Tomorrow is Pentecost, the Birthday of the Church!

In the Church’s annual liturgical cycle, Pentecost is “the last and great day.” It is the celebration by the Church of the coming of the Holy Spirit as the end - the achievement and fulfillment - of the entire history of salvation. For the same reason, however, it is also the celebration of the beginning: it is the “birthday” of the Church as the presence among us of the Holy Spirit, of the new life in Christ, of grace, knowledge, adoption to God and holiness.

Tomorrow is a great and joyful day, one of the most important Feasts of the Eastern Orthodox Church! Many and blessed years to all of you, Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and other Christians!

Friend or flatterer?

The chief difference between a friend and a flatterer is this; the flatterer speaks to please, the friend will not leave out even what is disagreeable…. At all events any one would rather see his friend angry with him than any one else flattering him.

- Saint Basil the Great, “Letters XX and XXI to Leontius the Sophist”

The first day of my new life

…I cannot ignore the direction the Holy Spirit has taken me in and I cannot ignore the voice of God when He calls to me and leads me. He has led me to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the very Church that Christ founded that has remained unchanged in faith since the days of Christ otherwise known as the Orthodox Church. Despite being a happy Anglican I never felt like I quite fitted in and I didn’t know why until I found Orthodoxy and now I know why; tomorrow (Sunday) morning I will make the biggest step of my life so far and become a member of the Orthodox Church through Chrismation and I know that this is what God wants me to do.

… Today is my last day as an Anglican and tomorrow is the first day of my new life in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Orthodox Church.

- James, talking about his conversion to Orthodoxy

Memorial Saturday

Today we remember all pious and Orthodox Christians who have fallen asleep in the Lord, and also recall the dread Day of Judgment. May Christ our God be merciful to them, and to us.

“Remember, O Lord, those who have departed from this life, Orthodox kings and queens, princes and princesses, Orthodox Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops, Priests and Deacons and those who have served Thee in the Monastic State, and the laity of the Church, and the blessed founders of all Churches and monasteries, and grant them rest with the Saints in Thy eternal dwellings.”

May God rest the soul of every single person that has departed from this life…

I shall worship the God…

I shall worship the God, who holds His cupped ear even at cemeteries and listens, to hear whether anyone is crying out for resurrection or for the One who resurrects

-St. Nikolai Velimirovic

We cannot give Christ to others…

We cannot give Christ to others unless we have welcomed Him into the central place in our own heart…

- Abbot Tryphon of Vashon Island

James will be Chrismated in two days!

This weekend James, a former Anglo-Catholic will be received in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, namely the Orthodox Church. All the Orthodox Christian community on tumblr is very happy about this!!! 

Please, visit his blog, read more about his journey to Orthodoxy and feel free to send him your wishes!

Congratulations James! May God always bless you and keep you, in order to spread the light of Orthodoxy and inspire others with your life in Christ as you inspired us!

(Photo: Osman Orsal / Reuters)

On being stoic

If we do not ask for help from God, we will fall flat on our face. Whereas, when we do ask for divine help, Christ will bind us with a rope to His Grace and will uphold us. The wind may blow fiercely from all directions, but, because we are bound fast, we are not in danger. But when man does not realize that it is Christ Who upholds him, he may unbind himself, in which case he will be buffeted left and right and tormented.

- Elder Paisios of Mount Athos, “Spiritual Awakening”

The God of love…

Everything comes down to our relationship with the Triune God – the God of love. All is based on love and freedom. On the unconditional love of God, and the freedom we have to respond to that love with love. Love to all people, whether they are non-Christians and non-believers. Respect for all. Love for all. Witness to this truth of love. This is what our faith is about. This is true Orthodoxy.

- Archbishop Anastasios on the Orthodox Christian faith

How often…

How often have I entered the House of God without fear and trembling, stood there in prayer, frivolous and absent-minded, and left it in the same spirit and disposition! And in prayer at home I have been just as cold and indifferent, praying little, lazily, and indolently, inattentively and impiously, and even completely omitting the appointed prayers!

- St Basil The Great

Christianity is a religion of revelation

Christianity is a religion of revelation. The Divine reveals its glory only to those who have been perfected through virtue. Christianity teaches perfection through virtue and demands that its followers become holy and perfect. It disapproves of and opposes those who are under the influence of the imagination. He who is truly perfect in virtue becomes through Divine help outside the flesh and the world, and truly enters another, spiritual world; not, however, through the imagination, but through the effulgence of Divine grace. Without grace, without revelation, no man, even the most virtuous, can transcend the flesh and the world.

- St. Nektarios of Aegina

God is present in each and every created human

We need to see the image of God in every person we meet, because God is present in each and every created human, regardless of what they do.  So listening is an important part of our prayer life because as we listen to God and to other human beings we welcome them as we’d welcome Christ. Thus prayer is a conversation with God and through God with our fellow human beings as God empowers us to welcome them.

- An excerpt from “Listening to the Heartbeat of God”, by Hieromonk Peter-Michael Preble

On pride and humility

Pride does not allow the soul to set out on the path of faith. Here is my advice to the unbeliever: let him say, “Lord, if you exist, then illumine me, and I will serve you with all my heart and soul.” And for this humble thought and readiness to serve God, the Lord will immediately illumine him… And then your soul will sense the Lord; she will sense that the Lord has forgiven her, and loves her, and you will know this from experience, and the grace of the Holy Spirit will be a witness in your soul of your salvation, and you will want to cry out to the whole world: “The Lord loves us so much!”

- St. Silouan the Athonite