The Sparrow and the Silence | An Orthodox Monk’s Lesson in Love (Greek Subtitles)

 

Ο ΥΜΝΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΘΕΙΤΣΑΣ!!!THE HYMN OF THE AUNTIE!!!

 

Without place and time!!!!Εκτός τόπου και χρόνου!!!

 

Panic Attacks, Hidden Sins, and Healing: Mother Siluana | Orthodox Church

 

fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos: Love as violence.

 

LET'S ROCK FOR THE WHOLE WORLD🎸

 

How Wrong Relationships Could Cost You Your Salvation | An Orthodox Christian Perspective.

 

DORMITION AT THE BURNING BUSH -"Rejoice, fiery throne of the Lord God; Rejoice, the sacred vessel that is filled with manna."

DORMITION AT THE BURNING BUSH -"Rejoice, fiery throne of the Lord God; Rejoice, the sacred vessel that is filled with manna."

From an Article by Sr. Joanna*

St. Catherine’s visitors typically categorize themselves as ‘pilgrim’ or ‘tourist’. Well-aware that mankind’s deepest longing is for God, monastics recognize the fallacy of such distinctions. All arrive here “hoping to experience the stillness that exists between the soul and God,” His Eminence [retired] Archbishop Damianos of Sinai has said. A hermit monk explains this is equally true whether expressed by exuberant hoots disturbing the night on the steps leading to the Holy Summit, or by anxiously searching for the entrance to the Monastery church in the same black night – hoping to arrive before the service begins, when the angels do.

Much has been made of the Sinai Monastery’s preservation of the precious artifacts of ancient Christianity, and also of the unbroken ages of its peaceful co-existence with neighbors in a non-Christian world.  

Less noted is that the Sinai represents the only center of ancient ascetic spirituality open to women – tourist, pilgrim, or monastic [historically]. In a sphere where women have often had to struggle to prove themselves much as in civilian life, female monasticism in Sinai dates from the third century, apparently to the inceptions of the current monastic community itself.

Naturally isolated by remote desert, ascetics seeking stillness never needed to fabricate a barrier to worldly civilization by sealing the Monastery off from visits by families. Of course such a step would never have been contemplated by the guardians of a holy pilgrimage of such literally Biblical proportions. By the time the world resolutely landed on their doorstep with the construction of asphalt roads and tourist infrastructure, Sinai monks had long accustomed themselves to a double burden: combining the rigors of eremitic life with hospitality to those seeking deeper understanding of God.

After all, the Holy Mountain capped by the Peak of the Decalogue – of the Ten Commandments – is the mountain of the knowledge of God. And the Burning Bush, which still thrives in the Monastery courtyard, the path to that knowledge – for it burned with the same fire of divine Wisdom that later shone forth upon all creation from the “Bush of the Holy Virgin.”

Let us ever applaud and praise the Lord God

Who was seen of old on the holy mount in glory,

Who by the fiery bush revealed the great mystery of the

Ever-virgin and undefiled Maiden unto the Prophet Moses.

Aflame but not consumed by the fire of divinity just like the Bush itself, the Holy Virgin is the fiery pillar guiding the faithful through the darkness of this world’s trials. The Israelites were led through the Sinai by fire at night and a cloud by day, and the Holy Virgin spreads the protection of her shelter over the world more broadly than a cloud. Under it, her love gathers together not only the monastics of Sinai, but all the faithful who glorify her Son, the God-man who saves the world from sin as He saved His All-holy Mother from the corruption of death at her Dormition.

Monasteries are not islands adrift on a sea beyond the wave length of stress. Tides break over their shores. They are havens only to the degree that one has learned to take refuge in the will of God – and until then, places of fierce struggle. Against the relentless enemies of one’s own egotism and pride, the invincible weaponry of salvation belongs to the Most Holy Theotokos. One says the Jesus Prayer at all times, for as Sinai’s Geronta Pavlos says, “Prayer is the sun of our souls, without which we cannot live any more than we can survive without the physical sun.”

 But in crisis – ask any monastic: The heart that was pierced with a sword at the cross of her Son rushes to help, as Father Pavlos describes, with the reflexive speed of a mother who springs forward to snatch a baby from falling. Power against evil is not lacking to the first person whose human nature was joined to the divine, the Mother of God who was also the first person to see and touch the resurrected Christ (a subtlety of the Gospels elucidated by Saint Gregory Palamas) – and to speak with Him, as she does unto the ages on our behalf. ...

"The heavens were astonished and stood in awe,

and the ends of the earth, Maid, were sore amazed,

for God appeared bodily to mankind as very man.

And behold, your womb has proved to be vaster

and more spacious than heaven's heights.

For this, O Theotokos, the choirs and

assemblies of men and angels

magnify your name."

(Source: The Dormition services’ 13th century Great Supplicatory Canon to the Most Holy Theotokos.)

* From the Article "Dormition at the Burning Bush" by Sr. Joanna, at the FMSM News Blog: https://www.mountsinaimonastery.org/news-blog/dormition2016

HOLY ANGELS IN THE SKY. SAINT PORPHYRIOS KAFSOKALYVITE.

HOLY ANGELS IN THE SKY

Testimony of Mr. GE, D. Civil Engineer, Athens!

I was in the team of civil engineers who undertook the study and supervision of the construction of the Monastery of the Saint in Milesi,

One evening in 1985, we worked late and, at 01:00 after midnight, before going to sleep, we decided to take a walk in the courtyard. It was summer and the sky was clear. We could see the starry sky clearly and we headed towards the south side of the Cells, that is, approximately under the balcony of the Cell of the Saint.

 There were three of us and, since it did not have the trees it has today, we looked at the celestial dome, filled with hundreds of thousands of bright stars and luminous constellations, Small and large stars, irregularly spread out by the hand of God. At that time I loved and studied astronomy. As we were discussing this fantastic beauty, we saw the Saint coming towards us and when he came near us, very peaceful and calm, he asked us: 

“What are you doing out here? 

“We see the stars... 

“The stars, are they all you see? 

“What else can we see in the night? 

 -Well, the sky is full of Saints and Angels, don't you see them?

No, we don't see anything. 

"Do you want to see them? 

No one spoke, We were left bewildered and the Saint moved away. He descended and disappeared into the forest, apparently, at such a time he left his cell every night to go to the mountain to pray. We stayed for a while - watching him move away, I don't know why we didn't answer.  Perhaps because I felt it as audacity, as pride if I told him: “Yes, I want to see them”), 

In our lives there are opportunities that are repeated and opportunities that never come again. We missed a unique and unrepeatable opportunity, because the Saint had boldness in God and was able to show them to us. 

An elderly nun confided in me the following experience she had with the Saint. Once the Saint went to their Monastery and they hosted him.  As they were talking, he told them that he wanted to go for a walk alone on the mountain behind the Monastery, and left. After a while, this nun went to do some work on the back side of the Monastery, on the north side, and saw on the mountain, high above the trees, a large bird with its wings spread, descending. She continued her ministry and then she heard something like a flutter and saw the Saint descending to the ground right next to her. He said to her: “From what you have seen, you will not say anything to anyone.  Only when I leave, you can tell them,” He did not know if it had anything to do with the bird he saw, but the Saint descended from heaven. 

Bibliography. Saint Porphyrios the Prophet.

Testimonies.

Publications. Agios Paulites Holy Cell of Saints Theodores Mount Athos. Volume C.

HE IS GUARDED BY SAINT NEKTARIUS. SAINT PORPHYRIUS.

.

SAINT NEKTARIUS GUARDS HIM

Testimony of Mr. Georgios Tsitsopoulos, Athens

My brother first told me about Saint Porphyrios around 1973 and I went and met him in Kallisia.

A little while later, without us having informed him where I was working, he came late at night to the sheet metal shop in Agios Fanourios where I worked as an employee with my cousin.

The Saint asked us to take a barrel and showed us how to cut it to make a wood stove.  Because it was winter and very cold, I made him and his companion sit at the back of the shop, inside the closed office. As I was cutting the barrel, the electric wheel slipped from my hands, fell on me, got tangled and cut my clothes. I called to my cousin to unplug the cable from the socket, but he did not hear me. At the same moment the wheel stopped. 

The Saint had unplugged the cable and was next to me.  I was wearing a lot of clothes and they were torn to pieces, but in a miraculous way I was not injured at all and embarrassedly I said to the Saint:

-Elder, do you see how calm I am?

-You are not calm, blessed one... Above your head was Saint Nektarios. Can't you see across? The whole area became day!

Opposite the shop were plots and fields. All I could see was darkness, because it was 12 midnight.

***

It was August 14, 1978 and I was passing through the bars of a building in Ano Liosia.  It was early noon and I said to my assistant. Gather the tools, we're going to school. Tomorrow is the Virgin Mary's. Great is Her grace, glorified is Her name! 

And as I hit the hammer to nail the last cement nail, it broke and hung off the balcony, a piece of concrete slab 2.5 x 1.3m., because the contractor had reinforced it with thin iron bars, and I ran straight over the railing into the void. From the third floor I ended up on the street! First I hit a PPC cable, from there on the pillar, then on a fig tree to end up in the lime.  A driver who saw the whole fall stopped immediately, picked me up and took me to the hospital in Kifisia. I was in a coma for a week. They only gave me 8 stitches and when I came to, I went straight to the Virgin Mary of Tinos to thank her.

I also owe gratitude to Saint Nektarios, because - as Saint Porphyrios told me - he is my patron.

When the Saint was building his Monastery, I volunteered to make the iron structures, mainly doors and windows. He didn’t want them made of wood or aluminum. 

One day I was hanging at 9 meters. I was holding on with one hand and with the other I was clinging to a window. I was standing level on a small ledge of the wall and the Saint passed by with Mr. George A..., who said to him anxiously:

-Elder, George is hanging up there!

-Go ahead... He has Saint Nektarios above his head.

He once told me:

-God has given you a great gift.

What is this and I don't know it?

You never get angry and you never blaspheme!

Bibliography. Saint Porphyrios the Prophet.

Testimonies. 

Publications. Agios Paulites Holy Cell of Saints Theodores Mount Athos. Volume C.

"I, the Light, have come into the world, that whoever believes in Me not remain in darkness."

"I, the Light, have come into the world, that whoever believes in Me not remain in darkness."

For the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ

IN THE LIGHT OF DIVINE LOVE

At the foot of the God-trodden Mountain of Sinai, Emperor Justinian built the great basilica of St. Catherine's Monastery to the Transfiguration of Christ - the 'Feast of monastic feasts'.

‘Let us be transfigured by that glorious transfiguration,’ exhorted St. Anastasios of Sinai in his sermon on the Feast, for ‘Jesus goes before us to show us the way, both up the mountain and into heaven … making us sharers in His divinity and raising us to heights as yet undreamed of.’

Archbishop Damianos of Sinai has pointed out that the manifestation of the Holy Trinity at the Transfiguration was foreshadowed by the earlier theophany on Mount Sinai, where the voice of God, the light of the Sun of Righteousness, and the cloud of the Holy Spirit were all similarly present.

There is a difference though: While the eyes of the apostles were enabled to see ‘a dim ray’ of the divine radiance of Christ at His Transfiguration, the Uncreated Light appears to Moses on Sinai as ‘luminous darkness’. It is invisible - except to eyes that have been transformed by the Holy Spirit.

As His Eminence also noted, the full revelation of the Trinity is reserved for the New Testament. Thus the wishes of both Moses and Elias to see God clearly on Sinai are fulfilled at the Transfiguration of Christ. ...

                        --------------------------------------------------------

... A significant characteristic of Orthodox Christianity is its understanding of the distinction between the essence of God and His uncreated energies; Orthodox saints understand creation as the voluntary will of the divine energies, an outpouring of love - reflected in the words of the Holy Trinity, 'Let us make man.'

What does this mean? That man is destined not for contemplation of God, but for union with Him. Receiving the divine energies within himself, he is created 'to become by grace what God is by nature'.

It also means that salvation is not reserved for a chosen few, but the free gift of grace offered to all. One need only reach out to take the gift, striving to follow Christ through the mysteries of the historic Orthodox Church founded by Christ through His apostles.

Thus, St. Gregory of Sinai says that Peter, James, and John were not randomly selected to participate in the Transfiguration, for each was distinguished by some individual combination of 'faith, effort, and love for Christ – even though the same grace of the Spirit had been given to all.'

Enamored of the divine radiance, Peter exclaims, 'Lord, it is good for us to be here!' His next thought is to remain in the divine glory.

At this point - validating the faith of Peter who had replied 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' to Jesus' question six days earlier, 'Who do you say I am?' - the voice of the Father comes from the cloud: 'This is my beloved Son - listen to him.'

This is the exact moment portrayed in the icon of the Transfiguration - as illustrated in the Sinai icon above with the words of the Father inscribed across the top - portraying not just the divine energies of God's unapproachable glory - but how one may remain within it:

Geronta Pavlos of Sinai explains that the New Testament verb for 'listen' implies 'doing'. Those who seek union with God by fulfilling His commandments will be transfigured by the light of Christ into the abode of the Holy Spirit, and through them, all creation.

According to the patristic Saints of the Orthodox Church, this is the radiant message of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, whose week-long celebration will draw to its close on August 13th, but which never dims in the hearts of the faithful.

'I, the Light, have come into the world,' said the Lord, 'that whoever believes in Me not remain in darkness.'

                         -----------------------------------------------------

Sinai's Codex Theodosianus is one of the most splendid manuscripts to survive from Byzantine times. It is a copy of the Gospels, written in Constantinople in the tenth century. It was written in one of the imperial scriptoria, and every letter on every page is executed in gold leaf. The beautiful letters gleam and flash as they catch the light.

This image [below right] shows the beginning of the Gospel passage for the Feast of the Transfiguration. One can see here the abbreviation for the Name 'Jesus' formed by its first and last letters, with a decorative line above to indicate the contraction. Names such as ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Lord'  were always written as abbreviations, in that they are nomina sacra, 'sacred names.'

From Article "Who do you say I am?" by Sr. Joanna at FMSM's News Blog http://www.mountsinaimonastery.org/news-blog/transfiguration2017

IT WAS AUGUST 4 . Our Father John Kalaidis (a Saint of God) fell asleep in the Lord ♰ on August 4, 2009, in Neochori, Sintiki, Serres prefecture.

IT WAS AUGUST 4

     Our Father John Kalaidis (a Saint of God) fell asleep

 in the Lord ♰ on August 4, 2009,

 in Neochori, Sintiki, Serres prefecture.

    He was buried in a tomb that he had prepared himself, next to the holy church of Saint Raphael. 40 days before he left.

    His Cross, as well as other objects of his, began to smell fragrant.

    He sang and conversed with the Angels and the Saints, a few days before he left.

    His passage into eternity was shocking.

    His shroud was flexible and warm, until the time of his burial.

    During the funeral service, while there were no clouds at all, one appeared and dropped a few drops like tears. 

    The same thing happened at the time of his burial. 

    The cloud again dropped two or three drops of rain and stopped. 

    During the funeral service, 

 at the moment of the change of the Gospel, the flexibility of the Holy Father was clearly visible. 

    His palm fell back as if it were not the hand of a sleeping person. 

    The most venerable Metropolitan of Sidirokastro, Mr. Makarios, during his speech at the funeral service said:

- “Father John is

      a Saint of God.”

  May he intercede at the heavenly altar, 

along with the other saints, 

for all of us.

May we have his wish!

☦️ Tsesmetzis Miltiadis    

       educational

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

When we think of miracles, we immediately call to mind Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, turning water into wine, calming the storm, cleaning lepers, casting out demons, opening the eyes of the blind and ears of the deaf, healing paralytics and those suffering debilitating ailments, as well as raising the dead. 

All these miracles were in fact acts of mercy, meaning they were performed with benevolence and compassion, benefiting those in need. Yet the miracle of Christ walking on water is vastly different. Jesus coming to the disciples amidst the storm-tossed seas is unique; for it not only displays the Creator’s superiority over creation and laws of nature but testifies to His power and might. 

So why did our Lord come to them walking on water? To show His disciples that what they feared most was under His control; the waves that were over their heads were under Christ’s feet. This miracle illustrates tangibly that all storms of life we fear, whether they be physical, emotional, familial, or financial, can become quelled, calmed, or endured by putting your faith and hope into the One True Savior.

 Fr. John

Today I Begin Again | A Short Orthodox Story (Greek Subtitles) — Σήμερα Βάζω Πάλι Αρχή!!!

 

We Spent Easter In The Holiest Place On Earth!!!

 

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell: A Little Can Be a Lot.

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell: A Little Can Be a Lot

The miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand does not begin with an adult: someone of stature; important with prestige and status, ways and means, nor even with someone rich and powerful; it begins with a seemingly insignificant little boy amongst a great crowd of people. A little boy who had a “poor man’s lunch” tucked away upon his person, who instead of keeping it to himself, was inspired to bring it to Christ as an innocent gesture to offer help in a time of need; to “do something,” even if it were deemed too little. But there was a lot contained in that all-too-little gift. 

Five small barley loaves and two tiny fish were certainly not enough to feed so great a crowd (five thousand men, besides woman and children). That’s truly a multitude, to say the least! Yet, this young boy’s small offering was transformed from a “little to a lot” by the power of Christ; Who blessed, broke, and multiplied it to feed and satisfy that entire throng crowed on the side of a mountain, and still have twelve baskets of leftovers. [Note: This miracle becomes a type, a foreshadow, and the words an echo of what will occur at the Last Supper as our Lord institutes the Holy Eucharist.]

God often chooses to use weakness, meekness, and meagerness to showcase His might and power: A young boy toppling a giant with a slingshot; a widow using her last dregs of flour to feed Elijah, only to find that her flour jar became inexhaustible; a poor women offering of her last two pennies at the Temple Treasury; and simple, uneducated fishermen called upon to lead Christ’s Church.

When we make a sacrifice and humbly give God our “all,” even if we might consider it too little or too meager, our Lord is able to take those gifts, multiply them, and use them for His purposes to benefit a greater good.

Fr. John

Η δύναμη της Ευχής του Ιησού | Ένας Αμερικανός μιλά για την Ορθοδοξία!!!The Power of Jesus' Wish | An American Speaks About Orthodoxy!!!

 

“Frets are necessary, like a baby walker that a small child uses to learn to walk. But after a certain point they can become restrictive”: How a Greek orthodox priest went viral by turning church hymns into fretless eight-string metal ragers.

 

Armed with a Harley Benton eight-string, genre-stretching Fr Dionysios Tabakis sent the music world into an unlikely frenzy with debut album Paradise Metal.

READ MORE.......

https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/fr-dionysios-tabakis-paradise-metal

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

When a parent tells a bedtime story, it usually starts with, “Once upon a time...” When someone tells a joke, it is generally preface by a scenario, “A priest, a pastor, and a rabbi walk into a restaurant...” And when a priest gives a homily, he often introduces it by saying, “In today’s gospel lesson...” This is because the Scriptures are based on teachings, lessons for spiritual advancement.  

Contrary to what many believe, the Gospels are not about the life of Christ, the travels of Christ, the miracles of Christ, or even people’s interactions with Christ; they are a collection of Jesus Christ’s teachings; teachings by word and example, and meant to inspire, reinforce, and embolden our faith. Anything other which the evangelists include simply adds context and color to those teachings and displays God’s power and authority.

Thus, the lesson for today is about faith: “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29). Everything in one’s life is inextricably connected to their faith, and the blessings we receive are in direct proportion to our faith. Therefore, the depth or “measure” of our faith denotes the importance and degree of one’s confidence that our Lord has the ability and power to bestow grace and healing, as well as the forgiveness of sins. Our faith is not the power behind God’s grace, but the conduit by which it flows.

Fr. John

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD IN SINAI - "What doest thou here, Elijah?..."

For the Feast of the Holy Prophet Elijah (July 20th)

ENCOUNTER WITH GOD IN SINAI - "What doest thou here, Elijah?..."

“And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? 

And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. 

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:8-13)

------------------------

St. Gregory of Sinai* (+1346 AD), commentary on Prophet Elijah’s encounter with God in Sinai:

“Grace begins to operate in people during prayer in different ways, for, as the apostle says, the Spirit distributes Himself as He wills in a variety of modes, and is perceived and known correspondingly (cf. Heb. 2:4). Elijah the Tishbite serves here as an example for us (cf. 1 Kgs. 19:11-12). 

In some the Spirit appears as a whirlwind of awe, dissolving the mountains of the passions and shattering the rocks of our hardened hearts, so that our worldly self is transpierced and mortified.

 In others the Spirit appears as an earthquake, that is to say as a sense of inward jubilation or what the fathers more clearly define as a sense of exultation. In others He is manifested inwardly as a fire that is non-material yet real; for what is unreal and imaginary is also non-existent.

 Finally, in others – particularly in those well advanced in prayer – God produces a gentle and serene flow of light. This is when Christ comes to dwell in the heart, as St Paul says (cf. Eph. 3:17), mystically disclosing Himself through the Holy Spirit. That is why God said to Elijah on Mount Horeb that the Lord was not in this or in that – not in the particular actions He manifests Himself in to beginners – but in the gentle flow of light; for it is in this that He attests the perfection of our prayer.”

*From St. Gregory of Sinai, Philokalia

------------------------------------

From the Pilgrimage of Egeria, who visited Sinai in the year 383,

"Having then fulfilled all the desire with which we had hastened to ascend, we began our descent from the summit of the mount of God which we had ascended to another mountain joined to it, which is called Horeb, where there is a church. This is that Horeb where was holy Elijah the prophet, when he fled from the face of Ahab the king, and where God spake to him and said: What doest thou here Elijah? as it is written in the books of the Kings. 

The cave where holy Elijah lay hid is shown to this day before the door of the church which is there. A stone altar also is shown which holy Elijah raised to make an offering to God; thus the holy men deigned to show us each place. There, too, we made the oblation, with very earnest prayer, and also read the passage from the book of the Kings; for it was our special custom that, when we had arrived at those places which I had desired to visit, the appropriate passage from the book should always be read."

Based on Fr. Justin's Sinai Blog: https://www.fatherjustinsblog.info/archives/3027