanwhile, took the figs in the heat of the day, found a tree, and sat beneath its shade to rest for a little while. And, lowering his head beneath the basket, he—behold, a wonder!—fell asleep there for seventy years. This happened by God’s command, because of the word He had spoken to Jeremiah: “I will shelter him.”

After the seventy years had passed, he awoke and said: “I slept sweetly, but only for a little while, and therefore my head feels heavy, since I have not had enough sleep.” Opening the basket, he found the figs still dripping with milk, as though he had picked them only a short while before. And he said: “I would like to sleep a little longer, but since Jeremiah sent me in such haste and with such urgency, if I sleep, I will be delayed, and this will grieve him. Therefore, let me go more quickly, so that I may gladden him, and I will sleep there.”

Taking the figs, he went to Jerusalem. He recognized neither Jerusalem nor his own house, nor any of his relatives or friends. And he said: “Blessed is the Lord! An ecstasy has come upon me today. Is this city not Jerusalem? My mind has become confused because I have not had enough sleep.”

He went out of the city and, looking at the landmarks, said: “This is truly my city; I have not been mistaken.” He entered the city again and, after searching, found none of his relatives or friends. And he said: “Blessed is the Lord! A great ecstasy has come upon me.”

Once again, he went out of the city and remained there grieving, not knowing what to do. Putting the basket down, he said: “Here I will sit until the Lord takes this ecstasy away from me.”

While he was sitting there, behold, an old man was coming from his field. Abimelech said to him: “I ask you, old man, what city is this?” The old man replied: “It is Jerusalem, child.” Abimelech said: “Where are Jeremiah the Prophet and Priest of God, and Baruch the reader, and all the people of the city? For I have not found them.” The old man replied: “Are you not from this city? Have you remembered Jeremiah and the people only today, and are you asking about them after so many years? The people are in Babylon, child. They have now been there for seventy years, having become captives of King Nebuchadnezzar. And how is it that you, who are young and were not yet born at that time, are asking about those whom you have not even lived long enough to see?”

When Abimelech heard these things, he said to the old man: “If you were not an old man, and if it were not forbidden to dishonor someone older than oneself—for Sirach says, ‘Do not dishonor a man in his old age’ (8:6)—I would certainly laugh at you and tell you that you are mad, since you say that the people went as captives to Babylon. Even if the floodgates of heaven were to open, and the Angels of God were to come down to take them by force and authority, they still could not have gone to Babylon so quickly. For how little time has passed since my father Jeremiah sent me to the vineyard of Agrippa to get a few figs, so that we might give them to the sick among the people! As I was going along, I slept for a little while beneath a tree because of the heat. Thinking that I had been delayed, I uncovered the figs and found that they were still dripping with milk, just as when I had picked them from the fig tree. How, then, can you say that the people were taken captive to Babylon in so short a time? And so that you may know that I am not telling you lies, take the figs and look.”

When the old man saw the figs, he said: “O child, you are the son of a righteous man, and for this reason God did not wish to show you the desolation of this city, but brought upon you such an ecstasy. Behold, the people have been in Babylon for seventy years, counting from the day on which they were taken captive. And so that you may know, child, that what I am telling you is true, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for the crops have not yet begun to grow. Look also at the fig trees, for the season of figs has not yet arrived. Thus, be assured and believe my words.”

Then Abimelech, coming to his senses as though awakening from drunkenness, looked carefully at the land and the trees upon it, and said: “Blessed is the God of heaven and earth, the rest of the souls of the righteous.”

Then he said to the old man: “What month is this?” The old man replied: “The twelfth, child, that is, February.” Then the old man took some figs from Abimelech, blessed him, and departed.

Notes:

1. We note here that the following words are also found in the Synaxarion: “But you, Jeremiah, go with the people to Babylon and remain with them, proclaiming the good news.” These words, however, are not found in Holy Scripture. Rather, someone else wrote them carelessly and boldly, as it seemed right to him, without carefully considering what is contained in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. For in that book we read that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon. Instead, after the capture of Jerusalem, he went down to Egypt, to Tahpanhes (which in Greek is called Daphnae), and prophesied there.

This is confirmed, first, by the forty-third [= fiftieth] chapter of Jeremiah, where he himself says: “And they entered into Egypt, and they entered into Tahpanhes. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,” and so forth.

It is also demonstrated by the fifty-first [= twenty-eighth] chapter of the same book, where Jeremiah said the following to Seraiah: “And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, when you come to Babylon, and see and read all these words. […] And it shall come to pass, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates” (verse 61). Jeremiah would not have spoken these words if he himself had been going to Babylon.

Second, this is confirmed by the wise Theodoret. For in the heading of Psalm 136, he says: “Some, having dared to do a bold thing, ascribed this psalm to Jeremiah. But Jeremiah was not carried off to Babylon together with the captives. Rather, after spending a short time in Jerusalem, he was compelled by the lawless Jews to accompany them on their journey to Egypt. How, then, is it fitting for him to say, ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept’?” The same Theodoret says nearly the same things in the heading of Psalm 64, which is titled, “A song of Jeremiah and Ezekiel,” and so forth.

Third, this is confirmed by Saint Theophylact of Bulgaria. For in the introduction to his interpretation of Jonah, he says: “The king of the Babylonians (that is, Nebuchadnezzar) deemed the divinely inspired Jeremiah worthy of such honor that he gave him the freedom to choose his place of residence. He led all the other kings and rulers away as captives, but to this man alone he gave the authority to live wherever he wished.”

We also note the following: in the Greek-Latin edition of Theodoret’s works published in Leipzig, this too is mentioned in the annotations to the heading of Psalm 64: that Jeremiah built a high tower, shut himself inside it, and there composed the Lamentations, weeping bitterly over Jerusalem on the one hand and the enslavement of the people on the other. It appears that, after composing the Lamentations in the land of Jerusalem, he then went down to Egypt.

But Baruch also did not remain in Jerusalem, as is written here. Rather, he first went down to Egypt together with Jeremiah. This is demonstrated by the forty-third [= fiftieth] chapter of Jeremiah. He then went to Babylon. Five years after the capture of Jerusalem, he read his book to the people. This is made clear in the first chapter of that book, where it says: “In the fifth year, in the seventh month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jeconiah and in the hearing of all the inhabitants of Babylon, by the river Sud” (Baruch 1:2).

For this reason, we did not translate the account that Baruch and Abimelech sent a letter to Jeremiah in Babylon by means of an eagle, that Jeremiah sat upon a dead man and was raised up, that Jeremiah returned to Jerusalem together with the people, and similar things. These accounts are not true, since they contradict Scripture.

I also did this after consulting other teachers and discerning scholars, especially the most holy and most wise former Patriarch of Constantinople, Lord Gregory, who advised me to leave these passages untranslated.

The fact that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon, but went to Daphnae and was stoned there, is also attested in the Synaxarion for the first of May, under the commemoration of Jeremiah. Alexander Mavrocordatos also bears witness to this in his Judaica; see there. Moreover, it is perfectly clear from the letter Jeremiah sent to those who were about to be taken captive to Babylon, and from what he tells them concerning not worshipping the gods and idols of Babylon, that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon. For if he had gone there, what need would there have been for him to write a letter? See this letter after the Book of Baruch.

2. But where did Jeremiah keep these things? See more precisely the note in the Synaxarion of Jeremiah, under the first of May.

Source: From the book: The Synaxarion of the Twelve Months of the Year by Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Volume I. Domos Publications, 2005. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.

Venerable George Karslides in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

2026-11-04T08:57:25.052-05:00

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“George, the cultivator of virtue and dweller with wisdom, the useful vessel of the all-powerful Spirit, the Comforter, and the inexhaustible fountain of healings, having in recent times followed the footsteps of the illustrious venerable Fathers of old, became a pillar and an image for those who wish to live piously.”

With these brief words in the Synaxarion of his service, the good and well-known hymnographer of our Orthodox Church, more precisely, officially titled the “Great Hymnographer of the Church of the Alexandrians,” Dr. Haralambos Bousias, who also composed the service of our Venerable and God-bearing Father George Karslides the Confessor, summarizes the principal elements of the Venerable Father's life in Christ: the Venerable Father was a man of virtue and wisdom; he was a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, with the result that he himself, as surely as his grace-gushing relics, became a fountain of healings for every illness of the faithful people who had recourse to him and continue to do so. The cause of these supernatural states was the fact that throughout his life he strove to follow in the footsteps of the great venerable Fathers of the Church of old. For this reason, he too, together with the great venerable Fathers, became a support and an example for all faithful Christians.

With inspiration, knowledge, and scholarship, our Hymnographer develops, by the God-given grace he possesses, all these dimensions of the life of the Venerable George. He repeatedly points out, first of all, that the Venerable Father was a man in whom all the virtues of God had taken up their dwelling. For example, already in his Apolytikion he tells us that he was “an initiate of joy-giving mourning and a mirror of heartfelt prayer, humility, and spiritual vigilance”; he was “the one who was consumed by his love and compassion for every fellow human being, guiding the people of God without leading them astray” (Idiomelon of Matins); he was a most temperate man who “lived with the mortification of his flesh and with fasting” (Ode 3); he was “the one who ran first to almsgiving, showing that he was the light of love” (Ode 4); he was “the foundation of temperance and the radiance of goodness” (Oikos of the Kontakion). In a word, he was a man in whose person “Christians of recent times saw the achievements of the most holy ascetics of the deserts of Palestine and Egypt” (Sticheron Prosomoion of Vespers). That is, they saw another Anthony, another Euthymios, another Makarios, and one who ultimately “through his ascetic struggle reached the angels as one without flesh, having ascended the ladder of all the virtues” (Ode 5).

The good and faithful Hymnographer, of course, points out that all these virtues were not an achievement of the Saint based on his own powers, so that the boasting might belong to him. Rather, it was the presence of the Holy Spirit within his being that made the Saint—“since from childhood he loved Christ and directed toward Him all the longing of his soul” (Praises)—manifest himself, wherever he passed, whether in Argyroupolis of Pontus, in the land of Georgia, or in the city of Drama and the Monastery of the Ascension founded by him, in such a God-graced manner. For this reason, whatever virtue he possessed was firmly established upon the foundation of all the virtues, which is none other than humility, because it is the only one that literally attracts the grace and mercy of God like a magnet. “God gives grace to the humble.” Our well-informed Hymnographer takes his cue from “the humble ascetic” (Sticheron of Vespers) in order to penetrate somewhat into his soul with regard to this virtue, which raises one on high. He guides and moves us, telling us that this humility was, through the grace of God, the fruit of his ascetic effort “to keep his mind in Hades, without, however, being led to despair, and thus to be deemed worthy of the enjoyment of the Taboric light” (Lity). What does the Hymnographer do? Evidently through divine illumination, he “borrows” the experience of Saint Silouan of Athonite, expressed in writing by Saint Silouan himself and by the Venerable Elder Sophrony Sakharov, in order to say what Saint Silouan had seen as an operation of the grace of God within himself. That is, what was revealed by the Lord Himself to Saint Silouan, who was almost contemporary with the Saint we honor, so that he might remain in humility and consequently in the grace of God—“Keep your mind in Hades and despair not”—the Hymnographer attributes in the same way to Saint George Karslides. And he is right, because the spiritual struggle, despite all its possible branches, is common to all the saints.

Venerable George, then, is also elevated as a universal example for all the faithful, offering them the grace of healings and the solution to the various problems of their lives. For he too became an “instrument of election,” like all the Fathers and enerable Saints of our Church. And through him we clearly discern the presence of the Lord Himself, the presence of His grace. One element that confirms this truth in a striking manner is also the fact that Venerable George, from a very young age, passed through very many hardships, dangers, and imprisonments, with the result that he was almost completely exhausted. The Venerable Father was in danger of death, yet his most courageous resolve was never broken, not even for a moment. Like the Apostle Paul, the pains of his body and the fragility of his health were accompanied by a heart filled with the grace of God and, consequently, with spiritual health. Was it not the Apostle Paul who, when he asked the Lord to remove from him the “thorn in the flesh,” received the answer, “My grace is sufficient for you,” whereupon the Apostle understood that “when he is weak, then he is strong”? The same thing happens, according to the Hymnographer, with Venerable George. “His frail body concealed a most healthy heart … and in reality, it was his taking upon himself of the Cross of the Lord without complaining” (Doxastikon of the Aposticha).

For this reason, the Venerable Father, fearless and courageous, imparted and continues to impart fearlessness and courage to every faithful person who has recourse to him, as the modest Hymnographer also very beautifully points out. “You give courage, strength, and power as a reward, O Venerable George, to all the faithful who worthily bless you” (Ode 9). A person who has faced death with faith in Christ, a confessor of the faith in the literal sense, feels the power of Christ within himself and, as a healthy member of Him, can offer it to the other members of the Body as well.

And let us be permitted here to emphasize a subtle observation by the Hymnographer concerning the confessional dimension of the Venerable Father's faith. Many in our time boast of the fact that they are confessors of the faith. They maintain that our era is, and must be, an era of confession. No one disputes this. After all, it is something the Lord Himself asked for. There is, however, one condition: confession is always accompanied by sufferings, ascetic struggle, and a martyric disposition. For a confession that remains only in shouting and slogans — we do not know to what extent it accords with the mind of the Lord, His Church, and His Saints. What observation, then, does the Hymnographer make? Seeking to understand the characterization of Venerable George as a confessor, he writes, among other things: “You endured imprisonment and were delivered from death, O most blessed one, so that you might receive the crown of your confession” (Sticheron of Vespers). A confessor, then, is one who has suffered for the Lord and His faith. This means, as we have said, that the confessional element is not exhausted by words and shouting alone.

For this reason, the late Athonite ascetic Elder Damaskinos from Saint Basil at Kavsokalyva, who lived his entire life in that remote region, noted that although in our time some people divide contemporary Christians into confessors and non-confessors, this reality will become apparent when the true problems arise and the faithful person must demonstrate in practice whether he is truly faithful or not. And in his own words, which he spoke to someone regarded as a confessor and zealot: “Father I..., in the last years God will withdraw the blessing of confession from many hypocritical zealots and will give it to people of good intention and good disposition” (Hieromonk Philip, The Wisdom of the Holy Mountain, Fereniki Publications, p. 34).

To point out the Saint's gifts, his great boldness before the Lord, so that countless miracles were performed daily both while he was alive and afterward, and the established invocation of him, which leads people to repentance, would be an endless task. It would be most desirable for us to seek out and take into our hands the book written about him by the now also departed Monk Elder Moses, following a request made in 1979 by the most venerable departed abbess at the Monastery of the Venerable Akylina. There we shall see and marvel at the precise course, earthly and spiritual, of the Venerable George's life. And may we be moved to compunction, so that within the circumstances of our own lives we may carry something of his sanctified life into them.

And we believe it is worth mentioning that Venerable George appeared to Elder Moses some considerable time after the latter had written his biography, at a time when this learned Elder was near the end of his life, amid many hardships, illnesses, and temptations. He appeared to him together with Saint Hieronymos of Simonopetra and Venerable Sophia of Kleisoura, in order to give him strength and courage in his difficult condition and to express his approval of his work on him.

Through the intercessions of our Venerable and God-bearing Father George Karslides, may the Lord save and sanctify us all.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 4

2026-11-04T06:11:19.187-05:00

The Month of November

Day 4

66. To Orthodox Soldiers: On Which Soldier Is Most Likely to Defeat the Enemy in Battle

(From the Life of Venerable Ioannikios the Great)

When you, God-loving soldiers, enter into battle against the enemies of your homeland, who do you think among you is most likely to emerge victorious, ahead of the others? Of course, you will say: “God alone knows who!” But perhaps some will add: “Most likely, the one who has studied the art of warfare better than the others, who is undaunted in courage, and who possesses better weapons than the rest.” We fully agree with the first answer, that God alone knows who will emerge victorious, but we do not entirely agree with the second. In our opinion, the one most likely to emerge victorious is not the one who is skilled, courageous, and possesses good weapons, but the one who was already a true Christian before the battle, who always had the fear of God in his heart, who conducted himself righteously and piously even before the battle, was diligent in prayer, and showed zeal for every good work. Which of us is right in our judgment? Let us not argue about this; let the matter itself decide between our judgments.

When Venerable Ioannikios the Great entered military service in his youth, it is said that he was loved by all his comrades for his meekness and humility. In addition, he observed a strict fast and preserved his chastity. Often, when his duties took him to the palace, he would find time there to spend entire nights in prayer, while his abstinence in food was unparalleled. After he had served in the Greek army for six years, the Bulgarians declared war on the Greeks, and Ioannikios had to march out against the enemy. In the war, he displayed extraordinary courage: like a second David, he struck down foreigners everywhere; before the eyes of the emperor, he defended the emperor’s troops against the enemy and, as his Life relates, cut them down like grass. On one occasion, when the Bulgarians captured one of the Greek nobles during a battle, Ioannikios charged at those who had taken him captive and, after defeating some and scattering the others, freed the prisoner. His exploits were so great in general that the emperor ordered them to be entered in a commemorative book, so that when the war was over, Ioannikios might be honored with a high rank and great gifts.

One of Ioannikios’s exploits, however, was particularly remarkable. No one could stand against a certain Bulgarian who was distinguished by his extraordinary strength and had killed many Greeks. But Ioannikios, upon hearing of him, boldly charged at him and immediately beheaded him. Thus did this pious young soldier prove himself an extraordinary victor on the battlefield.

From this account it becomes clear that we are more likely to be right when we say that, in battles, it is the pious soldier who is more likely to emerge victorious, rather than those who are convinced that the soldier who defeats the enemy is simply the one who relies on his weapons and courage. Consider Ioannikios: while rescuing the nobleman, he fights against many, striking some down and putting others to flight; he sees before him another man, a Goliath in strength, and strikes him down. But do not forget that all those whom Ioannikios struck down and scattered were not some disorderly rabble, but experienced soldiers who, as you have just heard, had overcome the Greeks—and not just once. This means that the Lord is not on the side of strength, but of righteousness, and that He “does not delight in the strength of a horse ... but takes pleasure in those who fear Him and in those who hope in His mercy” (Psalm 146:10–11 LXX).

In view of this, you too, God-loving soldiers, if you wish to become yourselves steadfast victors over your enemies, should place your hope of victory not in your weapons or your own courage, but in your pious way of life and in constantly pleasing God through good works. Do not go forth to battle with only bodily weapons, but also with spiritual ones. Set out fortified by faith, armed with prayer and hope. And do not rush against the enemy before pouring out fervent prayers before the Lord and His Most Pure Mother. If you act in this way, then your pious life, your prayer, and your hope will also bear fruit—not dead fruit. There is no doubt that then the enemies will not be able to stand against you, and you will crush their pride and strength. Amen.

Questions on Discourse 66:

1. For what reasons was Venerable Ioannikios the Great loved by all his comrades when he entered military service in his youth?

2. What did Ioannikios find time to do at night when his duties took him to the palace?

3. What did Ioannikios do when the Bulgarians captured one of the Greek nobles during a battle?

4. How did Ioannikios charge at a certain Bulgarian who was distinguished by his extraordinary strength?

5. By what means should we please God in order to become steadfast victors over our enemies?

From Cappadocia to Nea Ionia: The Incorrupt Relics of Saint George the New Hieromartyr of Neapolis and Their Historic Transfer

2026-11-03T16:49:59.650-05:00

On November 2, 2026, the incorrupt holy relics of Saint George the New Hieromartyr of Neapolis were solemnly transferred from the Church of Saint Eustathios in Perissos, Nea Ionia, to the newly built church dedicated to him at the Ionian Centre. The ceremony took place on the eve of the Saint’s feast, November 3, and marked an important event in the religious and historical life of the Asia Minor refugee community of Nea Ionia.

The Life and Martyrdom of Saint George of Neapolis

Saint George was a priest from Neapolis in Cappadocia, known today by its Turkish name, Nevşehir. He served as parish priest at the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in his hometown. The ecclesiastical account describes him as a man distinguished by piety, integrity, humility, meekness, and love for his fellow human beings. He served his flock with righteousness and devotion to the commandments of the Lord.

In 1797, the Christians of Malakopi, a village approximately six hours from Neapolis, invited him to celebrate the Divine Liturgy on a great feast day because their own priest was ill. According to another account, the Saint had gone to Malakopi to escape persecution by people of other faiths. The accounts differ concerning the circumstances of his journey, but both place his martyrdom near Malakopi.

As he approached the village, at a place called Kompia-Dere, meaning “ravine,” he was attacked by shepherds. They robbed and tortured him before finally beheading him. Thus, the priest of Neapolis received the crown of martyrdom in 1797.

The Discovery and Veneration of His Holy Relics

According to the ecclesiastical account, the Saint’s body was recovered after a devout widow saw a vision in which he appeared to her. His relics were found whole and incorrupt, accompanied by a heavenly fragrance.

Initially, the relics were kept in the home of his fellow priest, Neophytos. Following Neophytos’s death, they were transferred to the parish church of Neapolis, where Christians came to venerate them.

The relics were also venerated by the Metropolitans of Caesarea - Paisios, Kleovoulos, and Ioannis - who frequently visited Neapolis. The ecclesiastical account records that they marvelled at the divine grace bestowed upon the Saint and acknowledged his wonderworking power.

The veneration of his relics thus became an established part of the religious life of the Christians of Neapolis. His memory remained closely connected to the community and to the church in which his relics were kept.

The Transfer of the Relics to Greece

The Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the subsequent population exchange brought an end to the centuries-old Christian presence in many communities of Cappadocia. As the Greek inhabitants of Neapolis were forced to leave their homeland, the relics of their beloved Saint were also brought to Greece.

According to the official biography published by the Holy Metropolis of Nea Ionia, the transfer took place in 1924, in connection with the population exchange. The undertaking was carried out by Archimandrite Ignatios, who was then serving as the parish priest of Neapolis. The relics were brought to Attica and deposited in the Church of Saint Eustathios the Great Martyr in Perissos, where they remained for decades.

For the refugees who had left Cappadocia, the presence of the Saint’s relics in their new homeland preserved a tangible connection with the place from which they had been uprooted. The relics were not simply an ecclesiastical treasure brought from Asia Minor; they remained an object of veneration and a reminder of the religious life of the community in Neapolis.

The Historic Transfer to the Ionian Centre

For many decades, the relics of Saint George were kept at the Church of Saint Eustathios in Perissos. On November 2, 2026, the eve of his feast, they were transferred in an official procession to the new church erected in his honor within the Ionian Centre in Nea Ionia.

The procession was led by Metropolitan Gabriel of Nea Ionia, Philadelphia, Heraklion and Chalkidona, with the participation of clergy, representatives of public life, and a large gathering of faithful. The relics were accompanied along the route by the Philharmonic and school contingents from the Municipality of Nea Ionia. Many people had gathered along Herakliou Avenue to pay their respects as the procession passed.

Upon the arrival of the relics at the Ionian Centre, the clergy received them, and the Service of the Opening of the Doors of the new church was celebrated. The Great Hierarchical Festal Vespers followed.

The new church stands at the heart of the Ionian Centre, a project of the Holy Metropolis intended to bring together worship, education, culture, historical memory, and social outreach. Its dedication to Saint George of Neapolis gives the Centre a particular connection to the history of the Asia Minor Greeks and to the descendants of those who settled in Nea Ionia after the catastrophe.

On November 3, the feast of the Saint, the first Hierarchical Divine Liturgy was celebrated in the new church, in the presence of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Konstantinos Tasoulas. The commemorative event held that evening marked the official opening of the Ionian Centre.

The transfer of the relics on November 2 was therefore more than a change of location. After having been brought from Cappadocia by the refugees and preserved for generations at the Church of Saint Eustathios, the relics now have a new permanent home in a church dedicated to the Saint within a centre closely associated with the historical memory and heritage of the Asia Minor Greeks.

From Neapolis in Cappadocia to Nea Ionia in Attica, the history of the relics of Saint George is inseparable from the history of the people who venerated him. The solemn transfer of November 2, 2026, brought this long history into a new chapter, while maintaining the continuity of the Saint’s veneration among the faithful.

The Uncovering of the Holy Relics of Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyva (November 3, 1994)

2026-11-03T16:03:37.677-05:00

On November 3, the Orthodox Church commemorates the uncovering of the holy relics of Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyva, an event associated with the same spirit of humility and concealment that characterized the Elder throughout his earthly life.

Saint Porphyrios, who reposed on December 2, 1991, at the Sacred Skete of Kavsokalyva on Mount Athos, had expressed the desire that his burial take place quietly, without public attention. His final wish was consistent with the simplicity and humility with which he had lived. He did not want an elaborate funeral or a distinguished tomb, but a simple monastic burial among the fathers of the skete.

A Hidden Burial at Kavsokalyva

The Elder's repose took place at Kavsokalyva on December 2, 1991. In accordance with his wishes, his funeral was conducted discreetly, attended by only a few of the fathers who had served him during his final days. He was buried in a simple monastic grave, marked by a few stones and a wooden cross.

The accounts of his burial emphasize how carefully the Elder had arranged for his final departure to remain unknown. He had instructed a hieromonk concerning his burial and did not want crowds to gather around him after his death. His desire was not to attract attention to himself, even after his repose, but to depart this life in the same humility in which he had lived.

According to the monastic custom of Kavsokalyva, the exhumation and gathering of the relics was to take place after three years. This was also carried out secretly, at an unexpected time, so that no one would discover where the holy relics of the Elder would be kept.

The uncovering reportedly took place on November 3, 1994, one month before the completion of the three-year period. The date was chosen because November 3 was also the commemoration of the uncovering of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr George, allowing the procedure to take place without attracting attention.

According to certain testimonies, the holy relics of Saint Porphyrios were subsequently buried in a secret location in the neighboring forest of Kavsokalyva, a place known only to one or two of the fathers.

The Incorrupt Hands of Saint Porphyrios

How long can a lamp remain hidden beneath a bushel? How can such a great Saint, endowed with such extraordinary and astonishing gifts, remain concealed when society has such a need for a great divine support and consolation?

According to the testimony given over the years by Elder Akakios of Kavsokalyva, one of the monks who remained constantly beside Saint Porphyrios during his final hours, the Saint's hands were found completely incorrupt when they were brought out of the grave.

These were the hands with which he blessed! These were the hands with which he healed! With these hands he offered the treasures of his love and consolation, “raising up” the lives of people!

The testimony is particularly moving because it recalls the personal ministry of the Elder, whose hands had been instruments of blessing, healing, love, and consolation to those who came to him. The account of their incorruption has consequently become closely associated with the memory of Saint Porphyrios and the uncovering of his relics.

The Cenotaph of Saint Porphyrios at Kavsokalyva

Although the relics of Saint Porphyrios were secretly removed from his original grave on November 3, 1994, his memory continues to be commemorated at Kavsokalyva. According to an account published by Hieromonk George Alevras in July 2024, a cenotaph (an empty tomb erected in memory of the deceased) was constructed in the cemetery of the Sacred Skete of the Holy Trinity at Kavsokalyva, eleven years after the Elder's canonization by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on November 27, 2013.

The cenotaph provides pilgrims with a visible place to remember and honor the Saint, even though his actual relics remain concealed. It is important, however, to distinguish this memorial tomb from the Elder's original burial place. According to the same account, after the relics were removed, the original grave was subsequently used for the burial of another monk. The cenotaph is therefore a separate memorial and should not be mistaken for the place where Saint Porphyrios's relics are kept.

The Establishment of the Liturgical Commemoration

The commemoration of the uncovering of the relics has also received a place in the liturgical life of the Church.

In early 2026, the Sacred Metropolis of Veria, Naousa and Campania announced the publication of a special festal service for the uncovering of the holy relics of Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyva. The service was composed by Dr. Haralambos Bousias, the Great Hymnographer of the Church of Alexandria, and received the approval of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

The publication was made possible through the support of the Holy Great Monastery of Vatopaidi, while its editorial supervision was undertaken by Archimandrite Chrysostomos Papadakis, a cleric of the Metropolis of Veria.

The volume includes not only the service for the uncovering of the relics, but also two supplicatory canons to Saint Porphyrios, salutatory hymns, encomia in his honor, and a prayer for the healing and strengthening of those who seek his wonderworking intercessions. The proceeds from its distribution were designated for the completion of the Church of Saint Luke the Physician.

The Metropolis expressed its gratitude to Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria for accepting its proposal to establish the feast of the uncovering of the Saint's relics, to the hymnographer Haralambos Bousias for composing the service, and to the Abbot of the Holy Great Monastery of Vatopaidi, Archimandrite Ephraim, for supporting its publication.

This development gives the commemoration a formal liturgical expression and preserves the memory of the event through the hymnographic tradition of the Church.

Apolytikion.
Tone 1. “Tis erimou politis”

Zealot of obscurity and humble-minded Porphyrios, when your disciples had secretly performed the uncovering of your relics from the tomb, they concealed them in a hidden place. We earnestly desire to venerate them noetically, O blessed one, and to cry out to you: Glory to Christ who glorified you; glory to Him who sanctified you; glory to Him who wondrously revealed you as a light of humility.

A Refutation of Iconoclasm by Saint Anthony the Confessor Directed Toward the Iconoclast Emperor Leo V the Armenian

2026-11-03T14:59:18.540-05:00

Introduction

The Antirretikos Logos (Refutatory Discourse) of Saint Anthony the Confessor, Archbishop of Dyrrhachium and later of Thessaloniki (†844), is a fiery, direct defense of the Orthodox position on holy icons before the iconoclastic Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820). The text does not survive as an independent manuscript. Instead, it was preserved for posterity by being embedded verbatim into Chapters 13–15 of The Life of Saint Theodora of Thessaloniki, a 9th-century biography written by the cleric Gregory.

Confronting an imperial court determined to re-enact the destruction of holy icons, Anthony bypasses simple rhetoric to construct a sophisticated theological framework centered on two core arguments:

1. The Aristotelian Defense of the Icon

Moving beyond mere emotional or scriptural appeals, Anthony utilizes classical Aristotelian logic. He argues that an icon does not possess its own independent essence (kath' auto); rather, it belongs to the category of "relative things" (tōn pros ti). Because an icon exists strictly in relation to its prototype, looking at the image logically and instinctively elevates the mind of the viewer to the person of Jesus Christ or of the person or event depicted.

2. A Hierarchy of Veneration

Anthony rigorously delineates the boundaries of Orthodox worship. He isolates latreia (the absolute, sacrificial worship due exclusively to the Holy Trinity) from the "relative veneration" (schetikē proskynēsis) offered to icons. To prove his point, he challenges the Emperor with a brilliant analogy: if the empire willingly honors the physical shape of the Cross because of Christ's actions upon it, it is a logical contradiction to refuse honor to an icon that captures the very human form of Christ Himself.

Translated by Alice-Mary Talbot in her landmark English translation for Dumbarton Oaks (Holy Women of Byzantium), this text bridges the gap between the high philosophy of the Church Fathers and the raw courage of the Confessors. It stands as a masterclass in how late Byzantine theologians mobilized classical logic to defend the reality of the Incarnation against imperial overreach.

The Life of Saint Theodora of Thessaloniki

(Chs. 10-18 focusing on the Life and Confession of Saint Anthony, Archbishop of Dyrrhachium and later of Thessaloniki.)

By Gregory the Cleric

10. At this point in my narrative I would have liked to describe the lives of many of Theodora’s relatives, who were of a very high-placed family, not in order to add to her praise, but so that you might see in what sort of godly manner her relatives lived. But since I will seem to exceed <my mandate> if I go beyond my assigned theme, I will mention only our archbishop Antony, and then return my narrative again to Theodora. This chief shepherd of ours, Antony, after learning the sacred letters as a child and donning the life-bearing and holy monastic habit, adorned himself with all forms of virtue, constantly studying the divinely inspired Scriptures and immersing his mind in their depths, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And he was not only trained in our [i.e., Christian] wisdom, which is concerned only with the salvation of our souls and rejects the enigmatic and deep power of words, but was also thoroughly educated in secular and general knowledge (since one needs this in order to explain the meditations of the mind), even though his desire for our <Christian> knowledge was greater. Wherefore it so happened that he assiduously studied every old and new book, as no one else. And thereby he enriched his powers of spiritual contemplation, and enriched the brilliance of his life, and attained extraordinary fame. Thereby the Wisdom of God the Father and the Word, Christ our God, granted <him> a towering knowledge of doctrines, and he shone with radiance like a light in a dark place. And therefore by God’s decision he was appointed archbishop of Dyrrachion. For it was not right to hide his lamp under a bushel, but to place it on the lampstand of the Church.

11. Thus when the blessed man had ascended the archiepiscopal throne, and was nobly guiding his flock to the pastures of salvation, suddenly that abominable heresy <of iconoclasm> that had recently appeared cruelly rekindled like a flame, and the whole throng of orthodox [i.e., iconodules] was terrified, and tumult and confusion overwhelmed the inhabited world, and people of every age and race, being cruelly tortured by the defenders of impiety, were forced to blaspheme against our Lord and God Jesus Christ by trampling on His venerable and revered image. You are surely aware that I am speaking of the persecution that recurred during the reign of the Amalekite Leo, named after a wild beast and loathsome to God and bold-spirited, against the holy and venerable icon of Christ our God; for the church that is holy from one end of the earth to the other in a pious and God-pleasing manner inherited the tradition of the holy apostles and fathers that we should depict it [the image of Christ] in the likeness of the animated flesh which He received from the holy blood of the Virgin, and offer it relative veneration. The memory of this <persecution>, which was so cruel and intolerable, stirs up a torrent of tears <within me>. I will corroborate <my statement> with a tale that does not proceed at random so as to be diffused into the air, nor is it based on the <formal> establishment of proof, but on the great achievements of the holy fathers who lived at that time.

12. For when this accursed Leo, by some oversight of God, succeeded to imperial rule, a terrible war was threatened and waged against the holy church, as the tyrant strove with the greatest impiety and fierce battle to intimidate and overpower every orthodox and pious soul, and to bring down every exalted horn? of piety by the power of his impiety, and endeavored not to seem lesser than anyone. For he sat in authority in brilliant fashion, showing great pride in his artifices, and mixing authority with evil deeds. And by frightening certain of our contenders <for the faith> with maltreatment, and attempting to persuade some with flattery and condemning others to exile, and striving to subdue yet others to his will with <promises of> glory and lavish payments of money, he transformed himself into various shapes like a most wicked Proteus, mingling misfortunes with life and mixing mercy with death. And certain people submitted, but most carried off the garland of victory through Christ. Then this Antony was brought before him [Leo V], and the tyrant expressed all his opinions in vain and threatened every sort of punishment, weaving together the nets of his words with the authority of his power, having decided to trap in them this man who was strong and impregnable in every respect. But he [Antony], with fearless soul and splendid spirit, using the testimony of the divinely inspired Scriptures, filled the tyrant’s soul with darkness and confusion through his response delivered with divine power, and revealed him to all as a deaf man who does not hear and as a mute who does not open his mouth. For he is said to have made his refutation with such invincible boldness that the ears of the entire audience could not bear to listen to anything but the words of Antony. They were as follows:

13. “O emperor, I do not wish to use blasphemous words against our true God Jesus Christ, nor do I intend to insult Him with deeds, like the assemblage of iconoclasts, which does not fear with bold and impious tongue and intellect to give the name of idol to the venerable icon of Christ, through which we were saved from the error of <venerating> idols, and to denigrate it with other such blasphemies; for I know that the honor of the images is the honor <rendered> to those depicted, just as dishonor is transmitted to the same images. For we true worshipers of God do not stop and limit our reverence and veneration to the icons as they [the iconoclasts] assert. Nor do we render to them a veneration which is a worshipful veneration (forbid the impropriety!), which is appropriate only for God Who has authority over all. For all people who are taught of God in the Spirit are familiar with this distinction of reverence, and what sort of veneration we should render to Christ our God; and they know how to render the proper reverence to holy icons, and how to offer through them [i.e., the icons] honor to the archetype. For basing ourselves on the revelations from above of the Holy Scriptures and on the apostolic and patristic traditions, we render the reverence of veneration in a fitting and relative manner in honor of the person depicted. Thus when we consecrate the icon of Christ with reverence and veneration, we do not circumscribe the reverence and honor in it [i.e., the icon], but we direct and offer these <marks of honor> to the One Who became incarnate for our sake through the ineffable wealth of His love for mankind. Thus we venerate the thrice-blessed and life-giving wood of the cross, on which the body of the Lord was stretched, and the blood that cleanses all filth, that purifies all the world, poured forth from His side that flows with life; and watered by its streams, it [the cross] changed its nature and produced eternal life for us instead of death. Thus we venerate the symbol of the cross, by which phalanxes of demons are put to flight and incurable diseases are healed, as if the same grace and power <that is found> in the prototype were operative in the symbolic form. Thus when we render the reverence of veneration to the other holy symbols and holy places of our pure and holy worship, we are not divided into various and different rites, but through their visible different and divisible worship and veneration we are led indivisibly to that indivisible, uniform and unifying divinity. Thus we honor and venerate the holy icons of our all-pure Lady the Mother of God and of all the saints in proportion to the pre-eminence and venerability of their prototypes, and, to sum up, we venerate in a relative manner the relics and churches and tombs of the saints, and other things of this sort, in our unblemished and holy rites. For we acknowledge and praise the original and primordial cause through the gift and blessing worked by them. And we do not depict in an icon that which cannot be seen. For the divine is totally without form and shape and is invisible and cannot be perceived by the eyes, but can only be conceived by the mind, if indeed someone can do this.

14. “But you, O emperor, why do you not revere these things, but dishonor them? Who counseled you <to do> this wicked deed? What serpent, begrudging your salvation, deprived you of the delights of paradise and the kingdom of heaven? Truly, if someone were to call that saint-hating assemblage of accusers of Christians offspring of the Christ-hating Jews, he would not err from the truth. For from where else did they get such cruelty? Whence came such insolence? Whence their persistent battle and implacable war against Christ and His saints, and the demonic alliance of that unholy phalanx, if it is not a product of the Christ-battling assembly of Jews, whose words, which can defile the ears, somehow led astray your correct and sober belief? For before <you donned> the imperial robe you were devoted to the orthodox faith; but now you have been captivated by their doctrines and strive in your excessive wickedness to surpass even your teachers, whose heart completely loathes the name of Christ our God which is above all, as Isaiah says: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’ And since you are unable to reject Christ even with your lips while you are in the midst of assembled Christians, you have revealed yourself to be far from their ancestral zeal, that of the Jews, I mean, and you have shown yourself no more tolerant than idolaters toward the divine mysteries of Christians, trampling the Christians themselves with feet swift to shed blood, and throwing into the fire the form of the One Who created you, and Who crushed under His feet the head of the intelligible serpent, of whom you are the most bitter offspring, and Who melted down with divine fire our corrupted nature.

15. “O most silly and foolish man, do you not revere the ancient and revered <tradition> of venerable icon-painting, but say that it is a new invention and contrary to the holy laws of the Church? Do you not revere the delight and dignity of the Church, supported by place and time and doctrine? Do you not revere the holy synods assembled with Christ and for the sake of Christ, which have unanimously accepted these <icons> and transmitted them to later generations? How can you want to be called a Christian when you are insolent toward Christ? What connection do you have with a commandment <issued> to Jews? Will it not be considered a matter for great censure, if you display their attitude toward Christ and even worse than them because of your dishonor of His veneration in icons? Who would not call you an idolworshiper, since you demonstrate their inhumane cruelty against Christians? You have once more stirred up implacable war against the Church. You torture the nurslings of the Church so that they will carry out your foul and nonsensical doctrines. The curse of the divine David is most appropriate for you and your wicked henchmen: ‘Drown, O Lord, and divide their tongues” which reproached and treated insolently Christ our God through the destruction and dishonor of His revered icon, and the icon of the supremely pure Mother of God, She Who incomprehensibly gave birth to the co-eternal and unoriginate Word of God the Father, She Who is truly our protector, and the icons of the holy angels and all who pleased Him of old.”

16. Although <Antony> wanted to continue his discourse even longer, when the tyrant realized that this contest of words was achieving none of the results that he desired, and seeing that the holy <Antony> was striving to trap him rather than <Leo> overpowering <the saint>, he quickly shifted his defense with words into actions. And after inflicting unbearable torture on that holy flesh, he ended by sentencing the thrice-blessed <Antony> to perpetual exile. And <Antony> left the arena with distinction, bearing on his face the clear marks of victory. For they beat him so mercilessly on his head that ever after his eyes were rheumy, because the blessed man’s head was so terribly battered by countless blows. Meanwhile <Leo> had an angry and pale face and his eyes were livid, frenzied with the blood of the righteous man and blinded with dark madness. Thus Antony was sent into exile, saying nothing to himself and everyone <present> except that melodious psalm of David: “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.” And when he arrived at his place of exile, what need is there to recount how many tortures were endured by the noble-spirited <Antony>, whose purpose was firmer than adamant? For I could not find words suitable to the reality, since every tongue is vanquished by the truth of events.

17. When that Leo, the barbarian named after a wild beast, suffered his unlucky fate (for as the result of a conspiracy he died wretchedly as he deserved for his tyrannical rule), his successor to the imperial throne, Michael, recalled the holy <Antony> from exile, and bade him live quietly at home; for he respected his steadfast and venerable <character>. But <Antony> supported the faithful [i.e., the iconodules] even more than before, saying: “Make a courageous stand in the face of your struggles and <God>, Who together with temptation also makes a way to escape, will soon free us from the wickedness of the Devil, the author of evil, and will remove his stumbling blocks and obstacles. And those who hated Christ and us will soon fall into the ditch which they themselves dug.”

But why go on at length? When the terrible winter of heresy abated and the spring of the unsullied orthodox faith once more appeared, this thriceblessed Antony by vote of the synod received the archiepiscopal throne of our most celebrated city of Thessalonike, attaining this celebrated see as a fitting reward for his terrible suffering and for his holy and revered white hair, like that of Abraham. But after living <only> a short while longer, he soon passed over to the Lord, on November 2 of the seventh indiction. And it is said that he did not <have time before his death to> celebrate in Thessalonike either the bloodless sacrifice [i.e., the eucharist] or any ordination or any other <rite> which is customarily performed by archbishops except to ordain a single cleric. And the leaders of our church, inspired by their incomparable faith in the man who performed the ordination, gave to the cleric the name of Antony, desiring, I think, that he should have this <name> for the eternal memory <of Antony>.

18. And so, after performing honorable funeral rites, they laid the body of this all-holy combatant <for the faith> on the left side of the famous church of the holy and glorious great martyr Demetrios, in the chapel there of the prophet and forerunner John the Baptist, who is above all men born of women. And up to this day Christ preserves his holy remains sound and uncorrupted to His glory. And through his <body> the Lord, the provider of blessings, grants many cures to those who approach it with faith. And I myself, unworthy as I am, have been deemed worthy to witness this <relic>. For forty-six years after his departure unto the Lord, when another of our prelates departed this life, and we wanted to lay his body in Antony’s tomb, we found the all-holy body of Antony almost entirely whole and unaltered, together with his archiepiscopal vestments, so that one could discern the location of the honorable crosses of his omophorion and all other features of his archiepiscopal vestments.

19. But enough about this. Since my narrative has swerved aside a bit, like a colt at the turning-post <in the race course>, carrying away the narrator with praises of Antony, I must now come back and tell my simple account in orderly sequence, describing the ascetic contests which the blessed <Theodora> endured in the wrestling pit of the cenobitic convent.

Source: Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, by Talbot, Alice-Mary. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996 (pp. 171-180).

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 3

2026-11-03T04:19:19.272-05:00

The Month of November

Day 3

65. What Reward Awaits Those Who Help or Visit Those in Prison?

(From the Life of Akepsimas, Bishop, and Those with Him)

It is known that one of the works of bodily mercy consists in helping someone who is in prison or visiting him. What do you think, brethren? Will those who are diligent in this work of mercy receive a reward from God, or not? Know that they will, and that their reward will be great. For those who help or visit people in prison can expect the favor of God, crowns in Heaven, and, finally, such blessings and such joys there as we cannot even imagine now.

How do we know that those who help people in prison obtain the favor of God? From the Life of Saints Joseph the Presbyter and Aethalas the Deacon. What is written there? The following is recorded: In the city where the aforementioned Saints lived, there was a certain holy woman named Snandulia, who pleased God by visiting those who suffered in prison. When she learned that Joseph and Aethalas had been thrown into prison after their torments, she went there and, finding the Saints lacerated and barely breathing, gave the prison guards a great deal of gold and persuaded them to release the Saints for a short time so that they could go to her house. When the martyrs were brought to her, Snandulia laid them on beds, washed their wounds, wiped the blood from them with clean linen, anointed their bodies with precious myrrh, kissed their shattered hands and feet, and wept bitterly over them. Then Joseph said to her: “O holy woman! Know that the kindness you have shown us is pleasing to God, and for it you will receive His favor.” From this it is clear that those who help people in prison truly receive the favor of God.

How do we know that those who visit people in prison receive crowns? From the Life of the Holy Great Martyr Katherine, in which we read that while the Saint was in prison, she was visited by the wife of the tyrant king, Porphyrios, his military commander, and two hundred soldiers with them. The queen fell at Katherine’s feet and said with tears: “Today I consider myself fortunate and blessed because I have been deemed worthy to see you, and my heart and soul rejoice as I look upon you. You are blessed because you have entrusted yourself entirely to Christ, from whom you receive so many gifts.” The Great Martyr answered her: “And you are blessed, O queen, for I see the crown prepared for you, which has been lifted up on high by angelic hands, and you will receive it in three days.” From this it is clear that those who visit people in prison also receive crowns.

Finally, how do we know that those who visit prisoners receive such blessings and such joys as we cannot even imagine? This too is evident from the Life of the same Great Martyr. Saint Katherine said to Porphyrios, the military commander who had visited her: “The tongue cannot express the blessings that the all-good and loving God has prepared for those who love Him and keep His commandments.” And after this, it is said, “Porphyry was filled with immeasurable joy.” Therefore, it is also true that those who visit people held in prison receive in Heaven blessings that cannot be expressed.

And what follows from this? That, so that we too may not be deprived of these inexpressible blessings, we must help those who are in prison and, if possible, visit them as well. Indeed, can we neglect this work of mercy when the Lord applies it to Himself and says to those who practice it: “I was in prison, and you came to Me” (Matthew 25:36)? What could be more desirable than hearing this voice at the Judgment? What could be sweeter, both for those who visit prisoners in particular and for the merciful in general, than these words at that same Judgment: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34)? O Lord, grant that we too may all be deemed worthy to hear this joyful and desired voice of Yours! Amen.

Questions on Discourse 65:

1. According to Saint Joseph the Presbyter, what will Snandulia receive for helping those who are in prison?

2. According to the queen’s words to the Holy Great Martyr Katherine, what does the queen consider herself to be because she has been deemed worthy to see the Great Martyr?

3. According to the queen, why is Katherine blessed?

4. According to Katherine, what will the queen receive in three days?

5. What should we do for those who are in prison so that we may not be deprived of the inexpressible blessings?

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 2

2026-11-02T15:26:32.093-05:00

The Month of November

Day 2

64. The Lord Is Always an Unfailing Helper to His Faithful Servants in Their Sufferings

(From the Life of the Holy Martyrs Akindynos, Pegasios, Anempodistos, and Those with Them)

People of little faith, who waver in their faith, are always especially fainthearted in times of distress and suffering, and cry out: “Where is God? Why doesn't He deliver me from my troubles? Apparently, He does not see, or does not want to see, human sorrows and sufferings and relieve them!” Are people of little faith right to speak this way? Is it true that God does not see, or does not want to see, human sufferings and relieve them? What answer should we give to those who waver in their faith? We will answer as God has put it into our minds, but not with arguments or conjectures. We will answer with actual and indisputable examples.

Once, the Persian king Shapur II learned that the men who served at his court, Akindynos, Pegasios, and Anempodistos, professed the Christian faith. He ordered them to be tied to trees and a fire to be kindled beneath them, “so that,” as it is said, “they might perish miserably through their bonds and the fire.” The Saints were tied up, and a fire was kindled beneath them. In the midst of their torments, they began to pray:

“O our Lamp and Creator, who was betrayed for us, spat upon, reviled, and hanged on a tree as an evildoer; O Master, who holds all things in Your hand! Come now, look upon our sufferings, and reveal Your salvation to us! Look upon our afflictions, have mercy on us, and show everyone that You alone are our God in Heaven!”

And what happened after this prayer? Immediately, the Lord appeared to the martyrs, His face shining like the sun. At His appearance, the bonds fell from the Saints, the fire went out, and the martyrs became completely well. They were filled with indescribable joy at the Lord's appearance, and then the Lord became invisible.

Here is another example. When Saint Katherine the Great Martyr had been thrown into prison by the king and had remained there for a long time, the account of her life tells us that Christ, the Merciful and Lover of Mankind, did not leave His holy bride forgotten. Rather, like a father who loves his children, He cared for her, miraculously sending her food every day. Finally, He Himself appeared to her in divine glory, accompanied by all the heavenly powers, and said:

“Do not be afraid, My beloved bride, for I am with you, and no torment will come near you. Through your endurance, you will turn many people to Me, and you yourself will receive many crowns.”

With these words, the Lord comforted Katherine, strengthened her courage, and encouraged her to proceed boldly toward martyrdom.

From these examples, brothers and sisters, it should be easy to see that people of little faith are wrong when they cry out that God does not see, or does not want to see, human sufferings and relieve them. As we have just seen, the Lord is always an unfailing helper to His faithful servants in their sorrows and sufferings. He either relieves and removes their sufferings, or gives them unwavering patience and courage, so that even death itself holds no fear for these servants.

As for the fact that the Lord does not relieve the sorrows and sufferings of people who themselves have little faith, this does not in any way prove that their cries and arguments are true. The Lord does not relieve the sufferings and sorrows of such people precisely because they have almost no faith in Him and no love for Him. Moreover, they are proud, self-confident, and selfish. God is not a helper to such people in times of sorrow, for Isaiah says, “There is no peace for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21).

In view of all this, if such people wish to receive God's help in their sufferings, let them first abandon their complaints, put aside their doubts, and turn to God with their whole being. Let them strengthen their faith in Him, place all their hope in Him, and cling to Him with all their heart. Then, without a doubt, the Lord will help them in their sufferings as well. He Himself says, “For this is the one I will look upon: the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). And concerning such a person He adds: “I am with him in trouble; I will deliver him and glorify him... and show him My salvation” (Psalm 90 LXX). Amen.

Questions for Discussion 64:

1. By what names did the holy martyrs Akindynos, Pegasios, and Anempodistos address God in their prayer while they were being tortured?

2. What did the holy martyrs ask God to reveal to them?

3. What did the holy martyrs ask God to show everyone?

4. According to the words of Christ, the Lover of Mankind, to Saint Catherine the Great Martyr, by what means would she turn many people to Him?

5. Upon whom, according to the Lord's words, will He look?

Remembering Father John Romanides, on the 25th Anniversary Since His Repose

2026-11-01T12:35:16.517-05:00

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

Twenty-five years ago, on November 1, 2001, the feast of the Holy Unmercenaries, the leading dogmatic theologian, Father John Romanides, fell asleep in the Lord in front of the Church of Saint Paraskevi on Aiolou Street, near the Church of Panagia Chrysospiliotissa, at the very moment when he was preparing to light a candle. He was the Cappadocian and Prophet of Romiosini, understood as a way of theology and life.

His life was a continual struggle for the restoration and experience of Orthodox tradition as Orthodox theology and hesychasm. He encountered many forms of resistance and opposition because, from the eighteenth century onward, secularization entered the Orthodox Church, both in theology and in life.

He became acquainted with Orthodox theology and Orthodox hesychasm through his family environment, principally through his mother, who lived as an ascetic in central Manhattan, New York, very near the site of the present United Nations building. She later fell asleep in the Lord as a nun at the Sacred Monastery of Souroti, which Saint Paisios loved. He subsequently became acquainted with Orthodox theology through his first theological teacher, Father George Florovsky. Then he became acquainted with Athonite hesychasm through a disciple of Saint Joseph the Hesychast, through Father Philotheos Zervakos, and through many Athonite Fathers.

He himself was distinguished by natural intelligence and clearly discerned the Orthodox theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers from scholastic and Protestant theology. For this reason, he recorded their differences with precision. While preparing his doctoral dissertation in Athens in 1955, he was reading Saint Symeon the New Theologian and Saint Gregory Palamas.

I have personal testimony from a distinguished clergyman who is still alive, Archimandrite Cyril, formerly Abbot of the Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner in Essex, England. He knew Father George Florovsky and Father John Romanides in America. According to his testimony, they lived in the same apartment building in Boston, Father George Florovsky loved Father John Romanides very much, and he considered him his successor in theology. Unfortunately, I observe that almost all theologians deliberately ignore this reality and do not mention him as a student, friend, and successor of Father George Florovsky. Worse still, they regard others as students of Florovsky who were not, while overlooking Father John Romanides.

I did not have Father John Romanides as a professor at the Theological School of Thessaloniki, since he was elected Professor of Dogmatic Theology and appointed to the position, for various reasons, a year and a half after I graduated. However, because I had read almost all the great Fathers of the Church of the fourth century, especially Saint Gregory Palamas and Saint Symeon the New Theologian, and had become acquainted with many Athonite Fathers, when I subsequently read the writings of Father John Romanides, I understood that he had assimilated all the Orthodox interpretive keys to their theology, and for this reason I came to love him. I first met him in Athens, after his retirement, when my spiritual father, Saint Kallinikos, had fallen asleep in the Lord and I had been transferred there as a preacher. At that time, I understood his great worth. We were in contact almost daily, and I attended his talks in Athens, being impressed by his fidelity to the Orthodox theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers of the Church.

To date, I have published several books, such as Empirical Dogmatics, based on his oral teachings (Volumes I and II, approximately 830 pages); a large volume titled Father John Romanides: A Leading Dogmatic Theologian of the Orthodox Church (557 pages), in which I published, among other things, material concerning his relationship with Father George Florovsky and included twenty-five letters he wrote to him; another extensive book titled Patristic and Scholastic Theology and Their Environments, Based on the Oral Teachings of Father John Romanides (658 pages); as well as his Theological Studies (496 pages), and material relating to the Inter-Orthodox Theological Dialogue: On the Holy Spirit, the Mystery of the Cross, and the Resurrection of Christ (320 pages). Altogether, these works amount to approximately 3,000 pages.

In a few days, an extensive work of mine will be published, titled A Study of the Work and Teaching of Father John Romanides. It contains all the articles I have written about his work, approximately 700 pages. Other works will follow. This means that I know his teaching and work in depth.

Father John had a theological influence on many clergymen, monks, and theologians, who remember him as an inspired teacher and theologian. I also observe that, in the academic world, although many do not say so, people have been strongly influenced by his teaching, which was pioneering and groundbreaking in his time. The statement of the professor in America, Father George Dragas, is characteristic: “Who has not been influenced by him?”

There are also some who systematically write against his theology, which is, nevertheless, the theology of the Orthodox Church. They do so either out of ignorance of the theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers; because of the influence they have received from other traditions originating in the Western world; because they are unfamiliar with the overall teaching of Father John Romanides; or for other reasons, including internal, psychological, and hostile motives. I observe that these people usually have problems with the Philokalic-Hesychastic tradition of the Church. I also observe that they do not want to understand him, even though thousands of pages have been written analyzing his teaching.

I will subsequently publish a critique of what is, at the very least, an uncritical presentation of his work, titled "Conscious Misinterpretations of the Overall Teaching of Father John Romanides."

Let us hope that what is written against him is the result of ignorance and superficiality.

May the memory of the leading dogmatic theologian of our Orthodox Church, Father John Romanides, be eternal.

I would like to publicly thank the Very Reverend Archimandrite Father Ephraim, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi on Mount Athos, who recently announced at the Monastic Assembly held at the Sacred Monastery of Faneromeni in Lefkada that his monastery, together with the “Maximos the Greek” Foundation, will convene a theological conference to study the remarkable work of Father John Romanides.

Click here for the article: “Conscious Misinterpretations of the Overall Teaching of Father John Romanides” (the article translated into English is forthcoming)

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Luke (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

2026-11-01T11:56:40.973-05:00

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Luke,
or Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

On Hell*

“And in Hades, lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16:23).

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

Beloved faithful,

Today’s Holy Gospel urges us to speak about Hell. Thus, we shall explain what Hell is, what testimonies the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers offer concerning it, and how unbearable its torments are.

First, we must know that Hell is a place of torment appointed for the demons and those who follow them (Matthew 25:41). We must also know that in Hell both the body and the soul suffer (Matthew 5:29; 18:9; Mark 9:43). “Hell is the land of death, the kingdom of the devils, whose gate is despair; its courtyard is bondage; its windows, darkness; its table, foulness and a heavy stench; its food, hunger; its drink, thirst; its clock, weeping; its bed, flame” (The Door of Repentance, Brașov, 1812, p. 183).

From the earliest times, the holy patriarchs and prophets spoke about Hell in the Holy and divine Scriptures. Thus, we hear the Prophet Isaiah speaking about Hell: “Which of us can endure the consuming fire? Which of us can dwell amid everlasting flames?” (Isaiah 33:14). The great Prophet and King David spoke about Hell, saying: “Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into Hell” (Psalm 54:16; 30:17). Concerning the darkness of Hell, the Prophet Isaiah says: “Darkness and groping were above the caverns forever.” The divine Job, who was exceedingly patient, prophesied concerning Hell, saying: “I shall go and return to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness and disorder, where the light is as darkness” (Job 10:21–22).

The wise Solomon, showing that the palpable darkness which came upon the Egyptians in the time of Moses (Exodus 10:22) came from Hell, said: “A night truly powerless, which came upon all Egypt from the depths of powerless Hell.” And the Prophet Isaiah speaks about the darkness of Hell: “They shall grope along the wall like the blind, and they shall grope as those who have no eyes; they shall fall at noonday as though it were midnight” (Isaiah 59:10). Concerning the great stench in Hell, the Prophet Isaiah said: “A foul smell shall come from their dead” (Isaiah 34:3). “And instead of fragrances, there shall be putrefaction” (Isaiah 3:24).

The great hunger in Hell was previously revealed by the Prophet David, who said: “And they shall hunger like a dog” (Psalm 58:17). “And the people shall be as one burned completely by fire, and a man shall have no mercy on his brother; neither shall a man be satisfied, though he eat the flesh of his own arm” (Isaiah 9:11). Concerning the undying worm of Hell, it is said: “The punishment of the ungodly is fire and the worm” (Sirach 7:18). Concerning the fire and heavy stench of Hell, the Holy Scriptures say: “The wrath of the Lord is like a valley of burning brimstone.” Concerning the eternity of the torments of Hell, the Prophet Jeremiah says: “You shall be in destruction forever” (Jeremiah 15:6). Concerning the immeasurable depth of Hell, the Prophet David says: “Let not the deep swallow me up, neither let the deep close its mouth upon me” (Psalm 68:18).

Beloved faithful,

I have presented several testimonies concerning Hell and its torments from the divine Scriptures, specifically from the holy prophets. But you should know that none of the patriarchs and prophets spoke so clearly and openly about Hell and its torments as the Lord and Savior Himself, Jesus Christ, in His Holy Gospel. We shall now present the revelations concerning Hell and the variety of its torments through testimonies from the New Testament.

Our Savior shows us that Hell is a place of torment in which both the body and the soul suffer, saying: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is better for you” “to enter into life maimed or lame than, having both hands or both feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire” (Matthew 18:8). There is everlasting punishment in Hell. Our Savior shows this when He says: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:46). Our Savior also shows us that there is everlasting fire in Hell, saying: “Then” (that is, on the Day of the Last Judgment) “He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).

In Hell there is unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43). In Hell there is an undying worm, for this is what the Lord says: “Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44). There is Gehenna in Hell: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matthew 10:28). Our Savior shows us that there is darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth in Hell, for He says: “The sons of the kingdom will be cast into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).

In Hell there is separation from God, concerning which the Lord says: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). In Hell there are the second death and the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). In Hell there are weeping and lamentation, according to the testimony of the Lord, who says: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall weep and lament” (Luke 6:25). In Hell there is an immeasurable abyss. Even the demons fear this bottomless abyss. For this reason, they begged the Savior not to command them “to go into the abyss” (Luke 8:31). Hell is the place of torment for sinners who have not listened to the Gospel of Christ and have lived in all kinds of sins and lawlessness (Matthew 25:41).

My brothers, having heard what the Lord said about Hell in the Holy Gospel, let us also hear what His holy disciples and apostles said about it. Here is what the divine Evangelist John says concerning sinners who go to Hell: “But the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters, and all the unbelieving, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 20:10; 21:8).

The same thing concerning the fate of the wicked and sinful is also shown by the Holy Apostle Paul, who says: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). In another place, this great Apostle also reveals the condemnation of sinners and their exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven, saying: “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and things like these... those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19–21).

The Holy Apostle Peter, showing the condemnation of the people of Sodom, says: “And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, condemning them to destruction, He reduced to ashes, making them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter” (2 Peter 2:6). The same Apostle, showing that God did not spare even the angels who fell through disobedience, but punished them eternally in Hell, says: “For God did not spare the angels who sinned, but, binding them with the chains of darkness in Hell, delivered them to be kept for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4).

The Holy Evangelist John also speaks in the Book of Revelation about the eternal punishment of the Antichrist and the false prophet, who will be cast alive into Hell, saying: “And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed signs before it, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. Both were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 19:20). Then he says: “And the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

Let us see what the Holy Fathers say about Hell. Saint Makarios the Great says that the tears of those who suffer in Hell will be fiery, and the bodies upon which they fall will be completely burned (The Door of Repentance, p. 187). Saint Basil the Great explains that in Hell there are certain poisonous worms that devour human bodies. They eat without being satisfied and never fill their bellies; moreover, as they eat, they cause the person unbearable pain (Commentaries on Psalm 33).

The divine Father John Chrysostom, showing that those in Hell suffer even more when they see the great blessedness of the righteous, says: “When God drove Adam out of Paradise, He placed him to dwell nearby, so that the frequent sight of Paradise might make him feel his fall from those blessings more keenly and powerfully. In the same way, He settled the merciless rich man farther away from Lazarus, so that he might see how many blessings he had deprived himself of. ‘I sent you,’ He says, ‘the poor Lazarus to your door, so that he might become a teacher of virtue for you and an occasion for you to show compassion. You overlooked the benefit; you did not wish to make use of him as you ought, for the purpose of salvation. Use him now, then, for your greater rebuke, punishment, and torment’” (The Well of Saint John Chrysostom, Buzău, 1833, p. 462).

Saint Ephraim the Syrian, describing the lamentation of those in Hell, says: “Then, weeping bitterly, shedding tears and lamenting, they will say: ‘Oh, how our time passed in laziness and idleness! Oh, how we were deceived! Oh, how, when we heard the divine Scriptures, we laughed and mocked! There, at that time, God spoke to us through the Holy Scriptures, but we paid no attention. Now, here in torments, we cry out to Him, and rightly He turns His face away from us. Of what benefit were the delightful pleasures and enjoyments of the world? Where is now the father who begot us? Where is the mother who carried us in her womb and gave birth to us with pain and suffering? Where are our beloved children now? Where is our wealth? Where are our lands, possessions, and accumulated riches? Where are our gatherings, our companions, and our feasts? Where are the many kinds of vain journeys? Where are the kings and the powerful? Oh, how none of these is now present, nor can any of them help or deliver us! We have been completely abandoned by God and by the saints!’ These will be the words heard, accompanied by sorrowful lamentations and weeping, from those who suffer in Hell” (The Door of Repentance, Discourse on Hell, p. 188).

The holy and divine Fathers clearly show us what takes place at the moment when the soul is separated from the body. Good and evil angels appear before the soul. The sight of the latter causes the soul great disturbance and fear, but it nevertheless finds some consolation at the sight of the holy good angels. A person's good deeds and clear conscience are, at that moment, a great help and a great joy to the soul. Obedience, humility, good deeds, and patience in afflictions then provide great support to the soul, which rises toward the Lord in great joy, accompanied by the good angels. By contrast, the soul filled with passions and sins is led by the demons to Hell, where it will suffer eternally.

One day, two angels appeared to Saint Makarios of Alexandria and told him: “The soul of a sinful person, just as that of a righteous person, is seized with great terror at the sight of the dreadful and evil angels. It hears the weeping and sighs of those surrounding it, but it can neither speak nor utter a sound. It is troubled and terrified as it considers the long journey it must make and the new manner of life it will have to lead after its separation from the body.” Saint Cyril of Alexandria explains the terror and fear experienced by the soul until the final judgment is pronounced upon it, and says: “The divine powers stand before the unclean spirits and present the good thoughts, words, and deeds belonging to the soul, while the soul, filled with terror, stands in the midst of angels and demons and awaits either its vindication and deliverance or its condemnation and destruction in Hell” (The Life of Our Departed, Bucharest, 1899, pp. 19–20).

According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the torments of Hell begin forty days after a person's death, when the sinful soul is cast into condemnation. This, however, is a provisional Hell, because the condition of those cast into Hell forty days after death can change over time through the prayers of the Church and the almsgiving of their descendants, provided, of course, that the deceased held the true faith and, especially, that before death he confessed all his sins to his spiritual father. Final Hell, or the state of eternal condemnation, follows the General Judgment, which will take place at the end of the world, when the righteous will enter the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity, while sinners will enter the unquenchable fire, likewise for eternity (Matthew 25:45–46).

Beloved faithful,

Hell was created by God for the demons, but not for human beings, who were created in His image and likeness. However, through the fall of the first human beings from Paradise, the human race became subject to the condemnation of Hell until the coming of the Son of God to earth. Only through the death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was Hell opened, and the righteous of the Old Testament were delivered and received into Paradise.

From the Resurrection and Ascension of the Savior to the right hand of the Father until the end of the ages, all Orthodox Christians who keep His commandments are saved; that is, they are received into the rest of Paradise. Only Christians who are unfaithful—that is, those who have rejected God, those who have committed suicide, sectarians who have separated themselves from the Apostolic Church, and those who die unrepentant in grave sins, such as murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who live in hatred and other similar sins—are condemned after death to the torments of Hell. Some of them, especially those who repent of their sins before death, are delivered from Hell through the prayers of the Church and acts of charity. This is precisely why we offer prayers and almsgiving for our departed, including memorial services with prayers of absolution, Liturgies, and commemorations on the third, ninth, and fortieth days after their departure from this life, so that God may forgive them and grant them rest in Paradise.

If we wish to be saved, that is, to escape Hell and be received into Paradise and the joy of the heavenly Kingdom, we must do the following: First, we must faithfully preserve the Orthodox faith, which we have held unchanged for two thousand years. Then we must obey the Church founded by Christ and its shepherds—the priests and bishops. We must observe with great reverence the commandments of the Holy Gospel, especially prayer, almsgiving, humility, Christian love, the bearing and raising of children, regular participation in church services, confession, and Holy Communion.

Let us reflect deeply on the Gospel that was read today. Do you see that the poor and exceedingly patient Lazarus entered Paradise after death, while the miserly and unrepentant rich man was cast into Hell with the demons? Do you see the blessedness in which the righteous dwell and the fire and terrible torments in which sinners find themselves in Hell? Do you also see that those in Hell can see both the blessed in Paradise and those who live in sin on earth? The rich man asks in vain for water to moisten his mouth, for no one will give him any. He begs Abraham in vain to send Lazarus to earth to call his brothers to repentance, for he receives this answer: “They have Moses and the prophets!” (Luke 16:29).

The same answer will be given to us if we do not repent: “We have Christ and the priests. Let us listen to them!”

Therefore, if we wish to escape Hell, let us also repent, my brothers, while we still have time, and strive to practice every good work, especially prayer, almsgiving, forgiveness, a pure life, and confession. Only in this way will we be forgiven, shown mercy, and received into the bosom of Abraham—that is, into the eternal joy of Paradise—together with the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, and all the righteous; together with poor Lazarus; together with Christ. There, and there alone, there is no more pain or sorrow, but life without end. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Translator's Note:

* In Slavic languages, as well as in Romanian, often there is no distinction between Hades and Hell, using a particular word to interchangeably mean both at the same time. We can see this throughout the homily of Saint Cleopa, where Hell is used to describe what is often at one point a reference to Hades and other times a reference to Hell.

Homily One on the Fifth Sunday of Luke (St. Justin Popovich)

2026-11-01T11:29:31.022-05:00

Homily One on the Fifth Sunday of Luke
22nd Sunday after Pentecost

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered on November 1, 1965 at the Ćelije Monastery)

Today we have received an all-seeing eye: you and I, all of us. An all-seeing eye. And we have seen and learned a great mystery. There are only three worlds: Earth, Paradise, and Hades. Earth lies between Paradise and Hades, and from it lead only two paths: one to Paradise and the other to Hades. This is the truth revealed by today's Holy Gospel. The Lord Christ Himself opened His heavenly mouth. God spoke and opened all the worlds, lifted the veil from them, and the mystery of God now stands revealed before us: Earth, Paradise, and Hades. Earth populates both Paradise and Hades. This is the terrifying thing about earthly life, brothers. That is why it is frightening to live on earth, for the earth supplies inhabitants to Paradise and, alas, to Hades as well. We human beings live on this earth as in a nursery, an immortal nursery. It produces immortal beings, human beings.

Today, too, the Good Lord reveals to us the mystery of human existence. Man is immortal in both his good and his evil. Know this, brother and sister: every good thing you do and every evil thing you do is immortal. Your good leads to Paradise, and your evil leads to Hades. Through the revelation of today's Holy Gospel, the mystery of our earthly life has also been made known to us. Our life begins on earth and continues forever in the other world, either in Paradise or in Hades. O man! You are always immortal, always eternal. You are never mortal. Do not deceive yourself! Even when the body falls asleep in the sleep of death, the soul remains eternally awake.

You heard in today's Gospel how the rich man, that thoughtless rich man, suddenly found himself in Hades in the other world (Luke 16:22). "He died," the Savior says, "and was buried." His body was buried. But behold, in the other world he sits in Hades, suffering terrible torments, having given his soul over to eternal death. And there, far, far above him, he sees the holy and righteous Abraham, with Lazarus in his bosom. Lazarus, covered with sores, who had once lain at his gate. And look at him now! Lazarus is in the splendor of the Heavenly Kingdom. What is this? What has happened to the rich man?

Through this, the Savior tells us how the man had lived on earth, like a lord. "He was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day" (Luke 16:19). And when he departed from this world, Hades seized him. Behold! This rich man had committed no particular crime. The Savior does not say that he was, for example, a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, or a thief. None of these things! What did he do on earth? He dressed in fine clothes and took pleasure in his clothing. Take care! Take care that you and I do not commit the same sin. When a person reduces his life to clothing and food, he is following the same path as the rich man. Whether you are rich or poor, if your life here on earth consists of food and clothing, woe to you! You are not merely walking toward your eternal Hades; you are running toward it. The rich man had simply made thoughtless use of this life. He did not regard Heaven as anything serious, nor did he remember God or his own soul. He simply lived carelessly, enjoying himself, dressing well, eating and drinking. And how many people today live only for food and clothing?

Look at European culture and civilization, after which everyone runs, destroying themselves in the pursuit of it. What does it actually preach? What does it impose upon man? Concern for food and clothing. The wardrobe and the menu are what matter most! Statesmen, politicians, the wise men and scientists of this world all wear themselves out trying to enlarge the wardrobe and the menu on every continent: in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia. What are they doing? They are doing the very same thing as that foolish, thoughtless rich man, who understood this life to be nothing more than food and clothing. And how many people today live by this rule, by this principle! Everything, in schools, universities, lectures, and concerts, is subordinated to food and clothing. What is this? What is happening in Europe? People amuse themselves and dress in silk and velvet. But look! In reality, they are galloping toward Hades. Through their careless way of living in this world, they are sending their souls into the arms of the devil. It is frightening to be a human being! It is frightening to live on earth and to spend this life, which is God's gift, this life which is a great miracle of God, carelessly, reducing it to food and clothing and reducing man to an ordinary animal. European culture and civilization, for the most part, do precisely this: they prepare the unfortunate inhabitants of the earth to become inhabitants of eternal evil, of Hades!

The Good Lord came into this world and became man. He took upon Himself a human body, a foul-smelling human body, a worm-ridden human body, in order to sanctify it and to open our eyes to the truth that the body was created for immortality and eternal life, and not the soul alone. The Lord gave man an immortal soul in a mortal body. He Himself took a body upon Himself and rose from the dead, conquering bodily death, conquering the death of the body, in order to secure eternal life and Paradise for me, for you, and for every human being. He came here, into this world, and proclaimed that the most important thing for man is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33), including food, clothing, and everything you need.

Who sows the stars above you? Who sows the sun above the earth? Who? The Lord. Did you human beings create the heavens? Who spreads the air over the earth? You? Where are your factories for producing air? All this comes from the Lord. And after all this, He came into this world and took a human body in order to open our eyes and tell us why He created us: me, you, and every human being. He created us for eternal life, because your body, too, must rise from the dead and enter the Heavenly Kingdom.

Behold, the Lord descended into this world in order truly to give us Heaven. For God became man, and with Him the entire Heavenly Kingdom descended. Where the King of Heaven is, there also is His eternal Kingdom: eternal divine Truth, eternal divine Righteousness, eternal Life, Paradise. This is the Lord Christ! Where God is, there is Paradise. But today we hear in the Lord's Gospel that between Hades and Paradise there extends a terrible chasm, and that those in Hades cannot go to Paradise, nor can those in Paradise go to Hades. The Lord came into this world to remove that chasm between Paradise and Hades and to transform the whole world into Paradise. For what is Hades? Hades is the kingdom of sin. Hades is when sin reigns in my soul and in yours. That is Hades. And what is Paradise? It is when I drive sin out of myself, when I remove it through repentance and a life according to the gospel. The Lord came into this world for this very reason: to restore Paradise to you and me, and to show both you and me the shortest path to Paradise, so that we do not find ourselves there in Hades with the unfortunate and thoughtless rich men. What must we do in this world? We must regard this life as a serious gift from God. We must understand that man is a very serious being whom God has created. God created man for eternity, for immortality. He created man so that his life, which begins in this world, will never cease but continue in the heavenly worlds.

What happened to the earthly world when the Good Lord descended into it? People began to conquer their sins and to rise from the dead, from spiritual death. Look at the thief on the cross. What did he do? He gained Paradise in a single moment. "Remember me, O Lord, when You come into Your Kingdom!" (Luke 23:42), the thief cried out to the Lord Christ, who was crucified beside him. And the Good Savior answered: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). Behold how short the distance is between you and Paradise. What is required of you? The same thing that was required of the thief: repent, believe in the Lord Christ, believe that He is the true God and that He came into this world to secure Paradise, the Heavenly Kingdom, for the human being, and to secure immortality and eternal life for man.

Behold, you always have a passport to Paradise in your own hands. It is your repentance. Repentance! You have committed a sin, a great sin, not just one but thousands of sins. Darkness and gloom have come upon you. You have not remembered God for years, for decades. You have become completely submerged in gloom, in darkness, in shadow. But remember the Lord Christ. Remember the Gospel. Remember His remedies, repentance. Cry out only this: Lord, bring me to repentance! Lord, lead me to Yourself! Lord, "remember me when You come into Your Kingdom!" Behold, the Good Lord will surely answer your love because of your faith in Him.

This happened in Belgrade several years ago. There were various kinds of pupils in one eight-grade school. Some of them secretly attended religious instruction at a church. Their classmates found out about one of them and began to mock and tease him. A boy named Petar took particular aim at the boy who went to church and attended religious instruction. He constantly teased him, saying, "There is no God, there is no God." His classmate begged him, "Leave me alone, please. Do not bother me. Stop teasing me." But Petar continued. One day the boy seriously pleaded with him, "Please, stop it." Petar then said, "If I dream about God tonight, I will go to church tomorrow and enroll in religious instruction, too."

And what happened? That night Petar, a boy of thirteen or fourteen, had the following dream. He found himself on an immense, boundless plain. Rain was pouring down, and he ran to take shelter from it. Suddenly, the rain turned into stones, and stones began falling all around him. He cried out, shouted, ran, and called for help. Then, far away, he saw a cross, and the Lord Christ upon it. He heard a voice saying, "Come to Me, for I alone can protect you. If you do not believe in God, do not hinder others." The Lord said only this. Petar awoke. The next day he went to church and enrolled in religious instruction.

Behold how short the distance is between the human being and God's Paradise, and between the human being and the Lord Christ Himself, the true God. He descended into our earthly world to tell us what God is, what man is, what life is, and what this world is. The Lord revealed all these things. He gave them to us in His Gospel and left them in His Church. O man! What more do you want? You have the Heavenly Kingdom. You have Paradise in the Lord Christ. In His Church you have every means necessary. What is faith? Faith brings you to the Lord Christ, gives you the Lord Christ, and makes God dwell in your soul. There is your Paradise! When your soul departs from this world, behold, the Heavenly Kingdom is yours. And what is Holy Communion, which you receive in the Holy Church of Christ? You receive the Lord Christ, the living and true Lord Himself, and with Him you receive the Heavenly Kingdom. You receive Paradise. O man, O Christian! How small is the distance between you and Paradise, between you and the true God, between you and the Lord Christ, between you and the Heavenly Kingdom!

And what is Paradise like? What is Paradise? Today's Holy Gospel tells us. The Paradise in which poor Lazarus dwells is full of such delights and such joys that they cannot be described. You hear the rich man crying out to Abraham: "Send Lazarus to me, and let him dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am burning and suffering in this flame" (Luke 16:24). The tip of his finger, rich man? That finger was covered with sores on earth, rich man! Dogs licked that finger, while you watched, rich man! That finger, Lazarus's sore-covered finger, means so much to you now? Is that how great Lazarus's wealth has become? And where is your wealth? Where is your myrrh? Where are your amusements, where are your feasts? Yes! The Lord Christ, the true God, is so rich! He created man for all the splendors of the Heavenly Kingdom and the heavenly worlds. When the Apostle Paul was granted the vision of heaven and of all that the Lord has prepared for the human race, he said: "The Lord has prepared for those who love Him what no human eye has seen, what no human ear has heard, and what has not entered the human heart" (1 Corinthians 2:9). This is what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him, for those who believe in Him, and for those who live according to His Holy Gospel.

Brothers, how rich we are! How securely each of us is provided for eternal life! Banks and savings institutions do not provide this security. They provide for a month, two months, a year, ten years. They secure food and clothing. But the Lord Christ secures for you and me the Heavenly Kingdom and eternal life. We Christians are rich men! The Holy Apostle Paul also writes to Christians: "You became rich through His riches..." (2 Corinthians 8:9). The Lord Christ enriched you with every kind of wealth, with every eternal and imperishable treasure. Such wealth is offered to you and me, and to every human being, by the one true God and Lord Christ, who came into this world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

And Hades? Hades is the kingdom of sin, the kingdom of evil. What is sin? Sin is the power of the devil. Sin is the devil's darkness. Sin is the devil's poison. When we keep sins within ourselves and do not confess them, we poison ourselves. No, we are preparing ourselves for Hades and eternal torments! Brother, whenever you embrace a sin, whenever some sin or passion becomes dear to you, remember that this sin, that this passion, is preparing Hades for you. Remember this, and become disgusted with your sin. Become disgusted with your passion and say to yourself: Look, I must be mad if I remain attached to my sin, to a passion that leads me to Hades, to eternal Hades, to the eternal flame, to that place from which the unfortunate rich man begs for mercy, for the tip of a finger, for a drop of water to cool the flame in which his soul burns. I must be mad if I remain attached to my sin, to that passion which leads me to Hades.

Truly, until a person repents, he is like a madman, like someone out of his mind. The Savior Himself said this, not I: "Everyone who hears My words and does not do them," the Savior says, "is like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the winds beat against it," the temptations, troubles, and afflictions beat against it, "and the house fell, and its fall was great" (Matthew 7:24–27). Such is every person who has heard the Gospel of the Lord Christ but does not put it into practice and does not live according to the Gospel of Christ. In the eyes of the Lord Christ, such a person is foolish, he is mad.

Remember the prodigal son, who asked his father for his wealth, his share of the inheritance, and "went into a far country." He squandered everything he had, spent everything, his conscience and his soul, and became beside himself (Luke 15:11–32). This means that madness took hold of the prodigal son when he separated himself from God. He demanded, in effect: "I no longer want to be with You, O God and Father. I am going into a far country." And he went there, to the land of the devil, the land of sin, the land of passions.

"And when he came to himself," the Savior says, he said: "How much wealth there is in my father's house, and how many hired servants, all of them having more than enough, while I am dying of hunger" in this foreign land, in the land of the devil. "I will go to my father." He got up and went. When his father saw him from afar, he ran to him, embraced him, forgave him, and received his repentant son. "When he came to himself" means that the prodigal son had been beside himself while he was far from God. It is the same with every person who is far from God. In reality, he is always beside himself. He is out of his mind, he is mad. Only when he returns to God, when he believes in the Lord God and cleanses his soul of sin, does he come to himself.

For sin is the greatest crime and a stranger in your soul and mine, the most dangerous stranger. Sin, passion, love of money, lust, anger, pride: these are the criminals in our souls, our enemies, those who prepare ropes and nooses for us and drag us into Hades! Yes, as long as sin and passions reign within us, we remain beside ourselves. Only when you come to repentance do you come to yourself. Only when you awaken and consider what sin is, what it is preparing for you, what kind of eternity it is preparing for you, Hades, fire, an unquenchable flame, will you, if you have even a little sense, embrace faith, repentance, prayer, fasting, mercy, and all the holy virtues of the Gospel. You will follow the one true God. You will leave everything behind, so to speak, and follow the Lord Christ, for one follows Him through faith, love, hope, and fasting.

The good news of today's Gospel, the Gospel of the rich man and Lazarus, concerns both you and me, brother. Whose side am I on? Whose side are you on? Are we with Lazarus or with the rich man? Let us look at ourselves. Where is our soul? Is it with the rich man? Has it become attached to this world, thinking only of food and clothing? Or does our soul follow the Lord Christ and seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in this world? Let us examine ourselves. Whose side are we on?

But let us know this, brothers and sisters: in this world, you and I and every one of us are constantly traveling, either toward Paradise or toward Hades. There is no third path! Every good deed you perform is a path leading you to Paradise. But know this: every evil deed you commit without repenting before the Lord, every sin you commit without repenting before the Lord, is a path leading you to Hades. Choose! Paradise and Hades stand before you, before your free will. It depends on you whether you go to Paradise or to Hades. It depends on you alone, brother. Do not blame anyone else. Hurry and set out! Live by faith in the Lord Christ. Live through Gospel prayer, fasting, vigils, and mercy. Do the works of the Gospel, and you will be traveling continually toward your Paradise.

When the moment of death comes and the gates of the heavenly worlds open, your soul will then be led by your good deeds into the eternal Kingdom of goodness, into the Heavenly Kingdom, into the Kingdom of Christ. But if you and I, God forbid, fall asleep in our sins, fall asleep in our passions, if our souls fall asleep in the pleasures of this world, then we are digging a terrible, impassable chasm between ourselves and our souls, and the heavenly Paradise. And if, God forbid, we do not repent while we are still on earth, alas! The chasm will remain between your soul and Paradise, a chasm that your soul will never be able to cross in the other world.

My brothers, when the Lord created us as human beings, when He created you and me as human beings, He gave every person one great task: to acquire the Heavenly Kingdom and eternal life through the Lord Christ. He is here. He came into our earthly world. He gave us His Church and His saints so that we might acquire the Heavenly Kingdom!

Today, when we celebrate the Holy Unmercenaries, the physicians who treat without payment, Kosmas and Damian, who are they? People of Paradise, inhabitants of Paradise even while still on earth. They conquered every sin while still on earth, every passion. Their hearts were full of heavenly delight, full of faith, love, evangelical prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Behold the inhabitants of Paradise! Behold people who acquired Paradise while still on earth, because they acquired the one true Lord Christ, His Holy Gospel, and lived by it and according to it.

And how many saints of God are there in this world? Every day the Church of Christ celebrates one, two, or hundreds of saints of God. All of them are inhabitants of Paradise. They all help us and show us the way, the way of goodness that leads to Paradise, and they help us along such paths. That is why they are around us. That is why today we celebrate the Holy Physicians, the physicians who treat without payment, who are worthy to heal you and me, and every one of us, of all our illnesses.

Do not say, "I am not ill." You are ill! If you have any sin in your soul, that is already an illness. Every sin is an illness; every passion is an illness. Love of money: what an illness! A deadly illness that kills the soul forever. Fornication, adultery, theft, if you do not repent: these are terrible illnesses. You need the holy physicians Kosmas and Damian. I need them, you need them, and every one of us needs them. From these various spiritual deaths, how many times have our souls died, yours and mine, through various sins!

May the Lord grant repentance to all of us, so that we may raise ourselves from every spiritual death, and, guided and led by the saints, may we too enter the Heavenly Kingdom, into Paradise, the wondrous Paradise of the Lord Christ, the God of Love, who came into this world to save us from sin, death, and the devil, and to secure for us Paradise and eternal life.

Therefore, always, today and tomorrow, whenever you remember, and even at the very hour of death, do not forget the repentant cry of the repentant thief: "Lord, remember me in Your Kingdom." And be assured that if you cry out to the wondrous Lord Christ with faith and repentance, you will hear His gentle answer: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Translator's Note:

* In Slavic languages, as well as in Serbian, often there is no distinction between Hades and Hell, using a particular word to interchangeably mean both at the same time. We can see this throughout the homily of Saint Cleopa, where Hell is used to describe what is often at one point a reference to Hades and other times a reference to Hell.

Homily on the Fifth Sunday of Luke (Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov)

2026-11-01T11:02:15.283-05:00

Homily on the Fifth Sunday of Luke

22nd Sunday after Pentecost

Akathist to the Venerable Sergius

On Suffering and Patience

By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov

(Delivered on November 5, 1962)

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).

Dear brothers and sisters, the goal of our life is the salvation of the soul. There are many paths leading to this goal, and all of them are blessed. But of all these paths, the sorrowful path—the path of the cross—is one of the shortest. Therefore, we must not only refrain from becoming hardened in our sorrows, and not only endure them with patience, but also give thanks to God for them. Yet, because of our faintheartedness, we fear sorrows and do not wish to believe that they are beneficial to our souls, beneficial because only "through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Each of us has been given a burden here that must necessarily be carried to the grave. And each must carry it alone, although at times we do receive support and encouragement in spirit from those close to us. But blessed is the one who calls upon the Lord, rather than people, for help.

Is it possible to live without sorrows? Of course not! The cause of our sorrows lies in the Fall of Adam, and therefore through sorrows we bear the due punishment for the ancestral sin. At the same time, however, they also cleanse us of our own sins and lead us into the Kingdom of God. It is clear that to wish to have no sorrows is to wish for the impossible.

Sorrowful souls who patiently bear their cross are beloved children of God, and so the Lord is always with them: "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit" (Psalm 33:19). They walk as though the Savior Himself goes before them, often turning toward them with love. By virtue of the cross, they are, so to speak, related to the Lord Jesus—what a lofty kinship! We forget that if sorrows do not move us toward God, this is solely our own fault: instead of submission and patience, our hearts become hardened. Is it any wonder, then, that we fall into much greater evil?

In the first centuries of Christianity, during one of the persecutions, many people, frightened by the tortures that awaited them, fled in terror to the deserts of Arabia, but, while thinking they would save themselves, they perished there at the hands of barbarians. Do we not act in the same way when, out of faintheartedness, we try to hide from sorrows and, in order to avoid them, sometimes resolve to do things contrary to our conscience, which, by poisoning our lives, bring us sorrows more severe than those from which we thought to escape? Afterward, we sink into despondency or, hoping to silence our conscience, indulge our passions and fall into the snares of the devil.

One more thing must be said: we often exaggerate our sorrows too greatly. We notice every distress, while, on the contrary, we fail to notice the mercies we receive from the Lord, considering that this is simply as it should be, and thus remain ungrateful to the Lord. Only when sorrows visit us do we properly appreciate that happy time when they were absent, and we make a vow that, if our sorrows pass, we will be grateful to God for a peaceful, tranquil existence and way of life.

Sometimes we complain about illnesses, whereas we ought to give thanks for them. For, apart from the future reward for suffering, illnesses are beneficial because they subdue our passions, which might otherwise grow stronger within us and lead us God knows where. Therefore, if illness visits you, try to endure it with patience, and do not be troubled by the thought that it interferes with your spiritual struggles. "When illness weighs us down," said Blessed Syncletike, "we should not grieve that, because of pain and sores, we cannot sing the psalms with our lips. For illnesses and wounds serve to destroy lusts, while fasting and prostrations are prescribed for us to overcome the passions. If illnesses, too, uproot these passions, then there is nothing to worry about. It is a great spiritual struggle to endure illnesses patiently and, amid them, offer songs of thanksgiving to God. Have we lost our eyes? Let us not grieve; with our inner eyes we can contemplate the glory of God. Have we lost our hearing? Let us give thanks that we will not hear idle talk at all. Are our hands no longer able to function? But we have inner hands, ready for battle against our enemies. Is our entire body suffering from illness? Through this, the health of the inner man is increased."

Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, who will receive an eternal reward for their temporal sufferings. These chosen ones of God are exalted souls, who know neither earthly joys nor pleasures, but prepare themselves for heavenly ones. Yet, lest they be carried away, through human weakness, by worldly amusements unworthy of them, and thereby lose the heavenly blessings appointed for them, the Lord surrounds His chosen children on every side with crosses, as though with a spiritual enclosure, protecting them from the abyss of sin. In the world, many people think and say that the Lord does not love those to whom He sends sorrows. This is the opinion of people who themselves have no love for Jesus Christ, forgetting what the Apostle has said: "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." And again: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when He rebukes you" (Hebrews 12:6, 5). The saints, imbued with this teaching, went so far that they not only did not fear sorrows, but even rejoiced when they could endure something for the Lord. They remembered the words of the Apostle Paul, that all "who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:12–13). The first Christians might have thought that they had been abandoned by God when thousands of them perished during the persecutions. Yet we see the opposite: the persecutions strengthened them even more in the faith. Those who were tortured to death perished with hope, while those who remained alive clung to God even more firmly, preparing themselves for new struggles.

We must never cease reminding ourselves that sorrows are exceedingly beneficial to our souls, that they lead us to salvation, and that it is not sorrows we should fear, but rather that the Lord might forget us, for that would truly be the greatest sorrow. When He sends us crosses, this proves not only that He remembers us, but also that He loves us, sinners though we are. Holy Scripture repeats this lofty truth very often, so that it may be impressed more deeply upon our souls: "Whom the Lord loves, He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives." If, in our sorrows, we see not merely misfortunes but the true Cross of Christ, then we will understand why sorrowful souls are beloved children of God. Just as the Cross was granted to Constantine the Great for victory over Maxentius, so it is granted to each of us for victory over our most dangerous and cunning enemy—the devil, whom our sins continually draw toward us. We know that not only a cross bearing the image of the Savior, but even the sign of the cross made by the hand, drives the enemy away. How, then, can we fail to cherish the cross of sorrows sent to us in this life, the cross that we bear following the Lord and at His command?

Just as we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God, so our cross, too, must be a likeness of the Cross of Christ. This is possible only when we bear it with patience and love, and not with malice in our hearts or with despondency; when we are conscious that we are following in the footsteps of the Savior, and that in the cross we have been given an invincible weapon against the enemy, against whom this material cross—our sorrows—is just as powerful as the cross bearing the image of the crucified Lord. But if we regard the sorrows sent to us merely as misfortunes or as an occasion for complaint, then we will be following not the Savior, but the unrepentant thief. And the cross of our sorrows will not only fail to drive the enemy away from us, but will even draw him toward us, as though we were his certain prey. If, however, we bear our cross following in the footsteps of the Lord, we will soon become convinced that this royal weapon protects us from the temptations of the devil, helps us overcome many dangerous enemies—our passions—and shields us from much evil that we would have committed had we not borne it. Sorrows destroy our pride, humble even the most hardened hearts, sooner or later, and turn them toward God. "The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and He will save the humble in spirit," says the Prophet David (Psalm 33:19). Sorrowful souls are God's chosen ones, not because He loves to see us unhappy, but because He wants us to be not fainthearted, but steadfast, and able to endure everything to the end. It pleases Him to see when a person, endowed with an immortal soul, prefers the heavenly to the earthly, and knows how to pass over everything temporal and strive directly toward the Creator, extending his spiritual gaze into eternity, where his true life will be. It pleases Him to see when a person knows how to regard time as befits an immortal being. A chosen one of God, while bearing his cross, must remember that with God "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8), and that time has significance only in this earthly life. Therefore, the more spiritual a person becomes, the less attention he pays to everything temporal.

We have an example of great patience in the saints, who endured with magnanimity all the illnesses and temptations of earthly life. Thus, Venerable Syncletike, whose instructions we quoted above, demonstrated the greatest patience. She was eighty years old when she was afflicted by an exhausting fever, which wore her down for three and a half years. Then, because of a decaying molar, her gums began to rot. The decay spread to her mouth and her entire cheek. After forty days of suffering, worms formed in the diseased areas and began to emerge. Even her bones became infected; decay and foul odor spread throughout her body, so that her attendants could scarcely remain near her. The blessed sufferer refused every form of human assistance. She agreed only to the use of an ointment to eliminate the foul odor. For three months she suffered, taking no food and knowing no sleep. Three days before her death, she was granted a heavenly vision in which the time of her death was revealed to her, and she peacefully reposed on the appointed day.

When Venerable Barsanuphios the Great was asked to pray for the health of Abba Seridos, who had been ill for a long time, he replied: "Some of the holy men here could pray to God for the health of my son, so that he would not be ill for even a single day, and this would be granted. But then he would not receive the fruits of patience. This illness is very beneficial to him for patience and thanksgiving." The saints understood the power of patience in illness and therefore endured everything with magnanimity, giving thanks to God for everything. When we read about the various tortures and torments in which the ancient Christians died by the thousands, and see how people today groan over the slightest pain, we cannot help but marvel at how patient those people were. After all, they were people just like us, but how much souls have diminished today... It is told that a certain monk had decided to return from the monastery to the world, when suddenly he was struck with leprosy. Coming to his senses, he thanked God, who had restrained him through bodily illness from returning to the world and had healed his spiritual ailments.

As you bear your cross, keep the crucified Lord before the eyes of your heart more often than anything else. Surely, when you remember what He endured for our salvation, you will endure, out of love and gratitude to your Benefactor, that small cross of yours, which will bring you closer to Him? People of holy life say that if we are unable to thank God for our sorrows, we should force ourselves to say: "I thank You, O Lord, for the sorrows sent to me!" And this first act of submission, although compelled, will serve as a good beginning, so that in time we may thank God from the heart.

But this state cannot be attained except through frequent communion with the Lord by receiving His Holy Mysteries and through prayer, especially tearful prayer. Tears in themselves soften the soul, and then alleviate sorrows and improve the soul itself. Through sorrows we also prepare ourselves best for the great mystery of death, which is inevitable for everyone. The Gospel beggar Lazarus serves as an example of this, for through his patience he was deemed worthy of the bosom of Abraham. And let us not grow despondent in our sorrows, of which there are so many, for we have such a skillful Guide, who will lead us through all dangers, save us, and bring us to that bright place, "where there is no sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting." Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homily Three on the Fifth Sunday of Luke (St. John of Kronstadt)

2026-11-01T10:36:13.794-05:00

Homily Three on the Fifth Sunday of Luke
(22nd Sunday After Pentecost)

On the Rich Man and Lazarus

By St. John of Kronstadt

The Gospel reading for today, on the one hand, reproves and admonishes the luxurious, pampered, arrogant, and hard-hearted rich, who feast "sumptuously every day" and give no thought to pleasing God, to the true nourishment and true, unceasing, heavenly joy of the spirit, or to showing mercy to the poor. On the other hand, it pours heavenly consolation into the souls of the poor wretches of this world, who are despised by their wealthy fellow men, who lose themselves in their riches and pleasures. The Lord Jesus Christ, every word of Whom is truth, depicts the fate after death, the eternal and unchanging destiny of both: the unbearable torment of such rich men in the flames of Gehenna, and the consolation of the poor, such as Lazarus, in the bosom of Abraham, in the dwellings of the righteous. He recounts the rich man's plea to Abraham and Lazarus for help, and the decisive refusal to grant him even what appears to be the most insignificant assistance. He speaks of the impassable chasm between hell and heaven, between the place of torment for sinners and the place of blessedness for the righteous. Then He speaks of the rich man's second request to Abraham, asking him to send Lazarus to the house of his father to bear witness to his five brothers, who, like him, live in luxury, idleness, and merriment, concerning the existence after death of terrible torments for sinners. He also relates the second refusal to grant this request, as being unfounded and unreasonable.

Let us therefore draw every lesson for our lives from today's Gospel. Let us condemn the vanity and folly of our lives, our love of pleasure, our greed, our pride, our ingratitude toward God, and our hard-heartedness toward our neighbors. In our own time, more than ever before, the passion for elaborate and luxurious clothing, and for a life of revelry every day, has grown stronger. Fashions turn the heads of many young women, and women, as well as of many effeminate men, occupy their entire souls and leave them no room to think about the one thing needful: the salvation of the soul from sins and passions, from the fire of Gehenna; about moving the righteous Judge to mercy through tears of repentance, He who "will judge the world in righteousness" (Psalm 9:9); about acquiring faith in the Lord and exchanging a pagan way of life for a Christian one, in accordance with the Gospel.

The passion for bodily pleasures, especially drunken revelry in taverns, theatrical entertainments, and spectacles, likewise prevails today among those who call themselves Christians. Drunken people are often seen at almost every turn. Theaters are filled with idle spectators who love to pass their time lightly, amusing themselves, even on Sundays and feast days, which ought to be devoted entirely to reflecting upon the greatest works of divine Providence concerning us and giving thanks to the Lord for them. My God! How great are our transgressions! We neglect to please You, our Creator, Savior, and Judge, and to fulfill Your saving commandments, in which our temporal and eternal life and well-being are found. We neglect the salvation of our souls, for which nothing is more precious, and for which You descended from heaven, suffered, died, and rose again. And whom do we seek to please? The flesh and the devil—the flesh, which is alive today but may tomorrow be dead, cold, motionless, and foul-smelling.

We spare nothing for the pleasures of the flesh, yet for our brethren—for the poor—we begrudge even a few kopecks. But, brethren, "God is patient to the end, but punishes without end." Neither shall we escape the judgment of the fire of Gehenna if we do not abandon our revelry, our drunkenness, and our passion for dressing elaborately, and take care to satisfy the hunger of our souls—not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but a hunger for the peace of God, for holiness, for the righteousness of God, and for the fulfillment of Christ's commandments.

Behold, today's Gospel announces in advance the fate awaiting all revelers after death: they will be in flames, in torments, in terrible torments, without any hope that these will ever end. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear and hasten to amend his ways, for death is near to everyone, and with it comes judgment; for "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

But what do I hear from these revelers? Very many of them do not believe that such terrible torments exist after death, and they think that all their misdeeds will pass without consequence, as though nothing awaits them after death. Behold, the rich man mentioned in the Gospel, who was cast into the fire of Gehenna after his death, asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to convince them that terrible torment awaits all unrepentant sinners after death. This means that they, like him, had lived carelessly, in part because they did not believe in the just recompense awaiting everyone after death.

No, my friends, do not deceive yourselves. God is faithful to His threats and promises; never has there been falsehood in the words of the Lord. The multitude of His holy words have been fulfilled exactly, and the rest will also be fulfilled. It is impossible that the Lord should fail to reward those who earnestly fulfill His commandments—for example, the commandments concerning patience, self-control, meekness, humility, purity, and chastity—and fail to punish those who fearlessly oppose Him, continually defiling the image of God within themselves through intemperance, impurity of the flesh, excessive greed, arrogance, and other passions.

The fire of Gehenna is prepared. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 3:10). And who is this unfruitful tree? The unrepentant sinner who lives in sin. And this fire is not our earthly fire, which is weak, but the fire of Gehenna, a thousand times more terrible; for everything there far surpasses everything here. Compared with the fire of Gehenna, the fire of this world is but a shadow.

You will say: This is terrible. Yes, it is terrible. It was from precisely such a terrible fire, from precisely such terrible torment, that the Son of God came to save us. And what terrible sufferings did our salvation cost Him, the sinless and holy God-man! Yet even after this, we dare to live carelessly—and even to disbelieve that the fire of Gehenna exists. What, then, shall we believe after this?

My brethren! Let us abandon intemperance and luxury, and our carelessness concerning our souls, souls that are beyond price. Let us despise temporal pleasures, which vanish like a dream, yet plunge us into eternal torment if we do not amend our ways. For the remaining time of our lives, let us live in repentance, self-control, and blessed labors. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 1

2026-11-01T09:42:35.003-05:00

The Month of November

Day 1

63. Those Who, When Setting Out on a Journey, Entrust Their Families to the Protection of the Saints of God Do Well

(From the Life of the Holy Unmercenary Physicians Kosmas and Damian)

Some Christians, when setting out on a long journey, have the custom of praying with particular fervor to certain saints of God, asking for their help and intercession, and entrusting their families, during the time of their absence, to their protection and guardianship. Certainly, Christians who act in this way do well; for the saints of God, seeing their particular faith, love, and devotion toward them, also repay love with love, and in fact become the protectors and guardians of their families during their absence. That this is indeed true can be seen from the following example.

A certain man named Malchus, who lived in the city of Feremane, near the Church of the Holy Unmercenary Physicians Kosmas and Damian, was once preparing to set out on a long journey. He brought his wife to the aforementioned church and said to her: "Behold, I am setting out on a long journey, and I am entrusting you, as you should know, to the protection of Saints Kosmas and Damian. Remain in your own home until you receive a letter from me, and only after that will I take you to live with me."

After this, Malchus departed on his journey. Several days after his departure had passed, the tempter, the devil, appeared to his wife in the likeness of a man she knew. Showing her a letter supposedly from her husband, he said: "Behold, your husband has sent you a letter in which he commands you to come to him, and he has appointed me to be your guide."

After reading the letter, the wife said: "Although this letter is indeed from my husband, know that, since my husband has entrusted me to the protection of the Holy Unmercenary Physicians Kosmas and Damian, I will nevertheless not go with you until you accompany me to the Church of the Unmercenaries and swear there that you will do me no harm."

The devil agreed to this, went to the church, and swore the oath. Then he set out on the journey with the woman. Along the way, he led her into an inaccessible place, where he intended to harm and kill her. When she saw herself in terrible danger, she cried out: "O God, through the prayers of Saints Kosmas and Damian, help me and deliver me from the hand of this murderer!"

Immediately, the Holy Unmercenary Physicians appeared. At the sight of them, the devil vanished, and the Saints led the woman back to her home. The woman said to them: "I thank you, my lords, for delivering me from destruction. Tell me who you are, so that I may preserve forever in my heart a grateful remembrance of your kindness."

The Saints answered: "We are servants of Christ, Kosmas and Damian, to whose protection your husband entrusted you when he departed on his journey. For this reason, we hastened to come to your aid and deliver you from the devil."

At these words of the Saints, the woman fell to the ground from fear, and the Unmercenary Physicians became invisible. When she regained consciousness, the woman told everyone about the mercy shown to her by the Saints of God, and openly praised and thanked them before all.

Thus, it is true that the saints of God actually become the protectors of the families of those who, when setting out on a journey, entrust them to the saints' protection. From this arises the comforting conviction that the saints, being illumined by the light of the face of God, see us and know what feelings we bear toward them. They repay our love with love and, being close to us who honor them, are always ready to offer us their protection and guardianship.

Being convinced of this, let us also, for our part, when setting out on a journey and at every other time, have recourse with love and prayer to our invisible friends, defenders, and protectors, the saints of God. Let us earnestly ask them, through their holy prayers, to shield both us and our families from every visible and invisible evil, to obtain peace and tranquility for our lives, and to bring down upon both ourselves and our families the ever-active blessing of God. Amen.

Questions for Discussion 63:

1. Through whose prayers did Malchus's wife ask God to help her and deliver her from the hand of the murderer?

2. At the sight of whom did the devil disappear?

3. Why did Malchus's wife ask the Holy Unmercenary Physicians Kosmas and Damian to tell her who they were?

4. For what reason did Kosmas and Damian hasten to come to the aid of Malchus's wife and deliver her from the devil?

5. With what should we have recourse to the saints of God when setting out on a journey and at every other time?

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 31

2026-10-31T08:34:08.112-04:00

The Month of October

Day 31

62. Work and Prayer

(From the Life of Venerable Spyridon, the Prosphora Maker at the Kiev Caves Monastery)

It is well known that almost all the saints combined bodily labor with prayer. Thus, of the Venerable Spyridon, the Prosphora Maker at the Kiev Caves Monastery, whom the Church commemorates today, it is said that while serving in the prosphora bakery, he continually sang the Psalms of David. Whether he was chopping wood, kneading dough, or doing some other task, he always offered up to God, alongside his work, a sacrifice of praise. In this way, the saints knew how to work and pray at the same time. But what do you think, brethren? Was there any benefit to them in doing so, or not? We do not know what you will say in answer to this, but for our part, we believe that there was indeed a benefit, and a great one. What was it? We shall answer you now.

Once, the Venerable Anthony the Great, while sitting in his cell, was troubled by various soul-destroying thoughts. Striving to rid himself of them, he cried out to God: “Lord! You know that I desire to be saved, but thoughts assail me. Teach me what I must do in order to be saved.” Then, through his open door, he saw someone who looked exactly like him sitting not far from his cell, occupied with weaving baskets and twisting ropes. Afterward, the stranger laid aside his work and began to pray. When he had finished praying, he returned to making baskets and ropes. After working for a considerable time, he once again took up his handiwork. Then the Angel of God who had appeared to him said to Anthony: “Do likewise, and you will be delivered from soul-destroying thoughts and will be saved.” The elder rejoiced, understanding from this vision that honest labor and unceasing prayer are the surest means of salvation. (Voskresnoye Chteniye [Воскресное чтение], 1830–1831.)

Thus, the benefit that the saints received from work combined with prayer was that prayer during their labor drove away soul-destroying thoughts and made the work of their salvation easier. But was this the only benefit the saints received from work and prayer? No, there was another as well: prayer during their labor also bestowed upon them a special grace of God, through which the saints overcame every obstacle they encountered in their work. Thus, it is written of that same Spyridon that once, when he had lit the oven, the flames that came out of it spread to the ceiling of the prosphora bakery, which caught fire. Without giving it much thought, the Venerable One took off his mantle and used it to cover the mouth of the oven. Then he removed his hairshirt, tied its sleeves together, ran to the well, scooped water into it, and, carrying it back, hurried to the prosphora bakery and began calling the brethren for help. The monks arrived, and how great was their astonishment when they saw that the mantle with which the mouth of the oven had been covered had not burned, and that not a single drop of water had spilled from the hairshirt! The fire was soon extinguished, and the monks, we are told, “glorified God exceedingly.”

It is clear that from these accounts you, brethren, should be convinced of the truth that work combined with prayer was of great benefit to the saints. As we have just seen, prayer during their labor delivered the saints from soul-destroying thoughts, made the work of their salvation easier, sanctified their labor, and bestowed upon them a special grace of God, with the help of which they overcame every obstacle encountered in their work. Having become convinced of this, you should also understand that if work combined with prayer was beneficial to the saints, then it will undoubtedly be beneficial to you as well. Having understood this, make it your rule from now on to work and pray together. How should you pray? While working, keep God in your thoughts; remember death, the Last Judgment, Paradise, and hell; from time to time, recite whatever prayers you know, even if they are brief, or simply keep them in your thoughts. In this way, you will have inward, mental prayer accompanying your work. Does this prayer lack prostrations? But the difficult and strenuous positions your bodies assume during work will be counted by the Lord in place of prostrations and kneeling. Amen.

Questions for Discourse 62:

1. What did Venerable Spyridon offer up to God while serving in the prosphora bakery?

2. What did the rejoicing elder understand from the vision?

3. What does prayer during work do with regard to soul-destroying thoughts?

4. What should we remember while working?

5. What prayers should we recite or keep in our thoughts?

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 30

2026-10-30T02:51:19.261-04:00

The Month of October

Day 30

61. What Blessings Does Almsgiving Bring Us?

(From the Life of the Hieromartyr Zenobios and His Sister Zenobia)

The Lord teaches us to give alms. “Sell,” He says, “what you have and give alms” (Luke 12:33). And we give alms according to the Lord’s word. But here a question inevitably arises of its own accord: why, then, do we give alms? Is there any benefit to us ourselves from our almsgiving? Do we gain anything for ourselves through it? Does it bring us any blessings as well? Know, brethren, that almsgiving is of great benefit to us ourselves, that through it we acquire much for ourselves, and that it brings us great blessings. What are these blessings? And what, in general, does almsgiving bring us?

First of all, almsgiving makes us rich. Philaret the Merciful gave everything to the poor. They asked him for his last ox, and he gave it to them; they asked for a horse, and he gave them the horse; they asked for clothing, and he took that off as well and handed it to the poor man. His wife scolded him, and his household reproached him, but Philaret said to them: “I have a treasure of which you know nothing.” And Philaret truly did have a treasure. The Greek Emperor Constantine, who was seeking a bride for himself, saw Philaret’s granddaughter, Maria, and chose her. Having married her, the Emperor showed kindness and bestowed honors upon her entire family; and to the merciful Philaret he gave the richest houses and estates.

Secondly, almsgiving obtains mercy for us at the Judgment of God. “At the gates of Gehenna,” says Blessed Augustine, “almsgiving stands and does not allow anyone to be cast into prison.” And Chrysostom writes: “Almsgiving stands before the throne, not only offering protection, but also advising the Judge Himself to show mercy to the guilty and issue a favorable judgment concerning him.” And the Apostle James teaches: “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Finally, Tobit instructs his son in this way: “Give alms ... and do not forget that almsgiving delivers from death and does not allow one to descend into darkness” (Tobit 4:8–10).

Thirdly, almsgiving returns to us in abundance what we have given away. Thus, Saint Basil the Great says: “Alms return to those who give them; the rich man who gives to the hungry has acted for his own good, for what you have given, you will receive back in abundance” (On Those Who Are Rich). And what Saint Basil says also happens in practice. Thus, in the case of the widow of Zarephath, who shared her last handful of flour with Elijah, from that time onward neither the flour in the jar nor the oil in the vessel diminished; and, in addition to this, Elijah also raised her dead son.

Fourthly, almsgiving also makes unbelievers into believers. In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a pagan who gave much alms. One day an Angel appeared to him and said: “Your alms have come to remembrance before God. Now send for Simon, who is called Peter, and he will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved” (Acts 10:4–6). After this vision, Cornelius met the Apostle and, having been instructed by him, believed in Jesus Christ.

Fifthly and finally, almsgiving makes some people wonderworkers as well. The Hieromartyr Zenobios gave everything to the poor; and for this, it is said, “the Lord endowed with the power of working miracles the hands that had shown mercy to the poor by giving alms.” Zenobios received the gift of healing illnesses through the touch of his hand as a reward for his almsgiving, and whenever the Saint touched a sick person with it, that person was immediately healed. And this servant of God practiced almsgiving in two ways: one by distributing money to the poor, and the other by healing the sick through the grace given to him by God.

Thus, almsgiving brings us many blessings, and great blessings indeed. As you have now been able to see, it makes us rich, obtains mercy for us at the judgment of God, returns to us in abundance what we have given away, makes unbelievers into believers, and makes some people wonderworkers as well. What, then, should we learn from this? First, that we should not forget, according to the word of God, “to do good and to share,” knowing now that “with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13:16); secondly, that we should generally do good to others, according to the same word, in order to lay up “for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:18–20); and thirdly and finally, in particular, that we should know what kind of almsgiving God requires of us, so that the almsgiving we practice may be pleasing to Him. And remember, He requires this kind of almsgiving from us: “Vindicate the widow,” He says, “give judgment for the poor, help the needy, defend the orphan, clothe the naked, care for the infirm and the weak, do not mock the lame, defend the one without hands, and bring the blind to behold My light; preserve the old and the young within your walls; wherever you find the dead, seal them and commit them to the grave, and I will give you the first place in My resurrection” (3 Esdras 2:20–23). Amen.

Questions on Discourse 61:

1. What did the Greek Emperor Constantine give to Philaret the Merciful?

2. Who, according to Blessed Augustine, stands at the gates of Gehenna and does not allow anyone to be cast into prison?

3. Whom does almsgiving advise, according to Chrysostom?

4. What did the widow of Zarephath do for Elijah?

5. Where, according to the Angel’s words to Cornelius, had his alms come?

Synaxarion of the Venerables Abramius and Maria

2026-10-29T17:19:06.124-04:00

Synaxarion

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

On this same day, the commemoration of our Venerable Father Abramius and Maria, His Niece.

Verses For Abramius

Having mortified every member of his body, Abramius,
At his death, dwells with the bodiless Angels.

Verses For Maria

Having abandoned the lovers of the flesh, Maria,
You mystically embrace the Lover of souls.

This Saint Abramius was the son of Christian parents. Having taken a wife in marriage against his will, he abandoned everything of the world out of longing for Christ and withdrew into the desert. He shut himself inside a small hut and practiced every form of hardship and ascetic discipline.

After spending fifty years in asceticism, he was ordained a priest and afterward became a bishop and shepherd, against his will, of a village called Tainia, which lies in Lampsacus on the Hellespont, that is, by the Sea of Marmara. For the salvation of the people of Tainia, the blessed man endured many hardships and temptations on numerous occasions, for the inhabitants there were sunk in the delusion of idolatry.

After he had enlightened them through faith in Christ, by the grace of God, he burned with longing for stillness, secretly departed, and returned to his former place of solitude. There, although he was greatly tempted by the demons, he remained superior to their temptations and was preserved from them.

When his brother according to the flesh died, he left behind a little girl of seven years. Therefore, the Venerable One took this child, whose name was Maria, and gave her a small cell outside his own cell so that she might live in stillness. Through the window, he instructed her and encouraged her in the spiritual struggles of ascetic life.

When she reached the age of twenty, it happened that she fell into fornication with a man. Having consequently fallen into despair, she secretly fled and went to a brothel, where she lived together with other women who were prostitutes.

Saint Abramius, having put on the appearance of a soldier and mounted a horse, went and found her, while she did not recognize him and he remained unrecognized. By his own persuasion, he therefore delivered her from that place and brought her back from her downfall to her former little cell.

The blessed woman showed such great repentance that, after a few years, she was deemed worthy to perform great miracles.

Having completed his course with such an ascetic and apostolic life, Venerable Abramius reposed in peace. A short time later, his blessed niece also reposed.

(See the Greek Life of this Venerable One in Saint Ephraim, beginning: “My brethren, I wish to relate to you a good and perfect way of life”; and the simpler account in the Paradise.)1

Notes:

1. My own unworthiness composed a panegyric in honor of this Saint Abramius. A complete service, however, was composed by the most reverend teacher, Kyr Christophoros Prodromites. Anyone wishing to celebrate the Saint should seek out these works. His Life was also written by the Translator, beginning: “Men who love virtue.” It is preserved in the Great Lavra, in the Monastery of Iveron, and in other places.

Apolytikion

Tone 1. “Tou lithou sphragisthentos”

Having forsaken the pleasures of this perishable life in hope of the things to come, O God-bearing Abramius, you lived a holy life on earth and received a sacred anointing. Therefore, as a mystagogue, you enlightened those who cry out: Glory to Him who granted you strength; glory to Him who crowned you; glory to Him who through you works healings for all.

Kontakion

Tone 3. “Oi Parthenos simeron”

You appeared on earth in the flesh as an Angel, and through ascetic struggle you became like a tree that had been planted and grew well, nourished by the waters of self-control. You washed away defilement with the stream of your tears. Therefore, you were revealed as a vessel of the divine Spirit, O Abramius.

Oikos

Having disregarded corruptible things, you received incorruption. From infancy, O wise one, you hated the pleasurable delights of the body, longing for chastity. Therefore, you fled the bridal chamber and the world, renounced the glory of a spouse, and withdrew from your parents, yearning for the love of God alone and truly loving Him with all your soul and mind. Therefore, you were revealed as a vessel of the divine Spirit, O Abramius.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

October: Day 29: Teaching 3: Holy Martyr Anastasia the Roman

2026-10-29T16:21:46.920-04:00

October: Day 29: Teaching 3:
Holy Martyr Anastasia the Roman

(How Can We Learn to Be Grateful to God?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the feast of Saint Anastasia of Rome, who, amid her torments, sang praises and offered thanksgiving to God in the words of the Psalms of the Prophet-King, it is fitting, brethren, to speak about how we too may learn to be grateful to God, we who, having received thousands of blessings from Him, have failed to value them and have not thanked Him for them.

II. Someone may ask me: Can one really learn to be grateful? Yes, brethren, one can. Everything can be learned in the school of the gospel. Put this to the test.

a) Have you ever tried to gather together, as though into a single bundle, all the mercies and blessings that have fallen to your lot?

Take a moment to reflect on your memories. Recall the first promptings of divine grace, the blessings of childhood, those pure and sweet memories that so many others like you do not possess! Remember the childhood prayers in your parental home, the pure joys, and the bright impulses toward goodness that are always so heartening. Then recall the disappointments, sorrows, and bitterness that showed you the true worth of the world. Remember the whole path appointed for you by Providence, the care and protection you received, and finally all the appeals, efforts, and abundant acts of mercy by which your heart was won over! Count all these things, and you will no longer be troubled; you will simply bow down before divine mercy.

b) Then, beloved brethren, add the blessings of the present to all the blessings of the past. Have we reflected on them? Ah, yes, very often! But we have counted only what we lacked. While clearly discerning what was missing, we remained blind to God’s blessings. And yet, why should we not count them? We urge you to do so, and dare to tell you in advance that you will be astonished when you discover the hidden blessings in your life, however empty and deprived it may appear outwardly.

How can we make you understand that what we say is true? Would it take another trial, one that might deprive you tomorrow of one of your faculties or abilities, one of your attachments, or one of those joys whose value you have never learned to appreciate? By losing these things, alas, you would understand their true worth, and your deprivation would reveal to you the riches you possessed.

Have we not learned this lesson many times, and painfully? When illness came, we learned the value of health. When one of our faculties failed, when our sight or hearing weakened, we understood what sorrow God had sent us. When emptiness settled over our home, we felt the worth of those relationships that we had so rarely sanctified with gratitude in the days when we could enjoy them! We came to understand how much strength and encouragement there could be in a sympathetic glance, in a handshake, and how much boundless joy a little child’s smile could bring us! What would you not give to have these things again? But no! It is already too late, and all your regrets will not bring them back.

What sorrow, what shame, to realize that these joys passed by unappreciated, that happiness was sought somewhere other than where God had appointed it to be found, and that the tenderest and most moving proofs of His love went unrecognized!

But are such trials necessary to teach us gratitude? Would happiness alone not be enough to move us to it? Brethren, sometimes it has been. We have probably all seen fortunate people who, through happiness, were moved and taught to be grateful. The lot God had prepared for them seemed so beautiful and, at the same time, so little deserved by them that they were overwhelmed by it, and goodness itself awakened in them the first stirrings of repentance and gratitude.

Oh, those among my brethren who are still young and whom God has spared until now, why are you not moved, stirred to repentance, and converted by these many proofs of divine love for you? Why preach only that dark and sorrowful idea that suffering alone can lead souls to God, and that hearts turn to Him only when they have been rejected by the light and find in His love their last refuge?

Show the world that youth, life, hope, and happiness can flourish in all their beauty beneath God’s mercy, and that joy, too, can enliven the heart and produce the fruits of self-denial, mercy, and self-sacrifice! Prove this to a world that needs to know it. And, remembering all the Lord’s blessings, do not imagine that these blessings will be taken away from you!

c) But to you, brethren, who groan beneath the burden of trial, dare we address the words of Holy Scripture and ask you to cry out with the Prophet: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 102:2)?

May God preserve us from speaking thoughtlessly about sorrow and thereby aggravating the suffering hearts of others under the pretext of comforting them! No, let us be just! There are days of great calamity for many people, days when grief and suffering cast them down into the dust, when blessing God seems impossible.

And yet, if God is “love,” and love is the essence of all His works, surely the preacher of the Gospel has something to say to them. Why should he not draw near to these crushed souls and tell them, in the name of the Gospel, how much that was beneficial for them was contained in this boundless sorrow?

If we did not dare to say this, we would, in effect, be believing that we are in the merciless hands of blind fate. But no! Fate has no place in the life of Christians.

We believe in God, who is continually at work both in our trials and in our blessings. We believe in His love even when He chastens us. Take care not to fail to recognize His visitation; take care not to pass blindly by these severe but real signs of His intervention.

We know what you wish to answer. You will say to me: “Where is God in my life? Where are His manifestations? Where is His love in the blows that strike me?”

But I answer you without hesitation: “Wait before you judge.”

Recall that Gospel scene in which the Apostles were sailing in the middle of the night and, thinking that a phantom was approaching them, cried out in terror. At that moment, from the very figure that had frightened them came a gentle, reassuring voice: “It is I; do not be afraid!” (John 6:20). It was their Teacher, the divine Teacher, Jesus Christ.

Ah, how often you too, like the Apostles, have been mistaken and, tossed about like them by the waves of the storm, have seen the phantom of fate rise before you in the night of trial—a terrifying apparition! Wait a little, and your eyes will be opened. From the depths of the darkness, you will hear the voice of the Savior saying to you, “Do not weep! It is I!”

Yes, it is He who appears to you in the mysterious trial; it is He who draws near, seeking you. It is He whom you must bless, humbling yourself because you have not recognized Him until now.

This is why we tell you, brethren: Take care not to fail to recognize God’s blessings in your trials!

When people find themselves in great calamities and do not feel His presence, only two choices remain to them: despair, or drunkenness and debauchery. Despair is the lot of the nobler souls, who may need only to come to know God in order to find refuge in Him. Drunkenness and debauchery, on the other hand, become the distractions of most weak souls.

In this way, they forget what God wished to teach them in the great hour of trial. When we reflect on this, our hearts tighten at the sight of all the suffering that passes in vain, bearing no fruit.

What! God has struck you, yet you have not recognized His hand, and He has appeared to you in vain? What! You, who have been marked by God with the mysterious seal of sorrow, erase this divine imprint and go so far as to begin once again to value the world that seemed no longer to exist for you? Do you not feel that the world itself is astonished by this and looks at you in bewilderment when you once again take part in the whirl of its amusements?

No! You were not created for such a purpose. Everything tells you this, and the hidden wound that opens anew at these words confirms it all the more strongly.

Brethren, while there is still time, seek the blessings hidden within your trials and accept the instruction that the Lord has concealed in them! (See the Discourses of Bersier.)

Would you like an example of how one can learn, in the very depths of sorrow, to bless God and diligently remember His benefits? We find this example in the holy Apostle Paul.

Do you know anyone who suffered more than the holy Apostle Paul, who over the course of thirty years endured in his own person so many torments of body, heart, and spirit? Whose life was more filled with struggle, betrayal, hatred, and the world’s contempt?

And have you noticed how Saint Paul begins his epistles? With an expression of thanksgiving. Read any one of them: there is not a single one in which you will not hear him blessing God from the very first lines.

Yet Saint Paul was certainly not one of those people who build castles in the air or see everything through a deceptive veil. He himself experienced want and disgrace, adversity and oppression. Even when he wrote to persecuted churches, even when he wrote from prison on the eve of his execution, he offered thanksgiving to God for everything. And why? Because, beyond all that caused sorrow, he saw the joys of Heaven; beyond transient things, he saw what was everlasting; and because, finally, in his eyes, present and temporary sufferings were redeemed by the victory of love.

Train yourselves, brethren, in the school of the holy Apostle Paul, and learn from him to see, beyond whatever grieves you, the divine love and goodness that surpass all things!

III. O power of divine goodness! If others do not acknowledge you, we, with the examples of Saint Anastasia the Martyr and countless other martyrs before us—those who glorified and thanked God amid the fiercest sufferings that the satanic malice of the enemies of the Lord’s Cross could devise—bow down before you. Overcome with shame at the sight of our own ingratitude, from this day forward we shall cry out with the Psalmist:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits!” Amen.

(Compiled by Priest G. Dyachenko from the sources indicated.)

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 29

2026-10-29T14:19:56.427-04:00

The Month of October

Day 29

60. Mercy Is the Best Means of Turning a Sinner to the Path of Truth

(From the Life of Venerable Abramius the Recluse)

Just as physicians treating the body, when they consider it necessary to remove an infected limb from a sick person, first endeavor to encourage and calm the sufferer and only then proceed with the operation, so also those among you, brethren, who may wish to become physicians of the soul and undertake the great task of turning sinners from the path of sin to the path of truth should first approach them, not with harsh words of reproach, but in the spirit of evangelical meekness. They should not aggravate the wounds of sinners’ souls, but pour the balm of mercy upon them. If spiritual physicians act toward sinners in this way, following our advice, they will see good results from their efforts on behalf of sinners, and the sinners themselves will indeed return to the right path.

That what we are saying here is the plain truth can easily be confirmed by spiritual physicians. Let them listen attentively to what we are about to relate, and then, we hope, they will believe us.

Venerable Abramius had a brother who had an only daughter named Maria, a girl of seven. When this brother died, the neighbors brought his daughter to Abramius, and she remained with him. The Venerable One taught her to read, and she began to spend her life with her uncle reading the Psalter, fasting, praying, and keeping silence. She received from God the gift of tears, was humble-minded and meek, and burned with fervent love for God. She lived with the Venerable One in this way for twenty years, and he could not rejoice enough at her progress in the spiritual life.

But the devil was not idle. One day, he led Maria into a deadly sin and then hoped to plunge her into despair as well. After committing the sin, the young woman first wanted to take her own life. Then, out of shame, she went away to a distant city and, thinking that there could no longer be any forgiveness for her, resolved to commit every kind of lawlessness and took up residence in a house of perdition.

Meanwhile, for two years, Abramius prayed for Maria day and night, using every means available to him to find her. At last, he found her. He went to the city where his niece lived. So that he would not be recognized, he changed into secular clothing. Upon reaching the city, he went straight to the house where she was living in perdition. When he saw Maria there, he led her to a secluded place and, looking intently at her, exclaimed:

“Do you recognize me? Here before you stands the one who raised you. O my child, what has happened? Who has destroyed you? Where is the angelic image you once possessed? Where are your self-restraint, your tears, your vigils, and your kneeling in prayer? Why did you not tell me about your sin at once? I would have taken it upon myself.”

Maria was horrified. Abramius continued:

“Why do you say nothing to me, my child? I have come here to save you. I will answer for you on the Day of Judgment and take upon myself repentance for your sins.”

Maria wept and said:

“Out of shame, I cannot look at you. And can I, so defiled as I am, ask God for mercy?”

The Saint said:

“I repeat: let God hold me accountable for your sin. As for you, I beg you, spare my old age and come with me.”

Maria replied:

“If that is so, if you are certain that I can repent and that the Lord will accept my prayer, then I will follow you, and I will kiss your holy feet because you have led me away from defilement.”

With these words, she fell at the Venerable One’s feet and wept throughout the night. In the morning, she set out with him for his dwelling, and upon arriving there, she began her ascetic labors of repentance.

What were these labors? The Life of Abramius states that her repentance and prayer were such that our own repentance, compared with hers, would appear to be merely a shadow, while our prayer could not be compared with hers in any way. And how did it end? We are told that God forgave Maria and, as a sign of His forgiveness, granted her the gift of working miracles.

Is it not clear, brethren, from this account, that mercy is the best means of turning sinners back to the right path? Indeed, scarcely had Abramius poured balm upon the soul of the woman who was perishing when she was transformed from a sinner into an angel in the flesh. For at these words of mercy, tears of repentance and heartfelt compunction immediately began to flow abundantly from her eyes—tears most pleasing to the Lord and most unbearable to our enemy. Before long, Maria astonished everyone with her ascetic labors.

And this is not the only example. Consider Zacchaeus: he was a sinner, but when the Lord saw him, He did not rebuke him. Instead, He gently said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house” (Luke 19:5), and He entered Zacchaeus’s house. How did it end? The Lord’s kindness toward the sinner bore good fruit. Zacchaeus said, “Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19:8).

Thus, we see that the Lord’s mercy immediately softened the sinner’s soul and turned him away from sin toward goodness. Therefore, act toward sinners as the Lord and His saints acted toward them. Point out to them God’s infinite mercy toward those who repent, and show them that there is no sin that can overcome this mercy. Set before them the Gospel accounts of the forgiveness of the sinful woman; of how Jesus was in the house of Simon the Pharisee and a woman approached Him carrying an alabaster jar of ointment; the parable of the prodigal son; and the forgiveness of the thief. Perhaps God will grant that, through your meekness, you too may turn sinners toward Christ.

And when you have turned them back, know that a great reward awaits you yourselves in Heaven for such a conversion. For this is what the Holy Apostle James teaches: “Brethren,” he says, “if any of you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19–20). Amen.

Questions on Discourse 60:

1. When, and for how long, did Venerable Abramius the Recluse pray for his niece Maria after she had gone away to a distant city?

2. How did Abramius address Maria when he found her?

3. For what purpose, according to his own words, had Abramius come to Maria?

4. With what did the Lord reward Maria as a sign of forgiveness?

5. Why, according to the Lord’s words, did Zacchaeus need to come down from the tree?

Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi of Iconium

2026-10-28T17:54:13.916-04:00

St. Paraskevi of Iconium (Feast Day - October 28)

The Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi lived in the third century in Iconium, a city in Asia Minor. She was born into a wealthy and pious Christian family. Her parents held Friday in special reverence because it was the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross. For this reason, they named their daughter Paraskevi, a Greek name meaning “Friday.”

Paraskevi was devoted from an early age to the Christian faith. After her parents died, she dedicated herself entirely to the service of God. When she reached adulthood, she took a vow of virginity, choosing to devote her life to Christ rather than enter into marriage. She also devoted herself to proclaiming the Christian faith among the pagans, seeking to bring them to the knowledge of the true God.

During the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian, around the year 300, an imperial official arrived in Iconium with orders to suppress Christianity. Paraskevi was brought before him and commanded to offer sacrifice to the pagan idols. She firmly refused, remaining steadfast in her confession of Christ.

For this refusal, the Saint was subjected to cruel tortures. She was suspended from a tree, and her body was torn with iron instruments until her wounds reached the bone. Afterward, she was thrown into prison, exhausted and barely alive.

God did not abandon His suffering servant. He miraculously healed her wounds, restoring her strength. Yet the miracle did not lead her persecutors to repentance. They continued to torment Paraskevi, burning her with torches in an attempt to make her renounce her faith. She remained steadfast, placing her trust in God and refusing to worship the idols.

According to the traditional account, Paraskevi also demonstrated the power of Christ before the pagans through miracles. Her steadfast confession and the wonders associated with her suffering bore witness to the faith she proclaimed. Nevertheless, her persecutors persisted in their cruelty, and she was ultimately beheaded with a sword. Christians recovered and buried her body, and numerous healings were later attributed to her holy relics.

The Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi has long been held in special veneration among Orthodox Christians. In the Russian tradition, she is also known as Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, with Pyatnitsa being the Russian word for Friday; she is also called Petka in popular usage. Churches and roadside chapels were dedicated to her, and her feast became associated with customs expressing the faithful’s devotion to her.

In Russia, Saint Paraskevi was traditionally regarded as a protectress of fields and livestock, as well as a healer of bodily and psychic illnesses. On her feast day, people brought fruit to church to be blessed, keeping the blessed fruit until the following year. In icons, she is often depicted as a tall and austere ascetic, wearing a radiant crown.

The Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi of Iconium, commemorated on October 28, should not be confused with the Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi of Rome, commemorated on July 26. Although both saints bear the same name and are honored as martyrs, their traditional lives place them in different periods and locations. Saint Paraskevi of Rome is associated with the second century and is especially venerated for her miraculous healing of those suffering from ailments of the eyes, while Saint Paraskevi of Iconium is associated with the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian at the beginning of the fourth century. The Orthodox Church commemorates them separately, although similarities between their hagiographical traditions have led some scholars to question whether the two accounts may ultimately concern the same martyr.

Troparion in Tone 4

The wise and all-praised martyr of Christ, Paraskevi, having received manly strength and cast off feminine weakness, conquered the devil and put her tormentor to shame, crying out and saying: “Come, cut my body to pieces with the sword and burn it with fire, for I go joyfully to Christ, my Bridegroom.” Through her prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.

Kontakion in Tone 3

Having offered your most holy and blameless suffering as a precious gift to Christ, the immortal Bridegroom, you gladdened the ranks of the Angels and defeated the wiles of the demons. Therefore, we honor you with faith, O much-suffering martyr Paraskevi.