Wednesday, February 27, 2013
"Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them”
Written by Father Oleg Mumrikov (Doctor of Theology, lecturer at St Tikhon’s Orthodox Humanities University, teacher at the Moscow Theological Academy). Fr. Oleg asks a rather important question for the field of theology in a report presented during the session "On the Origin of the World and of Man" at the Moscow Theological Academy 20th International Educational Christmas Readings on 24 January 2012: how should one understand the array of facts, supporting evolutionary anthropogenesis, which have been gathered in anthropology?
A human being as a person, the bearer of image and likeness of the Godhead (Gen. 1:26-28), has despite his biological nature, qualities which essentially distinguish him from other living beings that populate the earth. According to the Holy Scripture, the appearance of Adam in this world from non-existence, he being the first ancestor of all people and the prefiguration ("typos") of the incarnate Pre-eternal Logos, is the consequence of a special creative act (Gen. 2:7). The first man was created incorrupt and potentially immortal, with a calling to transform the whole of the cosmos through his communion with the Creator, uniting it with incorrupt paradise. Having been beguiled by the devil and having fallen into the sin of disobedience to God, he lost Eden and his mission was subsequently completed by the Second Adam – the God-Man Jesus Christ. A look at the origin of human beings from the position of a spontaneous or even teleological evolutionism, as we were shown in one of the preceding publications,[1] is linked with a very dangerous trend that undermines the basis of teaching on original sin and, therefore, on Redemption.
Nevertheless, a question arises: in this case how should we understand the great number of facts collected by anthropology that support evolutionary anthropogenesis?
Citing anatomical, physiological, genetic and even behavioural similarities between humans and other hominids, the neocreationist approach proposes the concept of a “creative plan”: “sibling species”, interpreted by the evolutionary anthropology as related forms, could in actual fact be the implementation of the same Creative plan.[2] Some neocreationist authors even propose formal schemes – “life matrices” – that correspond to a number of hierarchical levels – from the simplest organisms to human beings, the existence of which helps the world-view conceptualisation on certain biogenetic laws involved in the embryonic development of organisms.[3]
Nevertheless discoveries in the sphere of virology and genetics in the context of deciphering the genetic code of human beings and chimpanzees at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries, whether we like this or not, show such suppositions to be unfounded.
Of particular interest is the detailed study of the location in the genome of the so-called endogenous retroviruses (ERV), which represent traces of ancient viral infections in the DNA. Retroviruses (such as HIV and the T-lymphothropic virus in humans, which causes leukaemia and lymphoma) use the mechanism of reverse transcription for the replication of its genome: the viral ferment – reverse transcriptase (or reverstase) – synthesises one strain of the DNA on the matrix of the virus RNA, and following this finishes building the second complementary strain on the synthesised strain of DNA. A double-stranded DNA molecule is formed, which, having made its way through the membrane of the nucleus, integrates into the chromosome DNA of the host’s cell and subsequently serves as the matrix for the synthesis of molecules of the virus RNA. These RNA molecules exit the cell nucleus and in the cell cytoplasm build into virus components, which are capable of infecting new cells.
Sometimes the ERV, inserted into the chromosomes of the infected organism's cells, can lay dormant for many generations, being “inherited” together with the copies of the host's DNA cells. Retroviruses insert themselves into the genome in a random fashion, the probability of independent insertion of identical viruses into identical positions of two different individuals being extremely small. And this means that the inserted genome of the same retrovirus could only be present in two organisms in the same position in the DNA only in the event of these organisms being descended from the same ancestor.
ERV make up about 1% of the human genome and in total there are around 30,000 such sequences in each person's DNA. Some of these retroviruses are found only in humans. Other sequences occur only in chimpanzees and in humans – these appear in the same positions in the genome (thus raising the question of humans and chimpanzees having a common ancestor). There are also sequences that occur in gorillas, chimpanzees and humans, in orang-utans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans, etc. The distribution of the endogenous retroviruses corresponds precisely to the evolutionary phylogenetic family tree.[4]
Thus, DNA analysis convincingly supports two of the main tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution – both the origin of all living beings from a common ancestor and natural selection from a myriad of random possibilities. Facts obtained following the deciphering of the human genome in particular show the succession in time, i.e. evolution. Thus, “we must <...> acknowledge that a human being, with all his favourable qualities <...> with his godlike mind, which grasped the movement and ordering of the Solar system, <...> with all his high abilities, does after all carry in his physical composition the indelible seal of his low origins.”[5]
Some neo-creationists look for a way out of the situation that arises by maintaining that endogenous retroviruses were initially created as part of the genome of the host for the purpose of coding jointly regulated proteins and for the regulation of the dispersed genes of the host. Retrotransposition and mobility of genetic elements adds flexibility to the cell genome, and the intercellular transfer allows ERV to take part in horizontal transfer of genes and homologous recombination. It is supposed that in the context of the functions being carried out “common design” mayexplain the similarities between ERV in both humans and in great apes. Consequently, following the tragedy of the Fall, the loss of the regulation of viral replication and integration led to mutagenesis through random insertions and brought about the pathogenic qualities of modern retroviruses.[6] After all, modern science believes that according to their historic origins viruses are not primary, but secondary in relation to organisms' genomes.
However, this theory, firstly, at the very least demands additional and weighty evidence of positive interaction between ERV and the genome of the host; secondly, it does not sit well with the facts that came to light after comparison of sets of chromosomes (karyotypes) of humans and chimpanzees.[7]
Meanwhile, in our view, the dilemma reconciling the teaching of the Bible and the Church Fathers on the creation of man with modern scientific evidence only appears to be irresolvable for Orthodox theology.
The solution to the problem is revealed during the study of the patristic interpretations of Gen. 3:21: when exiling our ancestors from Eden “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” Not denying the literal meaning of this verse, the fathers also pointed to the deep symbolic and ontological meaning of this passage: in clothing himself with the coats of skins after transgressing the divine commandment man takes upon himself “the nature of a beast”: his body becomes as mortal and susceptible to decay as that of other living creatures populating the earth. Of special interest is the fact that the interpretative tradition going as far back as Philo of Alexandria saw Gen. 3:21 as a parallel to several places in the book of Leviticus (Lev. 1:6; Lev. 4:10-11; Lev. 7:8; Lev 8:16-17; Lev. 9:10-11; Lev. 16:27) which contain instructions concerning important details of sacrifices and which at the same time reveal their deep theological symbolism. Moreover, in the pre-Christian and Christian interpretative tradition, these instructions, which were set in writing by the Prophet Moses, are directly linked to the prehistoric times of Adam, Cain, Abel and Seth. Thus Philo, when explaining why according to the Law the skin of the sacrificial animal belonged to the priests, writes (“On the sacrifice of Abel and Cain”, 139): “the law regarding sacrifices and burnt offerings is as follows: skin and excrement are signs of bodily weakness, but not corruption, are kept by the mortal [man], but the rest, which shows the soul to be spotless in all its parts is burnt wholly [in an offering] to God”.[8] Origen, in his “Homilies on the Book of Leviticus”, refers directly to Gen. 3:21 “These clothes were made from the skins of animals, because only such clothes should be worn by a sinner – coats of skins, as a sign of mortality, which he gained on account of sin and corruptibility to which he became subject on account of the decomposition of the body.”[9]
The use of animal skins and contact with dead bodies made the trade of the Old Testament tanner unclean; the tanning of skins was forbidden within the bounds of the city and they lived outside the city boundary.[10]
In the subsequent Christian tradition, free from the extremes and errors of Origen, the symbolic understanding of the term “coats of skins” became very widespread. Priest-martyr Methodius of Olympus (3rd-4th century AD) in the treatise “On the resurrection, against Origen” (chapter 10) speaks of “coats of skins” as “mortality prepared for the rational [creature]” and “sense of death”.[11] The comments and opinions of the Cappadocian Fathers regarding both of these meanings are of particular significance. St Gregory the Theologian (Discourse 7: On the Soul): “But when <...> man tasted before time of the sweet fruit and donned coats of skins – heavy flesh – and became the carrier of a corpse, because by death Christ put a limit to sin, he then departed from paradise to earth, from which he was taken, and received the lot of a life full of difficulties.”[12] In Discourse 38 (“On Theophany and on the Birth of the Saviour”) he also writes the following: “But when, due to the envy of the devil and the seduction of the woman, to which she herself was subjected as the weaker [of the two] and which she carried out as one crafty in persuasion <...>, man forgot the commandment given to him and was conquered by eating of bitterness, then through sin he became an exile, distanced at the same time from the tree of life, from paradise and from God; he was clothed in coats of skins (perhaps in the most crude, mortal and rebelling flesh), and for the first time he perceived his own shame and hid from God.”[13] St John Chrysostom, despite his strictly literal understanding of Gen. 3:31 nevertheless notes (“Discourses on the Book of Genesis, XVIII, 2): “Thus, let the use of clothing constantly remind us of the lost blessingsand of the punishment that humanity suffered for disobedience.”[14] If St John Chrysostom mostly keeps the view according to which before the Fall the whole world was incorrupt, St Gregory of Nyssa, following his brother Basil the Great argues the viewpoint that only the first man was incorruptible and immortal and that after the fall he assimilated the corrupt nature of animals, which is symbolised by his donning the coats of skins: “...man, like some earthen vessel, once again disintegrates into the dust of the earth, so that, by separation from the impurity that he had acquired, he could after the resurrection be re-fashioned in his initial form. The same doctrine is set before us by Moses under the guise of an historical tale and riddles. Nevertheless the teaching contained in these riddles is plain. For, he says, when the first people touched the forbidden fruit and stripped themselves of this blessed state, the Lord put coats of skins on the first man (Gen. 3:21), and it seems to me that the meaning of that passage does not refer exactly to skins as such (because from which sort of slain animals could skins have been taken and clothing for people prepared?) However, because every skin separated from an animal is dead, I believe that following this, the Doctor treating ourdepravity, in order to prevent it remaining in us forever, in His providence invested man with that capacity of dying that had been the special attribute of the brute creation; because a robe is something put on us, lending itself to the body for a time, without becoming part of its nature. Thus, by special providence, mortality was transferred from the nature of brute creatures to the nature that was created for immortality and covered it externally and not internally, encompassingthe sensory part of man without touching the image of God itself. <...> For which reason <...> death and decomposition following the donning of dead skins, does not touch the soul...” (Great Catechetical Discourse, Chapter 8)[15] In another work of his (“On the Soul and the Resurrection”) St Gregory writes: “Thus, everything that became mixed with human nature from the nature of brutes did not previously exist in us, until humanityfell into passions due to wickedness; <...> so we too, when we have cast off that dead unsightly tunic, which was made from the skins of brutes and put upon us (for I take the "coats of skins" to mean the external features of a brute nature with which we were clothed when we became familiar with passionate indulgence), shall, along with the casting off of that tunic, fling from us everything that was within us of that skin of a brute, which includes sexual intercourse, conception, birth, impurities, suckling, feeding, excretion, gradual growth to full size, prime of life, old age, disease, and death. <...> I mean, what have wrinkles or corpulence, leanness or fatness, or any other condition occurring in a nature that is ever in a flux, to do with the other life, stranger as it is to any fleeting and transitory passing such as that?”[16] The subsequent development of the symbolic interpretation of “coats of skins” can also be found in the theological treatise “The life of Moses”, where St Gregory refers not to the abovementioned places in the book of Leviticus, but this time finds some parallels in the book of Exodus, which tells of how God appeared to Moses in the guise of a burning bush. Addressing the prophet “in the flame of fire from the midst of a thorn bush”, God commands him to take off his shoes (Exod. 3:5). Interpreting these words, Bishop Gregory of Nyssa notes: “That light teaches us what we must do to stand within the rays of the true light: Sandaled feet cannot ascend that height where the light of truth is seen, but the dead and earthly covering of skins, which was placed around our nature at the beginning when we were found naked because of disobedience to the divine will, must be removed from the feet of the soul.”[17]
Although in his “Commentaries on the Book of Genesis” (Chapter 2) St Ephrem the Syrian gives greater significance to the literal meaning (like St John Chrysostom), he does not ignore the symbolic aspect of Genesis 3:21: “These coats were either made from animal skins or made anew, because, according to Moses, the Lord made these coats and clothed Adam and Eve in them. One may imagine that our ancestors, having touched theirwaistbands with their hands, foun d that they were wearing robes made of animal skins, which were possibly killed before their very eyes so that they would eat their meat and cover their nakedness with skins, and in their very death saw the death of their own bodies.”[18]
Professor A.I. Sidorov notes that St Athanasius of Sinai (7th century) “can trace the origins of his interpretation of the ‘coats’ to Philo of Alexandria, according to which, they are our present nature, our crude biological state, so different from the transparent bodies of paradise <...> but, departing in a personal side note from the interpretation that was widespread in the writings of the ancient church, he remains, examining the anthropological problem from a Christological and soteriological perspective, within the general course of the patristic tradition.”[19]
According to St Maximus the Confessor, the donning of “coats of skins” signified that “strife was introduced to the elements of the human body and for this reason it became crude and corruptible, susceptible to suffering and death. <...> Man was not only stripped of the incorruptibility of his nature, but condemned to a passion-filled birth from a seed, like that of the animals. His body was completely subjected to the laws of the freely chosen beast-like existence.”[20]
St John of Damascus, in “The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” (book 3 chapter 1), follows the exegetic tradition of the Cappadocian Fathers and St Maximus the Confessor: “Man<...> who forfeited grace and put off his confidence with God, covering himself with the hardships of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves), and who was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies), <...> and made subject to corruption, was not despised by the Compassionate One.”[21]
St Gregory of Sinai (14th century) in his “Chapters on Commandments and Dogmas...” also says that after the tragedy of the Fall in his physical nature Man became similar to corruptible animals (Chapters 9 and 82): “Corruption is derived from the flesh. To consume food and expel theexcess, to proudly hold the head up high and to sleep lying down – is a natural property of all animals and beasts, of which we, having become through transgression beast-like, fell away from the God-given blessings granted to us and became beast-like instead of rational and animal-like instead of godlike. <...> When the soul was breathed into us and created rational and capable of thought, then God did not create together with it anger or beastly desire, but only put into it the power of the will and the courage to fulfil desires. In the same way, having created the body, He did not at the beginning add to it anger and irrational desire, but afterwards, following the disobedience, it took within itself death, corruption and beast-like qualities. Theologians say that the body, having been created incorrupt, will be resurrected as such, just as the soul was created passionless; but just as the soul had the freedom to sin, the body had the chance of being subjected to corruption. And both of them, i.e. the soul and the body, became corrupt and both dissolved, according to the natural law of them being joined to each other and their mutual influence: moreover the soul became tinged with passions and even demons; and the body became similar to irrational beasts and sunk into corruption.”[22]
St Gregory Palamas: “In this manner both disease and weakness and the many-faceted burden of temptations have their origin in sin; because as a result of it we became clothed in a robe of skins – this body that is sickly and mortal and scarred by many sorrows – and crossed over into this world, which is subject to time and death, and have been condemned to live this very unhappy life that is beset with many passions.”[23]
The traditional interpretation of the “coats of skins” as the initiation of human nature into the laws of “bestial nature” even entered into Church canon law (clarification of the 109th rule of the Carthage Council by Zonara and Balsamon): “Although at the time man also had flesh, though it was not like that which he has now; Gregory the Theologian has the following to say about this: clothed in coats of skins, perhaps in the crudest of flesh, mortal and contrary (to its previous state); because before the transgression Adam did have flesh and it was not crude or mortal by nature”.[24] A similar interpretation of Gen 3:21 can also be found in church liturgical hymnography.”[25]
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) says that “because of the fall our body entered into one category with the bodies of animals, it exists as animal life, the life of its fallen nature.”[26]
Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow in his “Notes on the book of Genesis” not only departs from the general patristic understanding of this biblical text, but also like the ancient exegetes draws well-known parallels with the book of Leviticus: “In the opinion of Gregory the Theologian [Discourse 38, see above – Priest O.M.] the coats of skins, given to the first people, meanthe crude and mortal flesh. But although it is true that the human body became crude and mortal after the fall, it cannot be said that before it man was free of the flesh; because his body was created prior to his soul, and the coats of skins that were given to him, at least in their literal sense, also do not signify flesh, just like in the case of his first, own experience of clothing – the fig leaves. Neither would it be natural to label clothes from fibre or from the barkof plants as coats of skins, but clothes fromanimal skinsshould be understood to be the closest in meaning to this. Inasmuch as the emergence of the need for such clothes supposes the commencing of the current state of the human beast-like body and because Moses usually describes what is visible, concealing beneath the visible what is to be contemplated, the words: unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, in actual fact suppose that God gave the fallen humans beast-like flesh.<...> At the same time God taught humans to sacrifice animals and to turn their skins into clothes, so that with these sacrifices he was instructed to kill in himself the beast-like desires and passions <...>. Such a supposition also gives a satisfactory explanation to the origin of bloody sacrifices<...> and, especially, the origin of the law that gives the priest the skin from the burnt offering(Lev. 8:8).”[27]
The cited patristic texts that unfold the theology of “coats of skins”, bring us to the solution of the problem posed: in studying the common genetic, physiological and anatomical hereditary features of animals and humans, in actual fact, science is only dealing with humans that have already been exiled from Eden. In studying his physical nature, clothed in “coats of skins”, natural science quite legitimately and “lawfully” makes certain conclusions about the evolutionary and historical relation with primates. But from the point of view of orthodox theology these conclusions ontologically do not apply to Adam, created in the beginning, and his descendants, but in themselves constitute one of the paradoxical consequences of the fall of our forefathers: the likeness of God is not destroyed, but in a way recedes to the background before the likeness of the “beasts of the field”. Being outside Eden and existing autonomously from the Creator it is impossible to delve very deep into the mystery of our own origin. If the Book of Nature was to give exhaustive knowledge of our origins, then there would have been no need of Supernatural Revelation, given by the Holy Spirit through His chosen prophets.[28]
It is clear that the realisation or actualisation of the unchangeable, blessed creative plan for the world (matter – space – time) as incorruptible and “very good” depends on the moral self-determination of our first ancestors in Paradise in relation to God. The created world exists in accordance with the good, unchangeable, perfect divine meaning and plan ( logos), but the form of its existence (tropos - according to St. Maximus the Confessor) may not correspond to this plan.[29] By expressing his freedom as rebellion against the Divine will, Adam gains a bitter right to “autonomous” existence (And the LORD God said, Behold, man is become as one of us, to know good and evil - Gen. 3:22). Consequently both the story of its formation and the current existence of the world and existence of man himself appear to him, in his fallen state, as dependent on chance, a blind, meaningless, dead and chaotic process, which includes not only competition, natural selection and death, but also cruelty, suffering and elaborate parasitism. Dwelling outside Eden and having ephemeral existence, which is 'autonomous from the Creator', it is impossible to “perceive”, using the means of rationalisation and experience provided by the senses, one's own origins in any different way. “Thus the demons divide into parts amongst themselves the visible creation [consisting of] the four elements, letting us see [it only] through our senses in order to arouse our passions, unaware of the divine logoi contained in it,” said St. Maximus the Confessor.[30]
The coats of skins symbolise our biological hypostasis, which clothes the personal otherness of man. Before the fall all biological energies manifested themselves and acted in man exclusively as the expression of God’s image: man constituted the personal otherness and the ability of life to exist through unity in love. After the fall the hypostasis of the human subject become biological and the natural psychosomatic energies serve to support life, which is reduced to individual survival.”[31]
Nevertheless the Supernatural biblical revelation and faith would still allow man, who remains in a state of corruption, damaged by “carnal thoughts” (Romans. 8:5-6) and clothed in “coats of skins” (Gen. 3:21), to see, beyond the existence of“cursed earth” (Gen. 3:17-19), the action of Divine providence and to meet the Creator Himself face to Face. This is what the theology of the “coats of skins” should help to achieve.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Sickness that Is Arrogance
In its desire to prepare us for the great and bright battle of the virtues, Holy and Great Lent, the Church, has adopted a period of preparation, that of the Triodion. This period starts with tomorrow’s Sunday, with an important parable related by our Lord: the Publican and the Pharisee.
The parable says that two people went to the temple to pray. Two went, but only one fulfilled his aim: the Publican. The sinner, the wretch, the good-for-nothing. He who was so ashamed of his actions that he didn’t dare even raise his eyes. He who asked for no more than the mercy of God. And he achieved it. With remorse and humility, he gained divine forgiveness.
On the other hand, there was the “outstanding” Pharisee. The virtuous, the righteous person, the observer of the commandments of religious law and sacred traditions. He who did everything he could to avoid falling into any transgression. The Pharisee stood to pray, but in fact he had no need to do so. It was another obligation for him, another duty for him to perform. And so, in essence, he stands before God bringing all his righteousness with him. He lists his virtues. He tells God how wonderful he is. He sets out all the reasons why he’s different from other people, who are wallowing in sin. He points out to God how superior he is to the insignificant Publican who is sitting, heart-broken, in a corner of the temple.
It doesn’t seem as if the Pharisee’s lying. He doesn’t look as though he’s pretending. But he’s suffering from a great and terrible disease, which, alas, is endemic among the ranks of the pious: arrogance. In the end, he doesn’t need God or his fellow human beings. He’s conscientious in performing his obligations and that’s an end of it. Or rather, he does need God and other people, but only to recognize his worthiness. In reality, that is, he’s interested only in himself. Nothing else. His ego and all his “good” deeds that show off his worth are his world. And this is the strange thing: religiosity eventually ends up as atheism! That’s where hardness of heart leads people.
If we want to be honest, however, we ought to recognize that the scourge of arrogance and pride doesn’t affect only the pious, but the whole of society. At work, in the family, in the company we keep, what interests us most is recognition, our own ascendency. At bottom, we think everybody else is wrong, they’re unfair, they sin and we’re the only ones to do right. And sometimes this isn’t restricted to ourselves, but extends to circles with ourselves at the centre. It’s only our own family that stands out, our own friends who have any value, our own region that contributes to the country, our own professional group that serves society. The others are unjustly favoured and we’re the only ones to be treated unfairly.
This is why the tradition of our Church is so clear: people and their societies prosper only if they manage to root out conceit. Only if they’re able to empathize with their neighbours and care about them will they ever be able “to see the face of God”, literally and metaphorically. God forgives and grants His grace where he sees humility, self-awareness and self-censure and turns His face from haughtiness, no matter what “virtues” it may have.
Source: http://www.pemptousia.com/2013/02/the-sickness-that-is-arrogance/
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sayings of Gerontisa Gavriellia
1. Any place may become a place of Resurrection, if the Humility of Christ becomes the way of our life.
2. You may sleep, as long as you are in a state of watchfulness.
3. There are some who stay awake for a few, and some who stay awake for all.
4. Orthodox spirituality is knowledge acquired through suffering rather than through learning.
5. Do not wish for many things, whether they are within or out of reach. Instead, take care to sanctify the little you have.
6. To learn how to love God: this is the one and only Education.
7. There is nothing cheaper than money.
8. Better Hell in this world than in the other.
9. It is not what we say, but what we live. It is not what we do, but what we are.
10. I put on the Rasson (Monastic habit) and I do not speak unless I am asked. The Rasson speaks.
11. If you have love for all the world, the whole world is beautiful.
12. Someone said that a Christian is he who purifies love and sanctifies work.
15. Our purpose should be to have the Paraclete in our heart, even when we have the... Parasite in our head.
16. We become a reflection of Heaven by saying: 'Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven'.
17. He who loves is not aware of it, as he is not aware of his own breathing.
18. When doors are open in Heaven, they are also open on Earth.
19. When the mind is not distracted by worldly matters and remains united to God, then even the 'Good day' that we say becomes a blessing.
20. By saying 'no' and by refusing, we forfeit our purpose.
21. We must not 'exist' in the presence of the other person, who is God's 'image and likeness'.
22. In the early steps of our life we need the presence of someone we love. As we advance, the One, God, fills us with His Love and Joy so much that we no longer need anyone. The soul does this at the beginning because she does not know yet Whom she loves, and thinks it is this or that person.
23. Many times what God expects from us is the intention rather than the act itself. Our readiness to follow His Commandment is enough for Him.
24. Jesus Christ gave us the golden mean: both alone and with others.
25. When God created us, He gave us Life and breathed His Spirit into us. This Spirit is Love. When love deserts us, we become as dead as corpses. We are not alive any more.
26. A Christian must have reverence for the Mystery of Existence in everyone and everything.
27. To reach the state of non-existence, love and love and love until you identify yourself completely with the Other One, whoever this may be at the time. Then, at the end of the day you may ask yourself: Is there anything I want? No. Is there anything I wish 'No. Is there anything I lack' No... So, that's it!
28. The spiritually advanced person is the one who has reached a state of "non-existence" and has deeply understood that whatever happens to him is either because God Wills it or because God Permits it.
29. True inner progress begins only when a person stops reading anything but the Gospel. It is only then that, united with God through the Jesus Prayer, he can hear God's Will.
30. Never wish for anything but the Will of God and accept with love any trials that may come your way.
31. Never identify a person with the wrong way in which he is treating you, but see Christ in his heart.
32. Never ask: "Why has this happened to me" 'When you see somebody suffering from gangrene or cancer or blindness, never say: "Why has this happened to him"' Instead, pray God to grant you the vision of the other shore... Then, like the Angels, you will be able to see things as they really are: Everything in God's plan. EVERYTHING.
33. A wise man said: If you are to live only for yourself, it would have been better if you had not been born.
36. A person's most vulnerable spot is found in much talking and discussing.
37. To be meek is to wish never to have a guilty conscience.
38. When thoughts of passing judgment on another person cross your mind, pray God to take them away at once, so that you may love this person as He does. Then God will help you see your own faults. If Christ were visible, could you have such thoughts?
39. If you do not like somebody, think that you see Christ in that person. Then, you would not even dare utter a word of criticism.
40. We must love people and accept them in our hearts as God presents them to us. It has been thus ordained by the Lord Himself and by the Orthodox Tradition.
41. No one should become the servant of another man. We are only servants of God. 'For ye are bought with a price', says the Apostle (1Cor.6:20). Therefore, there should be no servility in human relations.
42. What we say remains in Eternity.
43. Only when you are perfected in Love can you reach the state of Dispassion (Apatheia).
44. Only those who act without true love face adversities.
45.The faculty of judgment (Krisis) comes naturally to man. Criticism (Katakrisis) and reproval spring from malice. Discernment (Diakrisis) is a gift from God and we should pray for it. It is essential to our protection and progress.
46. The life of the Church extends beyond moral discipline and religious duty. It is the transcendence of Morality to Spirituality.
47. An irresolute person does not participate in life.
48. When we must be helped, God will send someone to us. We are all fellow-travellers.
49. The voice of God is silence.
50. Whoever lives in the Past is like a dead man. Whoever lives in the Future in his imagination is naive, because the Future belongs to God. The Joy of Christ is found only in the Present, in the Eternal Present of God.
51. Our destination is to worship God and love our fellow-men.
52. We find happiness and peace only by living according to God's Commandments.
53. The most essential act of Philanthropy is to speak well of our fellow-men.
54. I could not get worried, even if I tried. When we worry it is as if we say to God: "I do not agree. You don't do things right". Besides, this is sheer ingratitude.
55. To speak in the presence of Beauty is superfluous. It disturbs its harmony.
56. Through the invocation of the name of Christ, we batter our Ego.
57. It is the oil-lamp of our soul that must be always lighted, burning forever.
58. We are the first to feel the joy we give to others.
59. Better a prayer of the lips than no prayer at all.
60. Let God intervene between you and your purpose, instead of letting your purpose intervene between you and God.
61. The agony of dying is the effort made by the soul to free herself and run towards the Lord.
62. Correspondence is the only way that combines solitude and company.
63. Miracle is the normal course of events according to God's Will. What we call a Miracle is only what is natural to God.
65. If we meet with an adversity, let us not ask who is to blame. Because the blame is only ours. We shall find the reason if we ask for it in our Prayer: perhaps we have not loved enough, or we have disobeyed another Commandment, or we have mishandled the situation, or we have moved faster than we should, or we have relied on the wrong person.
66. When we lose something, let us say: 'In this manner, Lord, deliver me also from any evil thought I may have for my neighbour'.
67. Anxiety is for those who have no Faith.
68. Love is only on the Cross.
69. Human relationships become difficult when the "I" stands above the "You".
70. God loves your enemies as much as He loves you.
71. Do you want to Pray? Prepare yourself to meet the Lord in secret.
72. By God's Permission some people become instruments of the Power of Darkness for our own testing and progress.
73. You must not get upset, because a restless heart drives away all Help.
74. If one can live in the world and yet not mix with it - just as the oil and water do not mix in the oil-lamp - then he can live in God. He is in this world but not of this world.
75. We are all vessels, sometimes of Light and sometimes of Darkness.
76. Keep your mouth shut in the hour of crisis, when a problem is acute. Do not say anything, because you may regret it a thousand times. Instead, tell it to the Angels so that they may place it at the Lord's Feet, and pray the Lord for an Angel of Peace to calm your soul.
77. Sometimes people ask for your advice or instruction, so that they may put the "blame" on you afterwards if things go wrong. Quite probably though, whatever you say will be ignored, in which case it will all be a waste of trouble.
78. When the 'I' breaks and becomes 'You' and the 'You' also breaks so that they may both become 'He', then we all become 'His'.
79. If you ever feel fear in your heart, close your eyes and say the Jesus Prayer: 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me'...
80. Only when we are still, do we give the Angels an opportunity to do something.
81. Do what you must do, and God will do what He must do.
82. When you feel a fluttering in your heart, a deep yearning for something, this will come true after a lapse of time determined by God.
83. We ourselves cannot get rid of any of our faults. He takes them away from us, one by one.
84. We should ask God everyday to break our will and make it His, so that we may become as He wants us to be.
85. We must not 'surrender' to His Will. This is what soldiers do. We, who are His Children, must offer Him our own will along with all our being - in whatever pitiful state we may be - and tell him: "Lord, take all my faults and imperfections and set them right."
86. The Grace of God comes when we raise our hand. It is Faith that draws God's Grace to us. God is 'pouring down' His Grace, but where is the hand reaching out to receive it? Instead, we are wearing hats or carrying umbrellas...
87. If a foreigner speaks evil of Greece and the Orthodox Faith, do not identify the man with his words. Still, never speak to him about such significant events like the discovery of Holy Relics and other miraculous things that happen here.
88. You must not talk about persons who are absent.
89. We live in Vanity, and believe that this is life. How pitiable we are!
90. O Lord! Forgive us if we sometimes walk in pride, like little cockerels that think they are great.
91. Poor human beings! We consider the perishable as Immortal and the Immortal as non-existant.
92. Poor onion! It also offers what it can.
93. How beautiful is the 'Mystery', the 'Sacrament' of Tomorrow!
94. A person takes his lesson only once. If he does not learn the first time, it means that there is something wrong in his subconscious which prevents him from doing so.
95. The Lord said: Whoever wants something, believing, he will receive - As long as the request is in accordance with God's Commandments, that is to say, with Love.
96. Do not deny others the crumbs falling off your table from the Bread of Life which is given to you whole by the Lord. So many hunger and thirst for Love, like Lazarus who fed on the crumbs falling off the table of the rich man.
97. We have no right not to reflect the Light of the Lord. Nothing should be left in the shade, 'under the meal-tub'.
98. Everything has two sides, like a two-edged knife. What creates today, destroys tomorrow. 'Let him understand, he who may understand'.
99. Some of the sailors on a ship may quarrel and fight each other, but the ship sails on and reaches its destination. The same is true of the Church, because Christ Himself is at the helm.
100. If you knew that you are not Here, you would be There.
2. You may sleep, as long as you are in a state of watchfulness.
3. There are some who stay awake for a few, and some who stay awake for all.
4. Orthodox spirituality is knowledge acquired through suffering rather than through learning.
5. Do not wish for many things, whether they are within or out of reach. Instead, take care to sanctify the little you have.
6. To learn how to love God: this is the one and only Education.
7. There is nothing cheaper than money.
8. Better Hell in this world than in the other.
9. It is not what we say, but what we live. It is not what we do, but what we are.
10. I put on the Rasson (Monastic habit) and I do not speak unless I am asked. The Rasson speaks.
11. If you have love for all the world, the whole world is beautiful.
12. Someone said that a Christian is he who purifies love and sanctifies work.
15. Our purpose should be to have the Paraclete in our heart, even when we have the... Parasite in our head.
16. We become a reflection of Heaven by saying: 'Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven'.
17. He who loves is not aware of it, as he is not aware of his own breathing.
18. When doors are open in Heaven, they are also open on Earth.
19. When the mind is not distracted by worldly matters and remains united to God, then even the 'Good day' that we say becomes a blessing.
20. By saying 'no' and by refusing, we forfeit our purpose.
21. We must not 'exist' in the presence of the other person, who is God's 'image and likeness'.
22. In the early steps of our life we need the presence of someone we love. As we advance, the One, God, fills us with His Love and Joy so much that we no longer need anyone. The soul does this at the beginning because she does not know yet Whom she loves, and thinks it is this or that person.
23. Many times what God expects from us is the intention rather than the act itself. Our readiness to follow His Commandment is enough for Him.
24. Jesus Christ gave us the golden mean: both alone and with others.
25. When God created us, He gave us Life and breathed His Spirit into us. This Spirit is Love. When love deserts us, we become as dead as corpses. We are not alive any more.
26. A Christian must have reverence for the Mystery of Existence in everyone and everything.
27. To reach the state of non-existence, love and love and love until you identify yourself completely with the Other One, whoever this may be at the time. Then, at the end of the day you may ask yourself: Is there anything I want? No. Is there anything I wish 'No. Is there anything I lack' No... So, that's it!
28. The spiritually advanced person is the one who has reached a state of "non-existence" and has deeply understood that whatever happens to him is either because God Wills it or because God Permits it.
29. True inner progress begins only when a person stops reading anything but the Gospel. It is only then that, united with God through the Jesus Prayer, he can hear God's Will.
30. Never wish for anything but the Will of God and accept with love any trials that may come your way.
31. Never identify a person with the wrong way in which he is treating you, but see Christ in his heart.
32. Never ask: "Why has this happened to me" 'When you see somebody suffering from gangrene or cancer or blindness, never say: "Why has this happened to him"' Instead, pray God to grant you the vision of the other shore... Then, like the Angels, you will be able to see things as they really are: Everything in God's plan. EVERYTHING.
33. A wise man said: If you are to live only for yourself, it would have been better if you had not been born.
36. A person's most vulnerable spot is found in much talking and discussing.
37. To be meek is to wish never to have a guilty conscience.
38. When thoughts of passing judgment on another person cross your mind, pray God to take them away at once, so that you may love this person as He does. Then God will help you see your own faults. If Christ were visible, could you have such thoughts?
39. If you do not like somebody, think that you see Christ in that person. Then, you would not even dare utter a word of criticism.
40. We must love people and accept them in our hearts as God presents them to us. It has been thus ordained by the Lord Himself and by the Orthodox Tradition.
41. No one should become the servant of another man. We are only servants of God. 'For ye are bought with a price', says the Apostle (1Cor.6:20). Therefore, there should be no servility in human relations.
42. What we say remains in Eternity.
43. Only when you are perfected in Love can you reach the state of Dispassion (Apatheia).
44. Only those who act without true love face adversities.
45.The faculty of judgment (Krisis) comes naturally to man. Criticism (Katakrisis) and reproval spring from malice. Discernment (Diakrisis) is a gift from God and we should pray for it. It is essential to our protection and progress.
46. The life of the Church extends beyond moral discipline and religious duty. It is the transcendence of Morality to Spirituality.
47. An irresolute person does not participate in life.
48. When we must be helped, God will send someone to us. We are all fellow-travellers.
49. The voice of God is silence.
50. Whoever lives in the Past is like a dead man. Whoever lives in the Future in his imagination is naive, because the Future belongs to God. The Joy of Christ is found only in the Present, in the Eternal Present of God.
51. Our destination is to worship God and love our fellow-men.
52. We find happiness and peace only by living according to God's Commandments.
53. The most essential act of Philanthropy is to speak well of our fellow-men.
54. I could not get worried, even if I tried. When we worry it is as if we say to God: "I do not agree. You don't do things right". Besides, this is sheer ingratitude.
55. To speak in the presence of Beauty is superfluous. It disturbs its harmony.
56. Through the invocation of the name of Christ, we batter our Ego.
57. It is the oil-lamp of our soul that must be always lighted, burning forever.
58. We are the first to feel the joy we give to others.
59. Better a prayer of the lips than no prayer at all.
60. Let God intervene between you and your purpose, instead of letting your purpose intervene between you and God.
61. The agony of dying is the effort made by the soul to free herself and run towards the Lord.
62. Correspondence is the only way that combines solitude and company.
63. Miracle is the normal course of events according to God's Will. What we call a Miracle is only what is natural to God.
65. If we meet with an adversity, let us not ask who is to blame. Because the blame is only ours. We shall find the reason if we ask for it in our Prayer: perhaps we have not loved enough, or we have disobeyed another Commandment, or we have mishandled the situation, or we have moved faster than we should, or we have relied on the wrong person.
66. When we lose something, let us say: 'In this manner, Lord, deliver me also from any evil thought I may have for my neighbour'.
67. Anxiety is for those who have no Faith.
68. Love is only on the Cross.
69. Human relationships become difficult when the "I" stands above the "You".
70. God loves your enemies as much as He loves you.
71. Do you want to Pray? Prepare yourself to meet the Lord in secret.
72. By God's Permission some people become instruments of the Power of Darkness for our own testing and progress.
73. You must not get upset, because a restless heart drives away all Help.
74. If one can live in the world and yet not mix with it - just as the oil and water do not mix in the oil-lamp - then he can live in God. He is in this world but not of this world.
75. We are all vessels, sometimes of Light and sometimes of Darkness.
76. Keep your mouth shut in the hour of crisis, when a problem is acute. Do not say anything, because you may regret it a thousand times. Instead, tell it to the Angels so that they may place it at the Lord's Feet, and pray the Lord for an Angel of Peace to calm your soul.
77. Sometimes people ask for your advice or instruction, so that they may put the "blame" on you afterwards if things go wrong. Quite probably though, whatever you say will be ignored, in which case it will all be a waste of trouble.
78. When the 'I' breaks and becomes 'You' and the 'You' also breaks so that they may both become 'He', then we all become 'His'.
79. If you ever feel fear in your heart, close your eyes and say the Jesus Prayer: 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me'...
80. Only when we are still, do we give the Angels an opportunity to do something.
81. Do what you must do, and God will do what He must do.
82. When you feel a fluttering in your heart, a deep yearning for something, this will come true after a lapse of time determined by God.
83. We ourselves cannot get rid of any of our faults. He takes them away from us, one by one.
84. We should ask God everyday to break our will and make it His, so that we may become as He wants us to be.
85. We must not 'surrender' to His Will. This is what soldiers do. We, who are His Children, must offer Him our own will along with all our being - in whatever pitiful state we may be - and tell him: "Lord, take all my faults and imperfections and set them right."
86. The Grace of God comes when we raise our hand. It is Faith that draws God's Grace to us. God is 'pouring down' His Grace, but where is the hand reaching out to receive it? Instead, we are wearing hats or carrying umbrellas...
87. If a foreigner speaks evil of Greece and the Orthodox Faith, do not identify the man with his words. Still, never speak to him about such significant events like the discovery of Holy Relics and other miraculous things that happen here.
88. You must not talk about persons who are absent.
89. We live in Vanity, and believe that this is life. How pitiable we are!
90. O Lord! Forgive us if we sometimes walk in pride, like little cockerels that think they are great.
91. Poor human beings! We consider the perishable as Immortal and the Immortal as non-existant.
92. Poor onion! It also offers what it can.
93. How beautiful is the 'Mystery', the 'Sacrament' of Tomorrow!
94. A person takes his lesson only once. If he does not learn the first time, it means that there is something wrong in his subconscious which prevents him from doing so.
95. The Lord said: Whoever wants something, believing, he will receive - As long as the request is in accordance with God's Commandments, that is to say, with Love.
96. Do not deny others the crumbs falling off your table from the Bread of Life which is given to you whole by the Lord. So many hunger and thirst for Love, like Lazarus who fed on the crumbs falling off the table of the rich man.
97. We have no right not to reflect the Light of the Lord. Nothing should be left in the shade, 'under the meal-tub'.
98. Everything has two sides, like a two-edged knife. What creates today, destroys tomorrow. 'Let him understand, he who may understand'.
99. Some of the sailors on a ship may quarrel and fight each other, but the ship sails on and reaches its destination. The same is true of the Church, because Christ Himself is at the helm.
100. If you knew that you are not Here, you would be There.
101. Love alone is enough to make a miracle happen. Neither Prayer nor the Komboskini (Prayer rope) have such power.
102. Experience has taught me that no one can help anyone, no matter how strong his wish and love may be. Help comes only in the Hour of God, from the One.
105. We are useful only when we do not exist for ourselves. And vice versa.
106. We must not take decisions on behalf of others. We should leave this to the Angels for they always find the best solution.
108. Like Simon of Cyrene, we must be always ready to rush to the help of our fellow-man.
109. If you seek assistance from someone who is busy, he will do it for you, not the indolent and the lazy.
110. Woe to me if I do not love.
111. Three things are needful. First Love, Second Love, Third Love.
112. The fasting of a diet is so easy when one wants to slim. And so difficult is the Wednesday and Friday fast when the Church wants it.
113. In the Church we should always sit in the same place, for the Angels.
114. After the Liturgy, we should sit in the Church so long as we can, for the Angels
115. When we are talking and someone interrupts us, we should not continue. It means that he should not hear that which we would have said. The Angels do thus.
116. He who does not want to see anybody is not human.
117. Nowhere are we ‘forever'. (We are never anyplace "forever".)
118. Whatever happens to us is only our own fault.
119. Every morning, on the new page we open, we sign the blank. Whatever God wills, let Him write. (Every morning open a new page and put your signature on the blank. Whatever God wants, let Him write.)
120. When we pray we should lock our door.
125. If you do not reach the point of despair, you will never see the Light.
136. Be still and know...There is no greater school than this kind of stillness of the mind.
137. The only true joy is freedom from worry.
138. Just as you cannot get very close to the sources of great rivers because of the noise of the waters, and you cannot talk or hear, so you cannot get close to the source of life and love, which is God. And only from a distance can you receive the warmth, the energy, the power and the "water" which He gives you, to conduct it in your turn.
139. Like a little bird who, when the branch he is standing on breaks, doesn't worry but opens his wings and flies, so our faith and hope in God give us the strength and joy to fly when the twig breaks beneath our feet.
140. The more closed is the door of our cell, the more open the gate of heaven.
141. The body needs "terrorism". It is the only way.
142. When somebody sets out to spoil our joy, we should remember within ourselves that God loves us.
143. You should be with people as you are with Christ; just as if He were present, and then you will not get upset about anything or with anybody.
144. The more we take things and problems to heart, the more we show our pride and lack of faith.
145. Someone truly humble does not get upset, because whoever gets upset starts off with judgement, with condemnation and rebellion.
146. The libraries and lecture halls are always full; but what saint has ever come from them?
147. Our intellectual cultivation is done in the heart. That is an intellectual person. Not somebody educated, as many think.
148. There is something called Christian self-respect. Because the Christian knows that he is a brother of the Prince of Glory and a son of the Father. Because of this it is not allowed in his presence for others to talk in an unseemly way or to condemn people present or absent.
149. God our Father Himself takes us by the hand and takes us to testing. For our purification and perfection. That is why God the Son has taught us to pray to Him, "and lead us not into temptation".
150. Christ said to us: Go and make disciples of all nations. And we - hushing up - what do we do?
151. If you love the Lord, then you have patience towards His will. If however you have patience without love, then you are like a soldier of Hitler's. Nothing more.
152. Condemnation, mockery, contempt, hypocrisy, saying "Yes, but..." - these are the weapons of the weak man who has failed in what he wanted to do in his life and his destination before God.
153. Our Lord gave as an example of freedom from care, not people but the birds of heaven.
154. When you don't seek anything, and when whatever God gives you, you give it all away... that is love.
155. When we ask somebody to pray for us to obtain such and such a virtue, we should also pray the same, for in this case, our prayer is the best.
156. We need patience under the darts of the evil one, persistence in the breaking of our ego, and submission to the holy will of God. Only with these can we progress.
157. Never take part in a discussion where someone is being condemned or even simply gossipped about.
158. Often His will does not seem to us either just, or convenient or pleasant. But when we see that behind this is a mountain, the mountain of His love, then we see that things could only have been thus; harmonized in God.
159. The greater your faith in the heavenly, the less you get upset about the earthly.
160. What makes us upset is the sense of wrong that we have when we think we have been wronged. But what we see as wrong, God regards as the greatest school for the progress of our souls.
161. Never rely on something somebody tells you. Find out for yourself.
162. We must know when to be quiet, and when to leave where we are.
163. The more we discuss something that happens, the more it stays in our lives, whereas in the normal course of events it would leave at the right time.
164. When I have Christ as my head, how can I put my head under a human head?
165. In the Bible you will not find the word "duty".
166. Do not discuss with anyone anything not related to God, and you will always be quiet.
167. Better to be dumb than stupid.
168. When we say that somebody is "sensitive", this means he suffers because his ego is hurt and because he is proud. The same happens with children, who as soon as somebody scolds them or opposes them, immediately start crying. This is not permissible for a person of God. The saints didn't have pride, and whatever people did to them they accepted it because they had humility and meekness. In this case the soul is not "sensitive", is not offended; it has love, dispassion...
169. When I am united with Christ, who will separate me? Is there another person? Only somebody outside of here... in which case let him stay where he is!
170. Illness always comes along with spiritual experiences to a person who is in a position to grasp them.
171. We all think that we are right. That is why we think that all our deeds are rightly done. But unfortunately, just as the Truth is One, so also the Right is One... but we are not in a position to discern.
172. If we don't stumble, we don't progress. We should thank God that we don't break an arm or a leg into the bargain.
173. If you want to do something, don't advertise it. It will "materialize" in words and will no longer need to materialize in reality too. Keep it secret until the last moment - from everybody!
174. We should every day be spectators of the miracles of God.
175. When you spontaneously say something about God, this is from God. On the other hand when it becomes "preaching", then it is the ego leading the way. In the first case the seed catches, in the second it does not.
176. Where there is no respect for the person, there is none for God either. And the other way round.
177. If people had two things, readiness for change and "yes" to that spiritual person who loves them and who they trust, then the blessing of God would come upon them. This is why wherever there is obedience, God's blessing comes and the miracle happens.
178. After obedience there comes, at the time appointed by God, direction from above.
179. The most powerful prayer is the Epiclesis (Invocation) of the Holy Liturgy.
180. We cannot have one foot here and the other there. God wants us whole. So when we say that we belong to God and that we love Him, how can we and how dare we not be a hundred per cent His?
181. Only on His own does the Lord bring blows. So that they wake up and become conscious and repent.
182. He who does not lose, does not find.
183. Love is a bomb that destroys all evil.
184. Never say that it is too late, even if you have fallen very low...
185. We should always say "Thank God for our existence." Thank God for the existence of the other. This is the true thanksgiving God wants.
186. We must guard against the feeling of ownership.
187. Never let the other understand that he has hurt you.
188. When we have doubt about some stance that we ought to take, we should ask our conscience, not only ourselves. And always take the position of the other.
189. We must never betray the truth which we feel in ourselves. Not for anybody. Not for any situation. Perhaps that is why you see me here today and there tomorrow. But rather than betray the voice of God within me, I prefer to be homeless and a beggar.
190. Never leave anywhere of your own accord. No, no, no! If the other does not drive you away, don't leave.
191. If I had the possibility I would do special "caprices" to whoever doesn't have means... Not charity.
192. The other day a lady asked me what would happen with the 'toll booths' after death. I said to her, " I will tell them the Light of Christ shines to All! You however are in darkness and I don't see you!"
193. The over-aged and the under age have the same problem in this world... As soon as you pass a certain age, they tell you: "Ah, now he will fall ill and what are we going to do - shall we treat him? Don't move, don't do this, don't do that." Just for their own sake, so that they don't have to treat you. Not for yours!
194. The greatest part of my prayer here and for years now is Thankgiving. What else should I ask, when I have everything?
195. It is not the Abbot's fault when he is strict. It is the fault of our own conscience. Because whatever fearful sin we may have committed, we have to tell it. On the other hand when the Ego in capital letters holds us back, the other gets strict.
196. He who honours somebody else, is essentially honouring Christ who is in him. That is how it works. And when we ourselves give others an honour or a position, we are really honouring the Lord who we have within us and who every person has.
197. Whatever you eat and whatever you drink after the Table, make the sign of the cross over it and say to yourself, "For healing of soul and body".
198. Even if personally we have no sorrow of our own, we see the sorrow in the world and sorrow over it. But if people do not have faith we cannot do anything.
199. God put the senses in the head. Why? Do you know? So that we can not see ourselves. Yes! So that we see only the other and love only the other. And so that we see ourselves only in the eyes of the Other.
200. You should have continual conversation with your guardian angel. About everything. Especially in difficulties and when you cannot get across to someone. He always helps.
102. Experience has taught me that no one can help anyone, no matter how strong his wish and love may be. Help comes only in the Hour of God, from the One.
105. We are useful only when we do not exist for ourselves. And vice versa.
106. We must not take decisions on behalf of others. We should leave this to the Angels for they always find the best solution.
108. Like Simon of Cyrene, we must be always ready to rush to the help of our fellow-man.
109. If you seek assistance from someone who is busy, he will do it for you, not the indolent and the lazy.
110. Woe to me if I do not love.
111. Three things are needful. First Love, Second Love, Third Love.
112. The fasting of a diet is so easy when one wants to slim. And so difficult is the Wednesday and Friday fast when the Church wants it.
113. In the Church we should always sit in the same place, for the Angels.
114. After the Liturgy, we should sit in the Church so long as we can, for the Angels
115. When we are talking and someone interrupts us, we should not continue. It means that he should not hear that which we would have said. The Angels do thus.
116. He who does not want to see anybody is not human.
117. Nowhere are we ‘forever'. (We are never anyplace "forever".)
118. Whatever happens to us is only our own fault.
119. Every morning, on the new page we open, we sign the blank. Whatever God wills, let Him write. (Every morning open a new page and put your signature on the blank. Whatever God wants, let Him write.)
120. When we pray we should lock our door.
125. If you do not reach the point of despair, you will never see the Light.
136. Be still and know...There is no greater school than this kind of stillness of the mind.
137. The only true joy is freedom from worry.
138. Just as you cannot get very close to the sources of great rivers because of the noise of the waters, and you cannot talk or hear, so you cannot get close to the source of life and love, which is God. And only from a distance can you receive the warmth, the energy, the power and the "water" which He gives you, to conduct it in your turn.
139. Like a little bird who, when the branch he is standing on breaks, doesn't worry but opens his wings and flies, so our faith and hope in God give us the strength and joy to fly when the twig breaks beneath our feet.
140. The more closed is the door of our cell, the more open the gate of heaven.
141. The body needs "terrorism". It is the only way.
142. When somebody sets out to spoil our joy, we should remember within ourselves that God loves us.
143. You should be with people as you are with Christ; just as if He were present, and then you will not get upset about anything or with anybody.
144. The more we take things and problems to heart, the more we show our pride and lack of faith.
145. Someone truly humble does not get upset, because whoever gets upset starts off with judgement, with condemnation and rebellion.
146. The libraries and lecture halls are always full; but what saint has ever come from them?
147. Our intellectual cultivation is done in the heart. That is an intellectual person. Not somebody educated, as many think.
148. There is something called Christian self-respect. Because the Christian knows that he is a brother of the Prince of Glory and a son of the Father. Because of this it is not allowed in his presence for others to talk in an unseemly way or to condemn people present or absent.
149. God our Father Himself takes us by the hand and takes us to testing. For our purification and perfection. That is why God the Son has taught us to pray to Him, "and lead us not into temptation".
150. Christ said to us: Go and make disciples of all nations. And we - hushing up - what do we do?
151. If you love the Lord, then you have patience towards His will. If however you have patience without love, then you are like a soldier of Hitler's. Nothing more.
152. Condemnation, mockery, contempt, hypocrisy, saying "Yes, but..." - these are the weapons of the weak man who has failed in what he wanted to do in his life and his destination before God.
153. Our Lord gave as an example of freedom from care, not people but the birds of heaven.
154. When you don't seek anything, and when whatever God gives you, you give it all away... that is love.
155. When we ask somebody to pray for us to obtain such and such a virtue, we should also pray the same, for in this case, our prayer is the best.
156. We need patience under the darts of the evil one, persistence in the breaking of our ego, and submission to the holy will of God. Only with these can we progress.
157. Never take part in a discussion where someone is being condemned or even simply gossipped about.
158. Often His will does not seem to us either just, or convenient or pleasant. But when we see that behind this is a mountain, the mountain of His love, then we see that things could only have been thus; harmonized in God.
159. The greater your faith in the heavenly, the less you get upset about the earthly.
160. What makes us upset is the sense of wrong that we have when we think we have been wronged. But what we see as wrong, God regards as the greatest school for the progress of our souls.
161. Never rely on something somebody tells you. Find out for yourself.
162. We must know when to be quiet, and when to leave where we are.
163. The more we discuss something that happens, the more it stays in our lives, whereas in the normal course of events it would leave at the right time.
164. When I have Christ as my head, how can I put my head under a human head?
165. In the Bible you will not find the word "duty".
166. Do not discuss with anyone anything not related to God, and you will always be quiet.
167. Better to be dumb than stupid.
168. When we say that somebody is "sensitive", this means he suffers because his ego is hurt and because he is proud. The same happens with children, who as soon as somebody scolds them or opposes them, immediately start crying. This is not permissible for a person of God. The saints didn't have pride, and whatever people did to them they accepted it because they had humility and meekness. In this case the soul is not "sensitive", is not offended; it has love, dispassion...
169. When I am united with Christ, who will separate me? Is there another person? Only somebody outside of here... in which case let him stay where he is!
170. Illness always comes along with spiritual experiences to a person who is in a position to grasp them.
171. We all think that we are right. That is why we think that all our deeds are rightly done. But unfortunately, just as the Truth is One, so also the Right is One... but we are not in a position to discern.
172. If we don't stumble, we don't progress. We should thank God that we don't break an arm or a leg into the bargain.
173. If you want to do something, don't advertise it. It will "materialize" in words and will no longer need to materialize in reality too. Keep it secret until the last moment - from everybody!
174. We should every day be spectators of the miracles of God.
175. When you spontaneously say something about God, this is from God. On the other hand when it becomes "preaching", then it is the ego leading the way. In the first case the seed catches, in the second it does not.
176. Where there is no respect for the person, there is none for God either. And the other way round.
177. If people had two things, readiness for change and "yes" to that spiritual person who loves them and who they trust, then the blessing of God would come upon them. This is why wherever there is obedience, God's blessing comes and the miracle happens.
178. After obedience there comes, at the time appointed by God, direction from above.
179. The most powerful prayer is the Epiclesis (Invocation) of the Holy Liturgy.
180. We cannot have one foot here and the other there. God wants us whole. So when we say that we belong to God and that we love Him, how can we and how dare we not be a hundred per cent His?
181. Only on His own does the Lord bring blows. So that they wake up and become conscious and repent.
182. He who does not lose, does not find.
183. Love is a bomb that destroys all evil.
184. Never say that it is too late, even if you have fallen very low...
185. We should always say "Thank God for our existence." Thank God for the existence of the other. This is the true thanksgiving God wants.
186. We must guard against the feeling of ownership.
187. Never let the other understand that he has hurt you.
188. When we have doubt about some stance that we ought to take, we should ask our conscience, not only ourselves. And always take the position of the other.
189. We must never betray the truth which we feel in ourselves. Not for anybody. Not for any situation. Perhaps that is why you see me here today and there tomorrow. But rather than betray the voice of God within me, I prefer to be homeless and a beggar.
190. Never leave anywhere of your own accord. No, no, no! If the other does not drive you away, don't leave.
191. If I had the possibility I would do special "caprices" to whoever doesn't have means... Not charity.
192. The other day a lady asked me what would happen with the 'toll booths' after death. I said to her, " I will tell them the Light of Christ shines to All! You however are in darkness and I don't see you!"
193. The over-aged and the under age have the same problem in this world... As soon as you pass a certain age, they tell you: "Ah, now he will fall ill and what are we going to do - shall we treat him? Don't move, don't do this, don't do that." Just for their own sake, so that they don't have to treat you. Not for yours!
194. The greatest part of my prayer here and for years now is Thankgiving. What else should I ask, when I have everything?
195. It is not the Abbot's fault when he is strict. It is the fault of our own conscience. Because whatever fearful sin we may have committed, we have to tell it. On the other hand when the Ego in capital letters holds us back, the other gets strict.
196. He who honours somebody else, is essentially honouring Christ who is in him. That is how it works. And when we ourselves give others an honour or a position, we are really honouring the Lord who we have within us and who every person has.
197. Whatever you eat and whatever you drink after the Table, make the sign of the cross over it and say to yourself, "For healing of soul and body".
198. Even if personally we have no sorrow of our own, we see the sorrow in the world and sorrow over it. But if people do not have faith we cannot do anything.
199. God put the senses in the head. Why? Do you know? So that we can not see ourselves. Yes! So that we see only the other and love only the other. And so that we see ourselves only in the eyes of the Other.
200. You should have continual conversation with your guardian angel. About everything. Especially in difficulties and when you cannot get across to someone. He always helps.
201. Two things are very important... "Love one another," and "Fear not, only believe."
202. Saint Paul himself says, "After one or two admonitions, give up." Finish! You have said what you ought, you have helped the person as much as you have been able. From that point on, you pray for him and sit quietly and look at your own wretchedness.
203. In the end we have been teaching the universe, while leaving ourselves as they are, to have fun!
204. If coal is not "beaten", can it become diamond?
205. Don't forget at the "Dynamis" in the Divine Liturgy to cross your head and your whole body... whatever you ask at that moment is heard. It is a very powerful moment.
206. In our lives, if we look carefully, we will see that we learn lessons both from positive things and negative. Whoever we find ourselves with, even within just a few moments.
207. "Bad temper" is egoism.
208. Looking after is one thing and love another.
209. Instead of asking "Does this person love me", it is better to say "I love this person". Then everything changes. The Apostle Paul put it so beautifully.
210. Hour after hour I think my heart is going to break from love.
211. Only people with an inferiority complex want to always be bossed around.
212. Love is always on the cross. Because Christ is on the cross.
213. When I want to feel sorry for somebody, do you know what cheers me up? I say, "I love him that much; God loves him ten thousand times more. He will be fine!"
214. True fasting is to cease from all badmouthing, self-interest, seeing the mote in the eye of our brother, judging another's servant...
215. When one is alone with God, the time passes unimaginably quickly. More quickly than when you have companionship... And yet even within the world one can remain united with God. How? When whatever he is doing he directs his thoughts to Him... when whatever good comes his way he gives Him glory... and whatever testing he meets, he gives Him thanks.
216. I find the faith of the centurion very moving.
217. This is our purpose on earth. To try and live in the Kingdom of God, here. For how can we come and leave without sensing paradise here? We have fallen from paradise, but if we do not return to it here, how will we win it there?
218. If someone really believes, he can never take part in the vices or illegal things that we see every day. For anybody who does them, has not believed in God, has not lived Him in their souls. But as soon as they believe in Him, they will watch his miracles every day.
219. Be careful of people who want to upset you and then to ask forgiveness. They take double satisfaction. They have upset you, and you have forgiven them.
220. That which the world calls co-incidences, I call meetings.
221. The world is even "smaller" for those who God intends to meet.
222. Here you have an earthly father and mother and you feel so beautiful. How much more when you know that the Omnipotent is protecting you!
223. All those who research and "see" the future, see everything badly, coldly and upside down. That is to say, can't they see anything good? Nothing? Well, then of course they suffer evil, They attract evil by their thought.
224. In the evenings, in my prayer I say to my angel, "Take my soul even tonight and put it at the feet of Christ to be perfected throughout the night, and in the morning may I find it better!"
225. Never accept anything from a rich person. From someone who struggles to make a living or a poor person yes, with much gratitude.
226. The truth is One and that is Christ.
227. Many troparia describe the Nativity of Christ in such a way that we could forget that the Virgin conceived supernaturally. How I like the Nativity in the Perivleptos monastery in Mystras and the painting of Gyzis...
228. You should think about and see only the light. Everything else is just parentheses, which should not leave so much as a trace on you.
229. We often hear, "I met this man, or this woman, and my life changed"... and we see that in the end nothing has changed. No life. Why?
230. We come to monasticism like those sharp rocks from a quarry which are all corners and protrusions. Gradually by the grace of God we become like the pebbles in a river or on the shore which are round and smooth.
231. To equalize our freedom and our autonomy and so that we may always have a sure conscience, the holy Apostles and the Fathers of our Church gave us a guide. And thank God for that... Because the moment you ask, whether in the middle of rocky ground, up on a mountain, in a street which you don't know, suddenly there you are... with two words he comes and gives you your answer and then you know that you are all right now.
232. I have simply been something for your preparatory steps. If you do not stick fast to Christ and the Church, then you will be lost, even if in your minds you think of a person. Woe betide him who instead of going to Christ goes to a person.
233. The hour when you make the step, either you do it alone or you are lost for the rest of your life.
234. Nobody can live in both this world and the next. Either he will fall ill periodically or he will die prematurely. You cannot live in two worlds. It is not possible.
235. I like it when we say "Bless the Lord my soul" and then afterwards the Beatitudes, instead of "Through the intercessions" and "Save us". That is how it used to be in Constantinople.
236. Those who see people in the world do not cease to be human. They keep their humanity...
237. You can not avoid pointless "chats" unless your thought is elsewhere. But this takes a lot of practice. Especially when the surroundings are friendly and dear to you.
238. Christ said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". But, who is it that does not know what he is doing? A madman. You understand?
239. When it is in God's programme for you to go somewhere, you will go. That is why I am generally quiet in life. I have observed that even if a person does not want to, God moves him.
240. A woman who had been widowed said to me, "Why would God take away from me my family?" And I said to her, "Why don't you ask why He left him to you for so long?" "Well OK, but there are so many who live." "But also, how many who die as soon as they get married. Have you ever asked that question? You should give yourself to some kind of work now, to forget."
241. When God wants to help someone, He can create "children of Abraham" from these stones. If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else. You were the impersonal delegate of God. Woe betide you if you think one day that this someone should owe gratitude to you! If he comes and thanks you, say that you ought to thank God, because He would undoubtedly have sent somebody anyway to help them. He sent you, consequently you ought to thank him, and be grateful to God for sending you.
242. Nobody "exists" unless he wants to exist.
243. Some people want to go to the Resurrection without passing by way of Gologatha.
244. Because the Christians could not put in practice the Gospel while living in the world, they fled. That's how they became the first monastics.
245. Only people of God, who don't make compromises, recognize each other.
246. My wishes: may the grace of our Christ, the love of the omnipotent Father and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit be with you! May your example be the life of the Mother of God, who will lead you at every step with her archangels and angels as your heavenly mother; that you love your mother who brought you into life and brought you up, and may you give love and joy first to her, and then to all who come near you.
247. True prayer always reaches heaven. The angels carry it to the right place and the answer comes. Its basis is Truth, and "Not My will, but that of the Father Who sent me."
248. Egoism is self-protection. A Christian's security should be divine protection.
249. We all help ourselves in helping others. Some indirectly, some directly.
250. The Lord said, "Forgive your enemies." It is incomprehensible for us not to forgive our brothers, so He didn't mention it. What right has a person not to forgive a person? If he doesn't, he is inhuman.
251. Love is not taught. It is given from above when we ask with recocognition of our egoism, which we want to shatter.
252. Do you want everything to happen as you want it? Accept everything and everybody either as His will, or as His concession.
253. To remember the other is an expression of love.
254. And so the passer-by and traveller that the love of God has granted me to be, continues on the way towards what is unknown to people but known to the Lord...
255. To a novice: Be simple. Talk to everybody. Let your spirituality be seen in your simplicity.
256. No saint ever knew that he was a saint.
257. If you do not get rid of "No" and "Tomorrow" from your life, you will never get to where the Lord wants you, Who grants you everything. He will give you the bodily strength when you answer "Yes" and "Now". The prophets, the angels and the saints all said, "Behold here I am... Let it be according to Your word."
258. Not as you knew, but as you found.
259. Every person is 'sent'.
260. Our influence, whether for good or for ill, takes the other person away from the destination that God has for him. He has to realize it by himself. This is why we have to be very careful.
261. The gifts of the Spirit are not of course individual achievements...
262. What we don't see, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And what we don't hear, doesn't mean that it does not speak.
263. As one of the ancients said, "don’t be deaf to your personal “demon” "
264. Truth and light are synonymous.
265. The sermon on the mount and the epistle of Saint James. Every day! What a pity that we do not hear them more often...
266. When you follow the truth you are in the light, you are with Christ. He himself said, "The truth will make you free". But from who? From your own self! From passion. And then, no power will be able to enslave you because God Himself will help with His power.
267. Our souls are Divine Breath. Our body is His Creation. In the whole of us we are the icon of God.
268. I am under obedience to HIM. I live and exist for Him.
269. Before the Lord prayed... "Lifting up His eyes to heaven..."
270. Do not darken your mind with the various heresies and para-religions and masonries. All these are in the "Basket of Vanity".
271. The Lord allows those who love Him to be tested, first, so that their faith in Him may grow stronger, and second, to set an example for those around.
272. Don't forget in Church to always light a candle "for the sick and for travellers".
273. Say prayer-ropes also just with "Thank you".
274. Have a Cross in the door and window of your cell. It should be wooden like the one we wear.
275. We can recognize a person who has spiritual experiences only by the way he lives and behaves. For these experiences direct his life.
276. No fear any person.
277. It is easier to sacrifice youself for those you love than to live with them.
278. Love means to respect the freedom of the other.
279. You only feel free when you are locked up.
280. Two things: care, and prayer.
281. Mildness and meekness are the weapons and the marks of a spiritually strong person. He "understands" everything and forgives everything.
282. We should not become Judases, nor give the Holy Things to the dogs... I mean the supernatural mysteries that happen within the sanctuary. It says in the hymn, "Not to your enemies..."
283. The angels always come.
284. We can all give joy. One by coming, and another by leaving.
285. When we are passing through a dark tunnel, we never imagine that the other end will take us to the light. We fall into despair, and see everything black and dark. The same in life. The light of Christ is waiting for us at the other end. And saying to us, as He said to Saint Peter, "You of little faith, why are you fainthearted?"
286. Whenever we are in great pain, we should not forget the great honour that the Lord is doing us in letting us share in His crown of thorns.
287. All idiocy begins with "i(f)".
288. The fridge of the faithful should be almost empty.
289. However much one works in a spiritual way, one's body cannot get tired. Tiredness only comes when the spirit gets involved. When the spirit is continually at its "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us", no amount of work can easily make us tired.
290. Day and night let us bless God for the gifts He gives us.
291. Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are.
292. Joy, calm, love, the wish we give to everybody, if they are not accepted come back to us and to the Lord. In other words, just as we breathe, as our heart beats, without any act of will on our part and without us being able to stop it; in the same way rivers of love, of which He is the source, should flow out of us day and night and always... regardless of where they go. That is His concern.
293. So many years now the Lord has granted me to keep the first three days of Lent without opening my mouth for food or water. I have been able to do this because at the same time I also keep silence.
294. Just as I cannot stand praying out loud, so I cannot stand monologue, only dialogue.
295. At "Christ is risen" we leave futility behind with Him and pass, thanks to His love, into eternity.
296. There is something which is often called "spiritual pride". But where there is pride, there is no Spirit, in which case all that is left is a nothing - pride.
297. To a novice: Be careful about two things. Love, without discrimination, without condemnation... and humility, as if you are the slave of everybody.
298. Never expect anybody to understand you. Only God.
299. Forgive everybody and see only the light of Christ, which one day, by the prayer of the Mother of God and all the saints, we will encounter ourselves.
300. People tell us that which we inspire.
202. Saint Paul himself says, "After one or two admonitions, give up." Finish! You have said what you ought, you have helped the person as much as you have been able. From that point on, you pray for him and sit quietly and look at your own wretchedness.
203. In the end we have been teaching the universe, while leaving ourselves as they are, to have fun!
204. If coal is not "beaten", can it become diamond?
205. Don't forget at the "Dynamis" in the Divine Liturgy to cross your head and your whole body... whatever you ask at that moment is heard. It is a very powerful moment.
206. In our lives, if we look carefully, we will see that we learn lessons both from positive things and negative. Whoever we find ourselves with, even within just a few moments.
207. "Bad temper" is egoism.
208. Looking after is one thing and love another.
209. Instead of asking "Does this person love me", it is better to say "I love this person". Then everything changes. The Apostle Paul put it so beautifully.
210. Hour after hour I think my heart is going to break from love.
211. Only people with an inferiority complex want to always be bossed around.
212. Love is always on the cross. Because Christ is on the cross.
213. When I want to feel sorry for somebody, do you know what cheers me up? I say, "I love him that much; God loves him ten thousand times more. He will be fine!"
214. True fasting is to cease from all badmouthing, self-interest, seeing the mote in the eye of our brother, judging another's servant...
215. When one is alone with God, the time passes unimaginably quickly. More quickly than when you have companionship... And yet even within the world one can remain united with God. How? When whatever he is doing he directs his thoughts to Him... when whatever good comes his way he gives Him glory... and whatever testing he meets, he gives Him thanks.
216. I find the faith of the centurion very moving.
217. This is our purpose on earth. To try and live in the Kingdom of God, here. For how can we come and leave without sensing paradise here? We have fallen from paradise, but if we do not return to it here, how will we win it there?
218. If someone really believes, he can never take part in the vices or illegal things that we see every day. For anybody who does them, has not believed in God, has not lived Him in their souls. But as soon as they believe in Him, they will watch his miracles every day.
219. Be careful of people who want to upset you and then to ask forgiveness. They take double satisfaction. They have upset you, and you have forgiven them.
220. That which the world calls co-incidences, I call meetings.
221. The world is even "smaller" for those who God intends to meet.
222. Here you have an earthly father and mother and you feel so beautiful. How much more when you know that the Omnipotent is protecting you!
223. All those who research and "see" the future, see everything badly, coldly and upside down. That is to say, can't they see anything good? Nothing? Well, then of course they suffer evil, They attract evil by their thought.
224. In the evenings, in my prayer I say to my angel, "Take my soul even tonight and put it at the feet of Christ to be perfected throughout the night, and in the morning may I find it better!"
225. Never accept anything from a rich person. From someone who struggles to make a living or a poor person yes, with much gratitude.
226. The truth is One and that is Christ.
227. Many troparia describe the Nativity of Christ in such a way that we could forget that the Virgin conceived supernaturally. How I like the Nativity in the Perivleptos monastery in Mystras and the painting of Gyzis...
228. You should think about and see only the light. Everything else is just parentheses, which should not leave so much as a trace on you.
229. We often hear, "I met this man, or this woman, and my life changed"... and we see that in the end nothing has changed. No life. Why?
230. We come to monasticism like those sharp rocks from a quarry which are all corners and protrusions. Gradually by the grace of God we become like the pebbles in a river or on the shore which are round and smooth.
231. To equalize our freedom and our autonomy and so that we may always have a sure conscience, the holy Apostles and the Fathers of our Church gave us a guide. And thank God for that... Because the moment you ask, whether in the middle of rocky ground, up on a mountain, in a street which you don't know, suddenly there you are... with two words he comes and gives you your answer and then you know that you are all right now.
232. I have simply been something for your preparatory steps. If you do not stick fast to Christ and the Church, then you will be lost, even if in your minds you think of a person. Woe betide him who instead of going to Christ goes to a person.
233. The hour when you make the step, either you do it alone or you are lost for the rest of your life.
234. Nobody can live in both this world and the next. Either he will fall ill periodically or he will die prematurely. You cannot live in two worlds. It is not possible.
235. I like it when we say "Bless the Lord my soul" and then afterwards the Beatitudes, instead of "Through the intercessions" and "Save us". That is how it used to be in Constantinople.
236. Those who see people in the world do not cease to be human. They keep their humanity...
237. You can not avoid pointless "chats" unless your thought is elsewhere. But this takes a lot of practice. Especially when the surroundings are friendly and dear to you.
238. Christ said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". But, who is it that does not know what he is doing? A madman. You understand?
239. When it is in God's programme for you to go somewhere, you will go. That is why I am generally quiet in life. I have observed that even if a person does not want to, God moves him.
240. A woman who had been widowed said to me, "Why would God take away from me my family?" And I said to her, "Why don't you ask why He left him to you for so long?" "Well OK, but there are so many who live." "But also, how many who die as soon as they get married. Have you ever asked that question? You should give yourself to some kind of work now, to forget."
241. When God wants to help someone, He can create "children of Abraham" from these stones. If it wasn't you, it would be somebody else. You were the impersonal delegate of God. Woe betide you if you think one day that this someone should owe gratitude to you! If he comes and thanks you, say that you ought to thank God, because He would undoubtedly have sent somebody anyway to help them. He sent you, consequently you ought to thank him, and be grateful to God for sending you.
242. Nobody "exists" unless he wants to exist.
243. Some people want to go to the Resurrection without passing by way of Gologatha.
244. Because the Christians could not put in practice the Gospel while living in the world, they fled. That's how they became the first monastics.
245. Only people of God, who don't make compromises, recognize each other.
246. My wishes: may the grace of our Christ, the love of the omnipotent Father and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit be with you! May your example be the life of the Mother of God, who will lead you at every step with her archangels and angels as your heavenly mother; that you love your mother who brought you into life and brought you up, and may you give love and joy first to her, and then to all who come near you.
247. True prayer always reaches heaven. The angels carry it to the right place and the answer comes. Its basis is Truth, and "Not My will, but that of the Father Who sent me."
248. Egoism is self-protection. A Christian's security should be divine protection.
249. We all help ourselves in helping others. Some indirectly, some directly.
250. The Lord said, "Forgive your enemies." It is incomprehensible for us not to forgive our brothers, so He didn't mention it. What right has a person not to forgive a person? If he doesn't, he is inhuman.
251. Love is not taught. It is given from above when we ask with recocognition of our egoism, which we want to shatter.
252. Do you want everything to happen as you want it? Accept everything and everybody either as His will, or as His concession.
253. To remember the other is an expression of love.
254. And so the passer-by and traveller that the love of God has granted me to be, continues on the way towards what is unknown to people but known to the Lord...
255. To a novice: Be simple. Talk to everybody. Let your spirituality be seen in your simplicity.
256. No saint ever knew that he was a saint.
257. If you do not get rid of "No" and "Tomorrow" from your life, you will never get to where the Lord wants you, Who grants you everything. He will give you the bodily strength when you answer "Yes" and "Now". The prophets, the angels and the saints all said, "Behold here I am... Let it be according to Your word."
258. Not as you knew, but as you found.
259. Every person is 'sent'.
260. Our influence, whether for good or for ill, takes the other person away from the destination that God has for him. He has to realize it by himself. This is why we have to be very careful.
261. The gifts of the Spirit are not of course individual achievements...
262. What we don't see, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And what we don't hear, doesn't mean that it does not speak.
263. As one of the ancients said, "don’t be deaf to your personal “demon” "
264. Truth and light are synonymous.
265. The sermon on the mount and the epistle of Saint James. Every day! What a pity that we do not hear them more often...
266. When you follow the truth you are in the light, you are with Christ. He himself said, "The truth will make you free". But from who? From your own self! From passion. And then, no power will be able to enslave you because God Himself will help with His power.
267. Our souls are Divine Breath. Our body is His Creation. In the whole of us we are the icon of God.
268. I am under obedience to HIM. I live and exist for Him.
269. Before the Lord prayed... "Lifting up His eyes to heaven..."
270. Do not darken your mind with the various heresies and para-religions and masonries. All these are in the "Basket of Vanity".
271. The Lord allows those who love Him to be tested, first, so that their faith in Him may grow stronger, and second, to set an example for those around.
272. Don't forget in Church to always light a candle "for the sick and for travellers".
273. Say prayer-ropes also just with "Thank you".
274. Have a Cross in the door and window of your cell. It should be wooden like the one we wear.
275. We can recognize a person who has spiritual experiences only by the way he lives and behaves. For these experiences direct his life.
276. No fear any person.
277. It is easier to sacrifice youself for those you love than to live with them.
278. Love means to respect the freedom of the other.
279. You only feel free when you are locked up.
280. Two things: care, and prayer.
281. Mildness and meekness are the weapons and the marks of a spiritually strong person. He "understands" everything and forgives everything.
282. We should not become Judases, nor give the Holy Things to the dogs... I mean the supernatural mysteries that happen within the sanctuary. It says in the hymn, "Not to your enemies..."
283. The angels always come.
284. We can all give joy. One by coming, and another by leaving.
285. When we are passing through a dark tunnel, we never imagine that the other end will take us to the light. We fall into despair, and see everything black and dark. The same in life. The light of Christ is waiting for us at the other end. And saying to us, as He said to Saint Peter, "You of little faith, why are you fainthearted?"
286. Whenever we are in great pain, we should not forget the great honour that the Lord is doing us in letting us share in His crown of thorns.
287. All idiocy begins with "i(f)".
288. The fridge of the faithful should be almost empty.
289. However much one works in a spiritual way, one's body cannot get tired. Tiredness only comes when the spirit gets involved. When the spirit is continually at its "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us", no amount of work can easily make us tired.
290. Day and night let us bless God for the gifts He gives us.
291. Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are.
292. Joy, calm, love, the wish we give to everybody, if they are not accepted come back to us and to the Lord. In other words, just as we breathe, as our heart beats, without any act of will on our part and without us being able to stop it; in the same way rivers of love, of which He is the source, should flow out of us day and night and always... regardless of where they go. That is His concern.
293. So many years now the Lord has granted me to keep the first three days of Lent without opening my mouth for food or water. I have been able to do this because at the same time I also keep silence.
294. Just as I cannot stand praying out loud, so I cannot stand monologue, only dialogue.
295. At "Christ is risen" we leave futility behind with Him and pass, thanks to His love, into eternity.
296. There is something which is often called "spiritual pride". But where there is pride, there is no Spirit, in which case all that is left is a nothing - pride.
297. To a novice: Be careful about two things. Love, without discrimination, without condemnation... and humility, as if you are the slave of everybody.
298. Never expect anybody to understand you. Only God.
299. Forgive everybody and see only the light of Christ, which one day, by the prayer of the Mother of God and all the saints, we will encounter ourselves.
300. People tell us that which we inspire.
301. The ministry of service should be constant. We should continually be "forgetting" ourselves. It is not a momentary action, it is life. It is the sign of the presence of Christ.
302. A person lives only when he loves. Otherwise he is a lifeless creature, with only organic powers.
303. The love which binds people together, is the greatest Divine Gift.
304. The life in God consists in "You, follow Me." Together, you continually feel a joy, a joy, with certainty of love and an equally continual "Thank you" for EVERYTHING, day and night.
305. Jerusalem, as it says in the hymn "Shine, shine [new Jerusalem]", enlightens us all. Whoever goes there at the right time, will get direction for his path.
306. He who is occupied with himself, whether bodily or emotionally, does not have time to occupy himself with anyone else and is not interested. He becomes egocentric.
307. Peace to all - in this way the spirit is at rest, the heart loves, the soul becomes calm, the world of the Earth becomes a paradise. The Kingdom of God inside us, and we inside His Kingdom.
308. Blessed are those who begin to feel that they have become a "shadow". This is the beginning of "non-existence".
309. Changes, great changes, inner journeys must continue. Woe betide him who stays still like stagnant water.
310. Heaven is the monastery of the angels and earth their priory (outpost).
311. We should live permanently in the joy of the resurrection.
312. What a beautiful song life is! And what blessing when after a journey of many years, I can say from 1937 to today, the invisible face of God has never departed from beside me and inside me.
313. Few words, much love... The powers of darkness are waiting for an opportunity. Let us not talk, so that we do not regret it.
314. Even in this life, Christ raised us too from the dead.
315. What a gift God gave to the world, in sending His Son Jesus Christ.
316. The resurrection of Lazarus is the symbol of the resurrection of our soul in the world.
317. Read one Father of the Church and only him.
318. He who does to another what he hates, is "sent". Watch him.
319. There are people who persist, of their own will, in destroying the bodily power that God gave them, creating a perpetual state of hyperactivity and overwork.
320. Evening readings do not go into the soul.
321. If we do not have boldness when the Lord calls us, we are lost.
322. I wish that God grant you His grace, His power and His love, so that you may be near to those who are in need and who seek Him.
323. Where there is attunement to the will of God, there there is prayer.
324. Don't let anything upset you; neither people, nor reverses, nor obstacles. Christ says to us once in a while, "I received this command from My Father," and proceeds with the certainty that He is fulfilling the will of His Father, however difficult and tough, and however much hatred He encounters.
325. Children are not black or white or red or yellow in the eyes of God. They are souls which God produced through His heart like drops of blood. Who can say which drop is worth the most?
326. When we want to help someone, half of ourself must be assimilated to them. The other half, even in the face of objections, will be able to find the right solution.
327. God works in eternity. Not in the hurry of our temporary life. Everything will happen as and when He wants.
328. I hope you are always in a position for God to use you in His work.
329. Love of neighbour according to God, joy, and calm, are acquired by continuous prayer.
330. What these days we call "down", does not happen to a person who is called faithful. Because he is united with the love of God.
331. Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do.
332. At the end of the day, ask your guardian angel to take from your thought everybody you have seen, but also you from everybody's thoughts. Otherwise you cannot pray correctly. Say to him, "My guardian angel, bless them all and remove their thoughts from mine.
333. When we are conversing with a person, we are conversing with our guardian angel at the same time, and the silent and invisible listener is Christ. Never forget it.
334. I always remember what one of my Abbots once said to me: Your mind to God, your hand to the plough.
335. If we are asked, you or I or anybody, where we come from, we will say in reply, not Athenians, Constantinopolitans, whatever... but citizens of heaven! Even if we have't yet ever been up there. [They are auspicious words.]
336. Only when an Abbot or Abbess is at rest in their souls, can those under obedience find rest.
337. The greatest Christmas present we can give to Christ is ourselves.
338. How valuable are little and simple things.
339. The birds make a chain round the whole Earth. Wherever you go, they remind you of the same things. The cuckoo shouts to you, "Get up, get up!" The peacock reminds us, "Pilgrims, pilgrims", so that we don't forget that we are just passing pilgrims on His Earth. And the rook cries, "Pray, pray!".
340. The God-sent Mother of the Apostles, true Mother of God we magnify You.
341. Somebody said, "When you are conformed to the world, you are deformed. Only when you meet God are you transformed."
342. Just imagine if "volunteer" angels are hidden within incurable psychopathic patients... just to test our love...
343. You cannot be a Christian without loving everybody the same. Both those of your own and other faiths. Both of your own and other religions, and nationalities. We are not responsible for where we are born...
344. Thank God that I know the whole Gospel and can now carry it around in my mind and recite it all day... (two months before her death)
345. All this "mine" is for this world. In the other one there is only "Yours". "You, Lord", "You, All-good one", "You, Compassionate one", "You, Miracle-worker", "You, the Guide of our lives".
346. Christ is the Original.
347. The Apostles were all together. But when the Beloved left, they separated. The same with you; that is how it ought to be. To enlighten the world with the bits of light you get from Christ. And like them, to spread it that Christ is the resurrection of the living and the departed. (a few days before she departed)
348. The years go by, we too go by, and only a pure soul can remain in the hands of the angels who He will send to receive it.
349. Read Isaac the Syrian.
350. Don't be concerned what people will say to you or do to you.
351. Marriage is love, affection, friendship. It is not "sex". "Sex" is something anti-divine because it is "of this world". It has no relation to the soul.
352. Couples should not try to "attract" each other through jealousy. Jealousy is from Satan.
353. The sacrament of marriage is a sacrament like baptism. If you are not "born again" within the other's heart, and the other in your heart, it is as if God is absent. Of course He is present, but he sees you and sorrows. He cannot help you, because you have shut Him out, without knowing it.
354. But above all I thank Him that He directs everything, guides everything, loves everybody and everything and has sent into my life only angels...
355. Always obey your conscience. Your conscience is from God.
356. Forget everything. Be united with Him in prayer. And then, you will be get messages and will know the way...
357. Together with Him we conquer all.
358. We should not be proud because we supposedly help people. We don't help anybody. He is the Helper, He is the Guide, if we adhere to Him and He guides us.
359. God does not want us split. Either we love Him, or the "world". We cannot have one foot in the "world" and the other in the Church.
360. At the "sound" of Him we should, like the Samaritan woman, leave the "pitcher". That is the only way God can help.
361. When our health gives us a knock, it is a message that we should stop something.
362. Beware of fame. It is not what God wants.
363. When it comes to health, a saying goes, "One doctor is advice, two doctors are confusion. Three doctors are... a graveyard." The same holds for spiritual matters. One spiritual father is from God. A second is confusion. A third, the loss of your soul!
364. Our purpose is to begin eternity here and now... for the Lady of All to receive us there above with the ranks of angels... and for us to live eternally in the light of Christ.
365. Just as the law of nature cannot endure a vacuum, so when we empty ourselves completely, the Holy Spirit rushes inside us, like a hurricane.
366. Don't associate with company among which you would not like God to see you.
There are some people who deprive us of solitude without offering us companionship.
367. There are some people who deprive us of solitude without offering us companionship.
368. Love the other without judging him, just as He presents him and as He loves him. Then God will help you and will overlook your own transgressions.
369. To a woman in mourning: Above all, give up all "material" recollections and expectations.
370. For somebody to love really and deeply, he must not allow his body to interfere. Love is never forgotten when it is elevated to that level.
371. Follow your path and don't let anything bother you. Keep your ears open and don't be impatient. Many years must pass and we must be tested before we can acquire patience.
372. Lord, I beg you, do not allow me ever to have my own will. Do Your own will in me. However difficult it may seem to me, it will be easy because it will be Yours!
373. God is free, and love dwells within freedom.
374. Love of money leads to hell, because the man who loves money steals.
375. He who loves can only do beautiful things.
376. I do not have to know you. I have to love you.
377. I am not "intellectual". I am simply happy to be alive and to love Him and everybody.
378. Photographs and graves are such sad and pitiable things when the generation that loved them has gone...
379. How do we dare to ignore and disobey the will of God and do what we consider human duty? Can't we see that our health is impaired? The words duty and obligation do not exist in the Gospel. We owe them only to God. Otherwise we become like the millions of dead in this world.
380. Do not ever get tied to anybody anywhere except Christ alone, and go wherever the Holy Spirit leads you, bringing His love to ALL, beyond frontiers and discrimination. Your destination is to love! That is what I was once told by my Abbot Fr Lev, and that is what I say to you.
381. Indulgence during Lent causes illness, and illness brings sluggishness.
382. Always forwards. Even at a tortoise space.
383. You feel freedom when the behaviour of others does not bother you and you forgive them.
384. Love does acrobatics in people's hearts.
385. The person has not yet been born who will make me upset...
386. We should not be interested in other people's response or what results we have. Our “job” is simply to try - the rest God will do.
387. It is pain that allows freedom.
388. Come - be silent.
302. A person lives only when he loves. Otherwise he is a lifeless creature, with only organic powers.
303. The love which binds people together, is the greatest Divine Gift.
304. The life in God consists in "You, follow Me." Together, you continually feel a joy, a joy, with certainty of love and an equally continual "Thank you" for EVERYTHING, day and night.
305. Jerusalem, as it says in the hymn "Shine, shine [new Jerusalem]", enlightens us all. Whoever goes there at the right time, will get direction for his path.
306. He who is occupied with himself, whether bodily or emotionally, does not have time to occupy himself with anyone else and is not interested. He becomes egocentric.
307. Peace to all - in this way the spirit is at rest, the heart loves, the soul becomes calm, the world of the Earth becomes a paradise. The Kingdom of God inside us, and we inside His Kingdom.
308. Blessed are those who begin to feel that they have become a "shadow". This is the beginning of "non-existence".
309. Changes, great changes, inner journeys must continue. Woe betide him who stays still like stagnant water.
310. Heaven is the monastery of the angels and earth their priory (outpost).
311. We should live permanently in the joy of the resurrection.
312. What a beautiful song life is! And what blessing when after a journey of many years, I can say from 1937 to today, the invisible face of God has never departed from beside me and inside me.
313. Few words, much love... The powers of darkness are waiting for an opportunity. Let us not talk, so that we do not regret it.
314. Even in this life, Christ raised us too from the dead.
315. What a gift God gave to the world, in sending His Son Jesus Christ.
316. The resurrection of Lazarus is the symbol of the resurrection of our soul in the world.
317. Read one Father of the Church and only him.
318. He who does to another what he hates, is "sent". Watch him.
319. There are people who persist, of their own will, in destroying the bodily power that God gave them, creating a perpetual state of hyperactivity and overwork.
320. Evening readings do not go into the soul.
321. If we do not have boldness when the Lord calls us, we are lost.
322. I wish that God grant you His grace, His power and His love, so that you may be near to those who are in need and who seek Him.
323. Where there is attunement to the will of God, there there is prayer.
324. Don't let anything upset you; neither people, nor reverses, nor obstacles. Christ says to us once in a while, "I received this command from My Father," and proceeds with the certainty that He is fulfilling the will of His Father, however difficult and tough, and however much hatred He encounters.
325. Children are not black or white or red or yellow in the eyes of God. They are souls which God produced through His heart like drops of blood. Who can say which drop is worth the most?
326. When we want to help someone, half of ourself must be assimilated to them. The other half, even in the face of objections, will be able to find the right solution.
327. God works in eternity. Not in the hurry of our temporary life. Everything will happen as and when He wants.
328. I hope you are always in a position for God to use you in His work.
329. Love of neighbour according to God, joy, and calm, are acquired by continuous prayer.
330. What these days we call "down", does not happen to a person who is called faithful. Because he is united with the love of God.
331. Don't listen to what they say. Look at what they do.
332. At the end of the day, ask your guardian angel to take from your thought everybody you have seen, but also you from everybody's thoughts. Otherwise you cannot pray correctly. Say to him, "My guardian angel, bless them all and remove their thoughts from mine.
333. When we are conversing with a person, we are conversing with our guardian angel at the same time, and the silent and invisible listener is Christ. Never forget it.
334. I always remember what one of my Abbots once said to me: Your mind to God, your hand to the plough.
335. If we are asked, you or I or anybody, where we come from, we will say in reply, not Athenians, Constantinopolitans, whatever... but citizens of heaven! Even if we have't yet ever been up there. [They are auspicious words.]
336. Only when an Abbot or Abbess is at rest in their souls, can those under obedience find rest.
337. The greatest Christmas present we can give to Christ is ourselves.
338. How valuable are little and simple things.
339. The birds make a chain round the whole Earth. Wherever you go, they remind you of the same things. The cuckoo shouts to you, "Get up, get up!" The peacock reminds us, "Pilgrims, pilgrims", so that we don't forget that we are just passing pilgrims on His Earth. And the rook cries, "Pray, pray!".
340. The God-sent Mother of the Apostles, true Mother of God we magnify You.
341. Somebody said, "When you are conformed to the world, you are deformed. Only when you meet God are you transformed."
342. Just imagine if "volunteer" angels are hidden within incurable psychopathic patients... just to test our love...
343. You cannot be a Christian without loving everybody the same. Both those of your own and other faiths. Both of your own and other religions, and nationalities. We are not responsible for where we are born...
344. Thank God that I know the whole Gospel and can now carry it around in my mind and recite it all day... (two months before her death)
345. All this "mine" is for this world. In the other one there is only "Yours". "You, Lord", "You, All-good one", "You, Compassionate one", "You, Miracle-worker", "You, the Guide of our lives".
346. Christ is the Original.
347. The Apostles were all together. But when the Beloved left, they separated. The same with you; that is how it ought to be. To enlighten the world with the bits of light you get from Christ. And like them, to spread it that Christ is the resurrection of the living and the departed. (a few days before she departed)
348. The years go by, we too go by, and only a pure soul can remain in the hands of the angels who He will send to receive it.
349. Read Isaac the Syrian.
350. Don't be concerned what people will say to you or do to you.
351. Marriage is love, affection, friendship. It is not "sex". "Sex" is something anti-divine because it is "of this world". It has no relation to the soul.
352. Couples should not try to "attract" each other through jealousy. Jealousy is from Satan.
353. The sacrament of marriage is a sacrament like baptism. If you are not "born again" within the other's heart, and the other in your heart, it is as if God is absent. Of course He is present, but he sees you and sorrows. He cannot help you, because you have shut Him out, without knowing it.
354. But above all I thank Him that He directs everything, guides everything, loves everybody and everything and has sent into my life only angels...
355. Always obey your conscience. Your conscience is from God.
356. Forget everything. Be united with Him in prayer. And then, you will be get messages and will know the way...
357. Together with Him we conquer all.
358. We should not be proud because we supposedly help people. We don't help anybody. He is the Helper, He is the Guide, if we adhere to Him and He guides us.
359. God does not want us split. Either we love Him, or the "world". We cannot have one foot in the "world" and the other in the Church.
360. At the "sound" of Him we should, like the Samaritan woman, leave the "pitcher". That is the only way God can help.
361. When our health gives us a knock, it is a message that we should stop something.
362. Beware of fame. It is not what God wants.
363. When it comes to health, a saying goes, "One doctor is advice, two doctors are confusion. Three doctors are... a graveyard." The same holds for spiritual matters. One spiritual father is from God. A second is confusion. A third, the loss of your soul!
364. Our purpose is to begin eternity here and now... for the Lady of All to receive us there above with the ranks of angels... and for us to live eternally in the light of Christ.
365. Just as the law of nature cannot endure a vacuum, so when we empty ourselves completely, the Holy Spirit rushes inside us, like a hurricane.
366. Don't associate with company among which you would not like God to see you.
There are some people who deprive us of solitude without offering us companionship.
367. There are some people who deprive us of solitude without offering us companionship.
368. Love the other without judging him, just as He presents him and as He loves him. Then God will help you and will overlook your own transgressions.
369. To a woman in mourning: Above all, give up all "material" recollections and expectations.
370. For somebody to love really and deeply, he must not allow his body to interfere. Love is never forgotten when it is elevated to that level.
371. Follow your path and don't let anything bother you. Keep your ears open and don't be impatient. Many years must pass and we must be tested before we can acquire patience.
372. Lord, I beg you, do not allow me ever to have my own will. Do Your own will in me. However difficult it may seem to me, it will be easy because it will be Yours!
373. God is free, and love dwells within freedom.
374. Love of money leads to hell, because the man who loves money steals.
375. He who loves can only do beautiful things.
376. I do not have to know you. I have to love you.
377. I am not "intellectual". I am simply happy to be alive and to love Him and everybody.
378. Photographs and graves are such sad and pitiable things when the generation that loved them has gone...
379. How do we dare to ignore and disobey the will of God and do what we consider human duty? Can't we see that our health is impaired? The words duty and obligation do not exist in the Gospel. We owe them only to God. Otherwise we become like the millions of dead in this world.
380. Do not ever get tied to anybody anywhere except Christ alone, and go wherever the Holy Spirit leads you, bringing His love to ALL, beyond frontiers and discrimination. Your destination is to love! That is what I was once told by my Abbot Fr Lev, and that is what I say to you.
381. Indulgence during Lent causes illness, and illness brings sluggishness.
382. Always forwards. Even at a tortoise space.
383. You feel freedom when the behaviour of others does not bother you and you forgive them.
384. Love does acrobatics in people's hearts.
385. The person has not yet been born who will make me upset...
386. We should not be interested in other people's response or what results we have. Our “job” is simply to try - the rest God will do.
387. It is pain that allows freedom.
388. Come - be silent.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Gerontissa Gabrielia
It was not until 1959 that she went to the Monastery of Mary and Martha in Bethany, Palestine, to become a nun. When she arrived she asked Fr. Theodosius the chaplain for a rule of prayer. Fr. Theodosius was somewhat surprised to find that she could read even ancient Byzantine Greek. Fr. Theodosius said, "The great elders that we hear about no longer exist. I certainly am not one. You came here to save your soul. If I start giving you rules, you will lose you soul and I will as well. But here is Fr. John. He will be your elder." So for her first year in the monastery he set her to reading only the Gospels and St. John Climacus. (It should be noted that at that time the Ladder had not been published in modern Greek.)
She was three years in Bethany. In April, 1962, word came that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople sought to send an Orthodox monastic to Taize in France. Sister Gabrielia went by way of Taize (she spoke fluent French from childhood) to America.
In 1963 she was back in Greece. The Gerontissa was tonsured to the Small Schema by Abbot Amphilochios (Makris) on Patmos in the Cave of St. Anthony under the Monastery of Evangelismos just before she and the nun Tomasina left again for India. Elder Amphilochios was enthusiastic at the idea a nun who would be open to the an active outreach in the world. In India she was for three year in Nani Tal in Uttar Pradesh where Fr. Lazarus Moore was the priest and where he consulted the Gerontissa in his translations of the Psalter and the Fathers. Between 1967 and 1977 the Gerontissa traveled in the Mission field of East Africa, in Europe including visiting old friends and spiritual fathers Lev Gillet and Sophrony of Essex, again to America, and briefly in Sinai where Archbishop Damianos was attempting to reintroduce women's monasticism.
She traveled extensively, with much concern and broad love for the people of God. Some of her spiritual children found her in Jerusalem beside the Tomb of Christ; others found her on the mission field of East Africa. For years beginning in about 1977, she lived hidden in a little apartment, the "House of the Angels" in Patissia in the midst of the noise and smog and confusion of central Athens. A little place, a hidden place, a precious place to those who knew her there.
In 1989 she moved to Holy Protection hermitage on the island of Aegina, close by the shrine of St. Nectarios. There she called the last two of her spiritual children to become monastics near her, and there she continued to receive many visitors. At the start of Great Lent in 1990 she was hospitalized for lymphatic cancer. She was forty days in the hospital, leaving during Holy Week and receiving communion of Pascha. And to the puzzlement of the doctors, the cancer disappeared. It was not yet her time.
The Gerontissa finally withdrew to quiet. With only one last nun she moved for the last time in this life, to the island of Leros. There they established the hesychastirion of the Holy Archangels. Only in this last year of her life did she accept the Great Schema at the hands of Fr. Dionysious from Little St. Anne's Skete on Athos. He came to give her the Schema in the Chapel of the Panaghia in the Kastro on the top of Leros.
Gerontissa Gabrielia passed from this world on March 28, 1992, having never built a monastery. Over the years, six of her spiritual children did become monastics, but never more that one or two were with her at a time. Only the angels could count the number of lives that God touched and changed through her. Her biography and collected writings were published in Greek in 1996, through the work of her last monastic daughter and the contribution of many, many others who held the Gerontissa dear. An English translation is in process.
Anyone who knew the Gerontissa realized that God has not left us without His saints, even down to the present day. The few words recorded here scarcely suggest the clarity and love of her soul. Words are only the tools of this world; the wonder of the Gerontissa was wrapped in the mystery of the silence of the world to come.
She never sought a reputation. She never allowed anything about her to be published during her long life and only allowed her children to take photographs in her very last years. Those whom God touched through her called her Gerontissa; she never made herself anything but the nun Gabrielia.
She was humility and love incarnate.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
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