Places of the Holy Apostle Andrew (Nov 30)
Greece. St Andrew Church, Patras, Greece, is built at the site of the martyrdom of the Holy First-Called Apostle.
Romania: St Andrew the Apostle Cave. St. Andrew, Patron and protector of Romania, brought the Gospel to the Dacians who together with the Romans are the parents of the Romanians.
Georgia: The Apostle Andrew's missionary influence is strong here. Photo: Gergeti Holy Trinity Church.
Russia: The Church of St. Andrew the Apostle is the world’s only church built on a tiny island— a monolithic rock protruding from the waters of the Vuoksa, about 2 hours from St. Petersburg.
Greece. St Andrew Church, Patras, Greece, is built at the site of the martyrdom of the Holy First-Called Apostle.
Romania: St Andrew the Apostle Cave. St. Andrew, Patron and protector of Romania, brought the Gospel to the Dacians who together with the Romans are the parents of the Romanians.
Georgia: The Apostle Andrew's missionary influence is strong here. Photo: Gergeti Holy Trinity Church.
Russia: The Church of St. Andrew the Apostle is the world’s only church built on a tiny island— a monolithic rock protruding from the waters of the Vuoksa, about 2 hours from St. Petersburg.
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Prayer is war!
“How can a person going to war complain about feeling uncomfortable?”—Father Theodore Gignadze, Tbilisi, 🇬🇪☦️
“How can a person going to war complain about feeling uncomfortable?”—Father Theodore Gignadze, Tbilisi, 🇬🇪☦️
“Without temptations and griefs we cannot be saved. But we should not be disturbed or grow weak in faith, because now the devil attacks men more cruelly than in the past, for he knows that he has only a little more time to rule over the modern world. Let us pray, endure, and remember the words of the Lord, who said that He will be with us until the end of the ages.”
☦️ Elder Cleopas of Romania, interview in “The Orthodox Word”
☦️ Elder Cleopas of Romania, interview in “The Orthodox Word”
I remember once I told Saint Porphyrios (Dec 2): "I'm afraid of what is to come, the ugly times."
He looked at me puzzled and giving me a swift slap on the hand he said: "Who can do you harm, my child, if you have Christ inside your heart. Turn your eyes towards Christ. You don't become saints by chasing away the evil. Forget about the evil. Turn your eyes towards Christ and He will save you. Instead of standing at the door and shooing away the enemy, despise him. When you see evil approaching from one direction, you softly give your attention to something else. So, when the evil is coming to offend you, give your interior strength to good, to Christ. Plead: "Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me." He knows how to give you His mercy and in whatever way that is best for you. And after you are full of good, then you no longer turn your attention towards the evil. With the grace of God, you become good. And then the evil is unable to find a place to stand and disappears."
—His Grace Bishop George of Canberra
He looked at me puzzled and giving me a swift slap on the hand he said: "Who can do you harm, my child, if you have Christ inside your heart. Turn your eyes towards Christ. You don't become saints by chasing away the evil. Forget about the evil. Turn your eyes towards Christ and He will save you. Instead of standing at the door and shooing away the enemy, despise him. When you see evil approaching from one direction, you softly give your attention to something else. So, when the evil is coming to offend you, give your interior strength to good, to Christ. Plead: "Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me." He knows how to give you His mercy and in whatever way that is best for you. And after you are full of good, then you no longer turn your attention towards the evil. With the grace of God, you become good. And then the evil is unable to find a place to stand and disappears."
—His Grace Bishop George of Canberra
God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. Hence, if we feel in our hearts the cold which comes from the devil - for the devil is cold - let us call on the Lord. He will come to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only for Him but also for our neighbor, and the cold of him who hates the good will flee before the heat of His countenance.
☦️ St Seraphim of Sarov
☦️ St Seraphim of Sarov
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There has been a notable increase in the amount of myrrh streaming from the icon of the Panagia Parigoritria at the Church of Saint Dimitrios in Vyronas, Athens. The icon began weeping myrrh over two years ago.
Most Holy Theotokos, save us!
Most Holy Theotokos, save us!
Desert monastic Saint Savva the Sanctified (Dec 5/18) is depicted in icons holding a scroll which reads: "He who loves God disdains corruptible things, and prefers the knowledge of Him." He surrendered his soul to God in 552.
Humans and animals alike had an affection for St Savva. Once, while the Saint was in his cave, he prayed to the Lord to send him water. Outside, he heard a noise. Looking out, he saw a donkey digging its hooves into the earth. Soon, clear water appeared. The donkey quenched his thirst and disappeared. The next day the Saint came down from his cave, dug with his trowel a little deeper at the same spot and water gushed out. The monks of the Lavra drink from this water source to this day.
“With the rivers of your tears, you have made the barren desert fertile. Through sighs of sorrow from deep within you, your labors have borne fruit a hundred-fold. By your miracles you have become a light, shining upon the world. O Savas, our Holy Father, pray to Christ our God, to save our souls.”
Humans and animals alike had an affection for St Savva. Once, while the Saint was in his cave, he prayed to the Lord to send him water. Outside, he heard a noise. Looking out, he saw a donkey digging its hooves into the earth. Soon, clear water appeared. The donkey quenched his thirst and disappeared. The next day the Saint came down from his cave, dug with his trowel a little deeper at the same spot and water gushed out. The monks of the Lavra drink from this water source to this day.
“With the rivers of your tears, you have made the barren desert fertile. Through sighs of sorrow from deep within you, your labors have borne fruit a hundred-fold. By your miracles you have become a light, shining upon the world. O Savas, our Holy Father, pray to Christ our God, to save our souls.”
Prayer to St. Nicholas (Dec 6/19)
"You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence. Because of your lowliness heaven was opened to you, because of your poverty riches were granted to you. O holy Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!"
The lampada in this photo is in the form of a boat with St. Nicholas inside burns continuously in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy.
"You appeared to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence. Because of your lowliness heaven was opened to you, because of your poverty riches were granted to you. O holy Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!"
The lampada in this photo is in the form of a boat with St. Nicholas inside burns continuously in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy.
An imminent vote in the Rada of the Ukraine threatens to further legitimize and escalate the ongoing persecution of the Orthodox Church. Let us pray at this dark hour. Lord, have mercy!
Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev is asking the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Kievan Caves Monastery), to fast and pray unceasingly in order to entreat the Lord to avert the threat of further confiscation of the lands, parishes, and monasteries of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church— and the arrest of hierachs, priests, monks and other clergy, already threatened and persecuted.
Let all the faithful pray!
Metropolitan Onuphry, preaching on the Sunday after the Nativity last year: “We must always be with Christ, even in days of tribulation and persecution.
We must be with Christ, not only when people are shouting ‘Hosanna!’, when we are praised, when they applaud us for it, but also when they cry, ‘Crucify.’ Being with Christ when Christ is under attack is the greatest gift man can offer to God.
Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev is asking the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Kievan Caves Monastery), to fast and pray unceasingly in order to entreat the Lord to avert the threat of further confiscation of the lands, parishes, and monasteries of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church— and the arrest of hierachs, priests, monks and other clergy, already threatened and persecuted.
Let all the faithful pray!
Metropolitan Onuphry, preaching on the Sunday after the Nativity last year: “We must always be with Christ, even in days of tribulation and persecution.
We must be with Christ, not only when people are shouting ‘Hosanna!’, when we are praised, when they applaud us for it, but also when they cry, ‘Crucify.’ Being with Christ when Christ is under attack is the greatest gift man can offer to God.
May the Lord help us, dear brothers and sisters, to ever be with Christ—both in days of blessedness, and in days of tribulation and persecution, because Christ is unchanging, the unchanging Truth. And whoever is with Him always prevails.”
☦️ It happens also that we think very little of God's presence and do not realize that we should be as rays of grace.
☦️We believe but not with a living faith.
☦️And we are so alienated from spiritual life that even when we see it in others we imagine it as error and confusion. In this way we are dead in the spirit, alive but not in Christ and not in accordance with the conviction that what is born of the spirit should be spiritual.
☦️ St Gregory Palamas
☦️We believe but not with a living faith.
☦️And we are so alienated from spiritual life that even when we see it in others we imagine it as error and confusion. In this way we are dead in the spirit, alive but not in Christ and not in accordance with the conviction that what is born of the spirit should be spiritual.
☦️ St Gregory Palamas
Orthodox Christians celebrate the miraculous conception of Ss. Joachim and Anna's daughter Mary (Dec 9) -- miraculous because it was God's answer to the prayers of childless parents.
As a human being the Theotokos was made like us and we like her, born into a sinful world. Yet unlike us, she was uncorrupted by this world-- and deemed by God worthy, as a young virgin daughter, to give to God the Word. God made her his Holy Tabernacle-- "more honourable the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim."
We can attribute to the Theotokos all honour due to the Mother of our God without the need for an innovative dogma, specifically, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception.” Even Roman Catholic champions of Mary— Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas— found no "theological justification” for the doctrine which would become dogmatized in the 19th century. (See Roman Catholic site http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1223)
As a human being the Theotokos was made like us and we like her, born into a sinful world. Yet unlike us, she was uncorrupted by this world-- and deemed by God worthy, as a young virgin daughter, to give to God the Word. God made her his Holy Tabernacle-- "more honourable the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim."
We can attribute to the Theotokos all honour due to the Mother of our God without the need for an innovative dogma, specifically, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception.” Even Roman Catholic champions of Mary— Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas— found no "theological justification” for the doctrine which would become dogmatized in the 19th century. (See Roman Catholic site http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1223)