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“Behold, for years and generations, the way of God has been leveled by the cross and by death. How is this with thee, that thou seest the afflictions of the way as if they were out of the way? Doest not thou wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or doest thou wish to go a way which is especially for thee, without suffering? The way unto God is a daily cross. No one can ascend unto heaven with comfort, we know where the way of comfort leads.” —St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises, Homily LIX
“I know of my spiritual poverty, my own nothingness without faith. I am so weak, that it is only by Christ's name that I live and obtain peace, that I rejoice and my heart expands, whilst without Him I am spiritually dead, I am troubled, and my heart is oppressed; without the Lord's Cross I should have been long since the victim of the most cruel distress and despair. Only Christ keeps me alive: and the Cross is my peace and my consolation.” —St. John of Kronstadt
“Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him.” —St. Gregory the Theologian
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“People will never come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” —Aldous Huxley
“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.” — Potter Stewart
“This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the one Godhead and power, found in the three in unit, and comprising the three separately; not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities nor inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of three infinite ones, each God when considered in himself; as the Father, so the Son; as the Son, so the Holy Spirit; the three one God when contemplated together; each God because consubstantial; one God because of the monarchia. No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of anyone of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.” —St. Gregory the Theologian, Orations 40.41, as quoted by Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity, 378
“God – who is truly none of the things that exist, and who, properly speaking, is all things, and at the same time beyond them – is present in the logos of each thing in itself, and in all the logoi together, according to which all things exist… God is whole in all things commonly, and in each being particularly, without separation or being subject to division…but on the contrary is truly all things in all, never going out of His own indivisible simplicity.” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“Perhaps you will say: ‘Then tell me, did the virgin become the mother of the Godhead?’ And to this we reply: There can be no doubt that the living and enhypostatic Word was begotten from Originator the very essence of God his Father, and has his existence without beginning in time, eternally co-existing with his Begetter. He is conceived of as existing in him and with him, but in these last times of the age since he became flesh, that is was united to flesh endowed with a rational soul, he is also said to have been born of a woman in a fleshly manner. This mystery concerning him is in some ways like the mystery of our own birth, for earthly mothers, assisting nature as regards the birth, have the embryonic flesh in their wombs, which in a short time by certain ineffable workings of God, increases and is perfected into the human form. Then God introduces the spirit to this living creature in a manner known to him alone; for ‘he fashions the spirit of a man within him’ (Zech.12.1), as the prophet says. Nonetheless, the Word is different to the flesh, and equally different to the soul. But even if these mothers have produced only the earthly bodies, nonetheless they are said to have given birth to the whole living creature, I mean that of soul and body, and not to have given birth to just a part. To take an example, surely no one would say that Elizabeth was only the mother of the flesh, but not the mother of the soul, since she gave birth to the Baptist who was already endowed with a soul? Surely she is the mother of one thing constituted from both realities; that is a man, of soul and body. We take it, then, that something like this happened in the birth of Emmanuel.” —St. Cyril of Alexandria, the chief opponent of Nestorianism, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy
“The power to bear Mysteries, which the humble man has received, which makes him perfect in every virtue without toil, this is the very power which the blessed apostles received in the form of fire. For its sake the Saviour commanded them not to leave Jerusalem until they should receive power from on high, that is to say, the Paraclete, which, being interpreted, is the Spirit of consolation. And this is the Spirit of divine visions. Concerning this it is said in divine Scripture: ‘Mysteries are revealed to the humble’ (Ecclus 3:19). The humble are accounted worthy of receiving in themselves this Spirit of revelations Who teaches mysteries.” —St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 77
“For Petra (Rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from Petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this Rock will I build my Church,’ because Peter had said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ On this Rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this Foundation was Peter himself also built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” —St. Augustine of Hippo, Tractate, CXXIV
“There is nothing more serious than the sacrilege of schism because there is no just cause for severing the unity of the Church.” —St. Augustine of Hippo
“Do not fear sorrows, but fear the stubbornness of heretics who try to separate a man from Christ, which is why Christ commanded us to consider them as pagans and pharisees.” —St. Anatoly of Optina
And he will receive that authority before his own destruction and that of the whole world. He will have a helper, a Magus, who, by the power of false miracles, will fulfill his will and kill those that do not recognize the authority of Antichrist.” —St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco, The Antichrist and the Signs of the End of the World, Homily on the Last Judgement
“The miracles of Antichrist will be chiefly manifested in the aerial realm, where Satan chiefly has dominion.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina
“Without sanctification and illumination from above, our love – if it indeed is within us – lacks Gospel purity and holiness. It is poisoned by our self-love and egoism, which is so subtle and hard to grasp that we do not even notice it. We think that we truly love God and our neighbor, but in reality this is self-love, not love for God and neighbor.” —Archbishop Averky (Taushev) of Syracuse
At first, the seal will be offered to volunteers. However, within the enthronement of Antichrist everyone will be forced to accept the seal. Disobedience will be claimed a treachery. People will flee to the forests. Precautions should be taken to move in groups of about ten-fifteen, as the demons might try to nudge single people from the cliffs. The believers will be protected by the Holy Spirit. Whatever happens, never lose your hope. Help each other. God will clear your mind and you will know how to react. The one who endures will be saved. No true believer will feel either hunger, or thirst. The believers won't wither in the time of disasters. The Lord will work miracles for them. One leaf of a plant will be enough food for a month. Even the lump of the earth will be changed into the bread by making a sign of the cross over it.” —St. Gabriel Urgebadze of Georgia, Confessor and Fool for Christ
“Everyone is under the influence of a power that masters the mind, the will, and all the powers of the soul. And this power is cunning, because its source is the devil, and his tools are cunning people. Through them work the Antichrist and his forerunners. The Apostle said, ‘Because of that, God delivered them into the spirit of delusion, of deception, because they did not accept the love of the truth’. Something dark and scary is coming over the world. The human will stay more or less under his mastery, and the more the power of that cunning one has on the human under his mastery, the less the human will be aware of what he is doing.” —St. Barsanuphius
“The servants of Antichrist more than anything else strive to force God out of the life of men, so that men, satisfied with their material comfort, might not feel any need to turn to God in prayer, might not remember God, but might live as though He did not exist. Therefore, the whole order of today's life in the so-called ‘free’ countries, where there is no open bloody persecution against faith, where everyone has the right to believe as he wishes, is an even greater danger for the soul of a Christian (than open persecution), for it chains him entirely to the earth, compelling him to forget about heaven. The whole of contemporary ‘culture’, directed to purely earthly attainments and the frantic whirlpool of life bound up with it, keeps a man in a constant state of emptiness and distraction which gives no opportunity for one to go at least a little deeper into his soul, and so the spiritual life in him gradually dies out.” —Archbishop Averky (Taushev) of Syracuse, True Orthodoxy and the Contemporary World
“They have built a church career for themselves on a false but attractive premise: that the chief danger to the Church today is lack of strictness. No – the chief danger is something much deeper – the loss of the savor of Orthodoxy, a movement in which they themselves are participating, even in their ‘strictness.’… ‘Strictness’ will not save us if we don't have any more the feeling and taste of Orthodoxy.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina
“We ourselves have a feeling–based on nothing very definite as yet–that the best hope for preserving true Orthodoxy in the years ahead will lie in such small gatherings of believers, as much as possible ‘one in mind and soul.’ The history of the twentieth century has already shown us that we cannot expect too much from the ‘Church organization’; there, even apart from heresies, the spirit of the world has become very strong. Archbishop Averky, and our own Bishop Nektary also, have warned us to prepare for catacomb times ahead, when the grace of God may even be taken away from the ‘Church organization’ and only isolated groups of believers will remain. Soviet Russia already gives us an example of what we may expect–only worse, for the times do not get better.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina, Hope, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Worksby Hieromonk Damascene
“In those days the remnant of the faithful are to experience in themselves something like that which was experienced once by the Lord Himself when He, hanging on a cross, felt Himself so forsaken by His Divinity, that He cried out ‘My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ The last Christians will experience in themselves a similar abandonment of humanity by the Grace of God, but only for a short time.” —St. Seraphim of Sarov
“Those that wish to discern the truth may observe the apostolic tradition made manifest in every church throughout the world. We can enumerate those who were appointed bishops in the churches by the apostles, and their successors (or successions) down to our own day, who never taught, and never knew, absurdities such as these men produce. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught the perfect in private and in secret, they would rather have committed them to those to whom they entrusted the churches. For they wished those men to be perfect and unbelievable whom they laughed as their successors and to whom they handed over their own office of authority. But as it would be very tedious, in a book of this sort, to enumerate the successions in all the churches, we can found all those who in any way, whether for self-pleasing, or vainglory, or blindness, or evil mindedness, hold on authorized meetings. This we do by pointing to the apostolic tradition and the faith that is preached to men, which has come down to us through the successions of bishops; the tradition and creed of the greatest, and most ancient church, the church known to all men, which was founded and set up at Rome by the two men most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul. For with this church, because of its position of leadership and authority, must needs agree every church, that is, the faithful everywhere; for in her the apostolic tradition has always been preserved by the faithful from all parts.” —St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III
“If you wait for the perfect conditions to work out your salvation, then you will never begin a God-pleasing life.” —St. Nikon of Optina
"True Christianity is glorifying God with our own lives. To glorify God with our own life is possible only when we have true faith and when that faith indeed exists, we express it in words and in deeds.” —St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco
And let them not flatter themselves if they think they have Scripture authority for their assertions, since the devil himself quoted Scripture, and the essence of the Scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning. Otherwise, if we follow the letter, we too can concoct a new dogma and assert that such persons as wear shoes and have two coats must not be received into the Church.” —St. Jerome
“The key [to interpreting Holy Scripture]… is the Tradition of the Church… Now if you want to interpret the way you want, due to your satanic pride, then you will most certainly fail. You will become a heretic, and heresy is nothing other than the logical interpretation of dogma. When I attempt to interpret things that cannot be interpreted with logic and intellect, when I attempt to interpret a deep mystery using my mere mind and my intellect, then I go astray.” —Elder Athanasios Mitilinaios, Homiles on the Book of the Revelation, Vol. I, p. 46
“Christianity did not come from Judaism: rather, Judaism is a perversion of Christianity.” —St. Ignatius of Antioch
“Men are converted to God not because someone was able to give brilliant explanations, but because they saw in him that light, joy, depth, seriousness, and love which alone reveal the presence and power of God in the world.” —Fr. Alexander Schmemann
“When conversion does take place, the process of revelation occurs in a very simple way: a person is in need, he suffers, and then somehow the other world opens up. The more you are in suffering and difficulties and are desperate for God, the more He is going to come to your aid, reveal Who He is, and show you the way to get out.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works by Hieromonk Damascene, p. 98
“We think we know a lot, but what we know is very little. Even all those who have striven all their life to bring progress to mankind – learned scientists and highly educated people – all realize in the end that all their knowledge is but a grain of sand on the seashore. All our achievements are insufficient.” —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives
“Men are often called intelligent wrongly. Intelligent men are not those who are erudite in the sayings and books of the wise men of old, but those who have an intelligent soul and can discriminate between good and evil. They avoid what is sinful and harms the soul; and with deep gratitude to God they resolutely adhere by dint of practice to what is good and benefits the soul. These men alone should truly be called intelligent.” —St. Anthony the Great, On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life: One Hundred and Seventy Texts, Text 1, The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Vol. 1
“It is impossible to replace the spiritual with the emotional. If anyone tries to forcibly replace one with the other, then he will assimilate lies instead of truth, falsehood masquerading as truth.” —St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (Bryanchaninov) of Caucasus, The Refuge, Chapter 9, p. 119
“Not knowledge that you learn, but knowledge that you suffer: that is Orthodox spirituality.” —Gerontissa Gabrielia, Sayings of Gerontissa Gabrielia
“Our religion is founded on spiritual experience, seen and heard as sure as any physical fact in this world. Not theory, not philosophy, not human emotions, but experience.” —St. Nikolai Velimirovich
“We define that the holy icons should be exhibited in the holy churches of God… and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people… We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor… He who venerates the icon, venerates in it the reality for which it stands.” —The Seventh Ecumenical Council
“In the radiance of His light the world is not commonplace. The very floor we stand on is a miracle of atoms whizzing about in space. The darkness of sin is clarified, and its burden shouldered. Death is robbed of its finality, trampled down by Christ's death. In a world where everything that seems to be present is immediately past, everything in Christ is able to participate in the eternal present of God.” —Fr. Alexander Schmemann
“Christ surpasses both ends of the world, where the drama ends and where it began. Of all the mysteries, the greatest mystery is He. From His Nativity to His Crucifixion on the Cross, From His Crucifixion on the Cross to His Resurrection, He is the true measure of all God's creation.” —St. Nikolai Velimirovich
“Let no one think that there is anything interpretive in the works of the six days.” —St. Ephrem the Syrian
“It is [the Lord] that sitteth upon the orb (חוּג, γῦρον, gyrum) of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” —Isaiah 40:22
“How does the sun rule by day? Because carrying everywhere light with it, it is no sooner risen above the horizon than it drives away darkness and brings us day. Thus we might, without self deception, define day as air lighted by the sun, or as the space of time that the sun passes in our hemisphere… Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth. If it be spherical or cylindrical, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the forth of a winnowing basket and is hollow in the middle; all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes; he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself while the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us.” —St. Basil the Great, Hexaemeron, Homily 6:8; 9:1
“Verily, it is most true what one of heathen culture is recorded to have said, that it is the mind that sees and the mind that hears. Else, if you will not allow this to be true, you must tell me why, when you look at the sun, as you have been trained by your instructor to look at him, you assert that he is not in the breadth of his disc of the size he appears to the many, but that he exceeds by many times the measure of the entire earth. Do you not confidently maintain that it is so, because you have arrived by reasoning through phenomena at the conception of such and such a movement, of such distances of time and space, of such causes of eclipse? And when you look at the waning and waxing moon you are taught other truths by the visible figure of that heavenly body, viz. that it is in itself devoid of light, and that it revolves in the circle nearest to the earth, and that it is lit by light from the sun; just as is the case with mirrors, which, receiving the sun upon them, do not reflect rays of their own, but those of the sun, whose light is given back from their smooth flashing surface. Those who see this, but do not examine it, think that the light comes from the moon herself. But that this is not the case is proved by this; that when she is diametrically facing the sun she has the whole of the disc that looks our way illuminated; but, as she traverses her own circle of revolution quicker from moving in a narrower space, she herself has completed this more than twelve times before the sun has once travelled round his; whence it happens that her substance is not always covered with light. For her position facing him is not maintained in the frequency of her revolutions; but, while this position causes the whole side of the moon which looks to us to be illumined, directly she moves sideways her hemisphere which is turned to us necessarily becomes partially shadowed and only that which is turned to him meets his embracing rays; the brightness, in fact, keeps on retiring from that which can no longer see the sun to that which still sees him, until she passes right across the sun's disc and receives his rays upon her hinder part; and then the fact of her being in herself totally devoid of light and splendour causes the side turned to us to be invisible while the further hemisphere is all in light; and this is called the completion of her waning. But when again, in her own revolution, she has passed the sun and she is transverse to his rays, the side which was dark just before begins to shine a little, for the rays move from the illumined part to that so lately invisible. You see what the eye does teach; and yet it would never of itself have afforded this insight, without something that looks through the eyes and uses the data of the senses as mere guides to penetrate from the apparent to the unseen. It is needless to add the methods of geometry that lead us step by step through visible delineations to truths that lie out of sight, and countless other instances which all prove that apprehension is the work of an intellectual essence deeply seated in our nature, acting through the operation of our bodily senses.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection
“As, when the sun shines above the earth, the shadow is spread over its lower part, because its spherical shape makes it impossible for it to be clasped all round at one and the same time by the rays, and necessarily, on whatever side the sun's rays may fall on some particular point of the globe, if we follow a straight diameter, we shall find shadow upon the opposite point, and so, continuously, at the opposite end of the direct line of the rays shadow moves round that globe, keeping pace with the sun, so that equally in their turn both the upper half and the under half of the earth are in light and darkness.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection
“Hell can't be made attractive, so the devil makes attractive the road that leads there.” —St. Basil the Great
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“If you die before you die, than when you die, you will not die.” —written on a cell wall, St. Paul's Monastery, Mt. Athos
“Many think that love is a feeling, but this is not the case. It is a state of the will. If love were a feeling it would not be a commandment. Naturally, love is accompanied by certain feelings, but in essence it is a state of the will.” —Fr. Daniel Sysoev, How Can I Learn God's Will?
“Love is – the bond of life, the mother of the poor and the teacher of the rich. It is the nurse of orphans, the attendant of the elderly, the treasure of the indigent and the common port of all the afflicted.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa
“I guard you in advance against beasts in the form of men, whom you must not only not receive, but if it is possible not even meet, but only pray for them, if perchance they may repent…” —St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 117
“If the Christian recognizes and understands under what condition, under what law he has believed, he will know that he must labor more in the world than others, as he must carry on a greater struggle against the assault of the devil. Divine Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying: ‘Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice, and in fear, and prepare thyself for temptation’ (Sirach 2:1), and again: ‘in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience, for gold and silver are tried in the fire’ (Sirach 2:4,5).” —St. Cyprian of Carthage, Mortality
“The person who has surrendered himself entirely to sin indulges with enjoyment and pleasure in unnatural and shameful passions – licentiousness, unchastity, greed, hatred, guile and other forms of vice – as though they were natural. The genuine and perfected Christian, on the other hand, with great enjoyment and spiritual pleasure participates effortlessly and without impediment in all the virtues and all the supranatural fruits of the Spirit – love, peace, patient endurance, faith, humility and the entire truly golden galaxy of virtue – as though they were natural.” —St. Symeon Metaphrastis
“The one who has not yet obtained divine knowledge activated by love makes a lot of the religious works he performs. But the one who has been deemed worthy to obtain this says with conviction the words which the patriarch Abraham spoke when he was graced with the divine appearance, ‘I am but earth and ashes.’” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“Do not say that ‘mere faith in our Lord Jesus Christ can save me.’ For me’, for this is impossible unless you acquire love for him Him through works. For in what concerns mere believing, ‘even the devils demons believe and trembletremble’ (James 2:19). The action of love consists in heartfelt good deeds towards one's neighbor, magnanimity, patience, and sober use of things.’” ” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“Our faith then must be different from the faith of devils. For our faith purifies the heart; but their faith makes them guilty. For they do wickedly, and therefore say they to the Lord, ‘What have we to do with You?’ When you hear the devils say this, do you think that they do not acknowledge Him? ‘We know,’ they say, ‘who You are: You are the Son of God.’ This Peter says, and is commended; the devil says it, and is condemned. Whence comes this, but that though the words be the same, the heart is different? Let us then make a distinction in our faith, and not be content to believe. This is no such faith as purifies the heart. ‘Purifying their hearts,’ it is said, ‘by faith.’ But by what, and what kind of faith, save that which the Apostle Paul defines when he says, ‘Faith which works by love.’ That faith distinguishes us from the faith of devils, and from the infamous and abandoned conduct of men. ‘Faith,’ he says. What faith? ‘That which works by love,’ and which hopes for what God does promise. Nothing is more exact or perfect than this definition. There are then in faith these three things. He in whom that faith is which works by love, must necessarily hope for that which God does promise. Hope therefore is the associate of faith. For hope is necessary as long as we see not what we believe, lest perhaps through not seeing, and by despairing to see, we fail. That we see not, does make us sad; but that we hope we shall see, comforts us. Hope then is here, and she is the associate of faith. And then charity also, by which we long, and strive to attain, and glow with desire, and hunger and thirst. This then is taken in also; and so there will be faith, hope, and charity. For how shall there not be charity there, since charity is nothing else but love? And this faith is itself defined as that ‘which works by love.’ Take away faith, and all you believe perishes; take away charity, and all that you do perishes. For it is the province of faith to believe, of charity to do. For if you believe without love, you do not apply yourself to good works; or if you do, it is as a servant, not as a son, through fear of punishment, not through love of righteousness. Therefore I say, that faith purifies the heart, which works by love.” —St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon III on the New Testament, Section XI
“Obedience is necessary not only for monks, but for all people. Even the Lord was obedient. The proud and self-regarding do not allow grace to live in them, and therefore they never have spiritual peace, while in the obedient soul the grace of the Holy Spirit enters easily and gives joy and peace. Whoever bears even a little grace in himself joyfully submits himself to all direction. He knows that God directs even the heavens and the netherworld, and himself, and his business, and everything in the world, and therefore he is always at peace.” —St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings, XV.2
“The fact that I am a monk and you are a layman is of no importance. The Lord listens equally to the monk and to the man of the world provided both are true believer. He looks for a heart full of true faith into which to send his Spirit. For the heart of a man is capable of containing the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God are one.” —St. Seraphim of Sarov
“He who honours the Lord does what the Lord bids. When he sins or is disobedient, he patiently accepts what comes as something he deserves.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“Those who, because of the rigor of their own ascetic practice, despise the less zealous, think that they are made righteous by physical works. But we are even more foolish if we rely on theoretical knowledge and disparage the ignorant.” —St. Mark the Ascetic
“When you get bitter and annoyed, even if only in thought, you ruin the spiritual atmosphere. You stop the Holy Spirit from working and you allow the devil to increase evil. You should always pray, love and forgive, rejecting each and every bad thought within you.” —St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
“When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected, and you are wearied and oppressed by your loneliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun; also all the angels, your own Guardian Angel, and all the Saints of God.” —St. John of Kronstadt
“A remedy against straying thoughts is mental attention, attention to the fact that the Lord is before us and we are before Him.” —St. Theophan the Recluse
“Fiery lust, the desire for marriage, sexual union … and all the other things that, as most people think, the body seeks for - it is not the body as such … but the soul, which through the body seeks pleasure by their means… Let no one think he is being driven towards these things and compelled by his own body… the body cannot be moved to anything apart from the soul.” —St. Symeon the New Theologian
“Often this demon [of lust] goes away altogether for a while, and one can have a false sense of security that one is ‘above’ this passion; but all the Holy Fathers warn that one cannot consider this passion conquered before the grave. Continue your struggle and take refuge in humility, seeing what base sins you are capable of and how you are lost without the constant help of God Who calls you to a life above these sins.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works by Hieromonk Damascene, p. 803
“Pornography is the devil's iconography.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina
Do not fall into despondency on this account. By your firmness in the struggle, show the tenacity of your purpose and the stability of your free will. When thrown down, get up. When duped and disarmed, rearm yourself afresh. When defeated, again rush to the fight. It is extremely good for you to see within yourself both your own fall and the fall of the whole of mankind. It is essential for you to recognize and study this fall in your own experience, in your heart and mind. It is essential for you to see the infirmity of your knowledge and intellect, and the weakness of your will.” —St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (Bryanchaninov) of Caucasus, The Arena, chapter 8
“Do not fall into despair because of stumbling. I do not mean that you should not feel contrition for them, but that you should not think them incurable. For it is more expedient to be bruised than dead. There is, indeed, a Healer for the man who has stumbled, even He Who on the Cross asked that mercy be shown to His crucifiers, He Who pardoned His murders while He hung on the Cross. ‘All manner of sin’, He said, ‘and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men’, that is, through repentance.” —St. Isaac the Syrian
“Do not say: ‘I have sinned much, and therefore I am not bold enough to fall down before God.’ Do not despair. Simply do not increase your sins in despair and, with the help of the All-merciful One, you will not be put to shame. For He said, ‘he who comes to Me I will not cast out.’ (John. 6:37) And so, be bold and believe that He is pure and cleanses those who draw near to Him. If you want to accomplish true repentance, show it with your deeds. If you have fallen into pride, show humility; if into drunkenness, show sobriety; if into defilement, show purity of life. For it is said, ‘Turn away from evil and do good.’ (I Pet. 3:11)” —St. Gennadios (II) Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople, The Golden Chain, The Golden Chain, 87-89
“‘The world’ is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them the world. But when we wish to distinguish them by their special names, we call them the passions. The passions are the following: love of riches, desire for possessions, bodily pleasure from which comes sexual passion, love of honour which gives rise to envy, lust for power, arrogance and pride of position, the craving to adorn oneself with luxurious clothes and vain ornaments, the itch for human glory which is a source of rancour and resentment, and physical fear. Where these passions cease to be active, there the world is dead… Someone has said of the Saints that while alive they were dead; for though living in the flesh, they did not live for the flesh. See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world and how far you are dead to it.” —St. Isaac the Syrian
“Always have the fear of God before your eyes. Remember Him who gives death and lives. Hate the world and all that is in it. Hate the peace that comes from the flesh. Renounce this life, so that you may be alive to God.” —St. Anthony the Great
“Thus let us live to Him Who while He dies for us is Life; and let us die to ourselves that we may live to Christ; for we cannot live to Him unless first we die to ourselves, that is, to our wills. Let us be Christ's and not our own; ‘for we are not our own, for we are bought at a Great Price’ (1 Cor. 6. 19-20), and truly a Great One, when the Lord is given for a slave, the King for a servant, and God for man. What ought we to render ourselves, if the Creator of the universe for us ungodly men, yet His creation, is unjustly put to death? Do you think you ought not to die to sin? Certainly you ought. Therefore let us die, let us die for the sake of life, since Life dies for the dead, so that we may be able to say with Paul, ‘I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2. 20), He Who for me has died; for that is the cry of the elect. But none can die to himself, unless Christ lives in him; but if Christ be in him, he cannot live to himself. Live in Christ, that Christ may live in you.” —St. Columbanus of Bobbio, Sermons of Columbanus of Bobbio, Sermon X:2
“Just as a man whose head is under water cannot inhale pure air, so a man whose thoughts are plunged into the cares of this world cannot absorb the sensation of the world to come.” —St. Isaac the Syrian
“For what purpose does the Lord add day after day, year after year, to our existence? In order that we may gradually put away, cast aside, evil from our souls, each one his own, and acquire blessed simplicity; in order that we may become, for instance, gentle as lambs, simple as infants; in order that we may learn not to have the least attachment to earthly things, but like loving, simple children, may cling with all our hearts to God alone, and love Him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our strength, and all our thoughts, and our neighbor as ourselves. Let us hasten, therefore, to pray to the Lord, fervently and tearfully, to grant us simplicity of heart, and let us strive by every means to cast out the evil from our souls - for instance, evil suspiciousness, malevolence, malignity, malice, pride, arrogance, boastfulness, scornfulness, impatience, despondency, despair, irascibility and irritability, fearfulness and faint-heartedness, envy, avarice, gluttony, and satiety; fornication, mental and of the heart, and actual fornication; the love of money, and in general the passion for acquisition; slothfulness, disobedience, and all the dark horde of sins. Lord, without Thee we can do nothing! Bless us Thyself in this work, and give us the victory over our enemies and our passions. So be it!” —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“If you are a scholar, a student in any educational establishment, or an official in some ministry, an officer in any of the branches of the military service, or a technologist, a painter, a sculptor, a manufacturer, a mechanic – remember that the first science for each one of you is to be a true Christian, to believe sincerely in the Holy Trinity, to converse daily with God in prayer, to take part in the Divine service, to observe the rules and regulations of the Church, and to bear in your heart, before your work, during your work, and after your work, the name of Jesus, for He is our light, our strength, our holiness, and our help.” —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ: Part II, Holy Trinity Monastery, pg. 286
“Watch your heart during all your life – examine it, listen to it, and see what prevents its union with the most blessed Lord. Let this be for you the science of all sciences, and with God’s help, you will easily observe what estranges you from God, and what draws you towards Him and unites you to Him. It is the evil spirit more than anything that stands between our hearts and God; he estranges God from us by various passions, or by the desire of the flesh, by the desires of the eyes, and by worldly pride.” —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“The man who loves his neighbor as himself possesses no more than his neighbor…thus, as much as your wealth increases, so much does your love decrease.” —St. Basil the Great
“When you are weary of praying and do not receive, consider how often you have heard a poor man calling, and have not listened to him.” —St. John Chrysostom
“Do not ever say: ‘These beggars annoy me!’ So many millions of men live on earth and all are beggars before the Lord; emperors as well as laborers, the wealthy as well as servants, all are beggars before the Lord and the Lord never said: ‘These beggars annoy me!’” —St. Nikolai Velimirovich
“Do not be surprised that when you draw near to virtue, grievous and intense tribulations come to you on all sides: for virtue is not considered virtue, if it does not involve hard work.” —St. Isaac the Syrian, Directions on Spiritual Training, The Philokalia
“The purpose of temptations is to reveal hidden passions … so that you can battle against them in order to heal the soul. They are examples of divine mercy.” —St. Anatoly of Optina
“In one day, brethren, you can gain all eternity. And in one day, brethren, you can lose all eternity. You are given thousands of days on earth to determine your own personal, eternal salvation or your own personal, eternal damnation. But blessed a hundredfold be the day in which you repent of all your unclean deeds, words and thoughts, and return to God crying out for mercy! That day will be worth more to you than a thousand other days.” —St. Nikolai Velimirovich
“Many people, finding daily life unsatisfying, try to live in a fantasy world of their own. Underlying the whole of modern culture is the common denominator of the worship of oneself and one's own comfort, which is deadly to any idea of spiritual life.” —Fr. Seraphim Rose of Platina
“A Christian should avoid unhealthy religiosity: both the feeling of superiority due to virtue, and the feeling of inferiority due to sinfulness.” —St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
“As long as we pay attention to the negative sides of various people we meet, we will not find peace and repentance. As long as we keep in ourselves the thought of offense, caused to us by enemies, friends, family and neighbours, we will not find peace and quiet and we will live in a hellish state.” —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica
“The genuineness of a friend is shown at a time of trial, if he shares the distress you suffer.” —St. Thalassios the Libyan
“If you are offended by anything, whether intended or unintended, you do not know the way of peace, which through love brings the lovers of divine knowledge to the knowledge of God.” —St. Maximus the Confessor
“…surely we ought to show kindness and gentleness to animals for many reasons, and chiefly because they are of the same origin as ourselves.” —St. John Chrysostom
“For animals, man is like God. Just as we ask God for help, they ask man for help.” —St. Paisios of Mt. Athos
“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa
“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit.” —Psalm 34:18
“O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure!
For Your arrows pierce me deeply,
And Your hand presses me down.
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
My wounds are foul and festering
Because of my foolishness.
Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
Do not forsake me, O Lord;
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!” —Psalm 38:1,2,4,5,21,22
“Be still, and know that I am God;
“Nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker.” —St. Basil the Great
“Behold, for years and generations, the way of God has been leveled by the cross and by death. How is this with thee, that thou seest the afflictions of the way as if they were out of the way? Doest not thou wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or doest thou wish to go a way which is especially for thee, without suffering? The way unto God is a daily cross. No one can ascend unto heaven with comfort, we know where the way of comfort leads.” —St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises, Homily LIX
“I know of my spiritual poverty, my own nothingness without faith. I am so weak, that it is only by Christ's name that I live and obtain peace, that I rejoice and my heart expands, whilst without Him I am spiritually dead, I am troubled, and my heart is oppressed; without the Lord's Cross I should have been long since the victim of the most cruel distress and despair. Only Christ keeps me alive: and the Cross is my peace and my consolation.” —St. John of Kronstadt
“Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him.” —St. Gregory the Theologian
“Now there is no more chaos, no more death, no more slaying, no more Hell. Now everything is joy, thanks to the resurrection of our Christ. Human nature is resurrected with Him. Now we too can rise again that we might live with Him eternally … What bliss is contained in the Resurrection! In every sorrow, with every failure, in anything that causes you pain, collect yourself for half a minute and slowly say this hymn. Then, you will see that the most important thing in your life and in the life of the entire universe has already been accomplished with the resurrection of Christ. It is our salvation. And then, you realize that all our setbacks are so insignificant, that you don’t need to allow them to spoil your mood.” —Elder Porphryios
“With the Resurrection of the God-Man, the nature of man is irreversibly led toward the road of immortality and man's nature becomes destructive to death itself. For until the Resurrection of Christ, death was destructive for man; from the Resurrection of Christ, man's nature becomes destructive in death. If man lives in the faith of the Resurrected God Man, he lives above death, he is unreachable for her; death is under man's feet. Death where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? And when a man who believes in Christ dies, he only leaves his body as his clothes, in which he will be dressed again on the Day of Last Judgement.” —St. Justin Popovich
“Man sentenced God to death; by this Resurrection, He sentenced man to immortality. In return for a beating, He gives an embrace; for abuse, a blessing; for death, immortality. Man never showed so much hate for God as when he crucified Him; and God never showed more love for a man when He arose. Man even wanted to reduce God to a mortal, but God by His Resurrection made man immortal. The crucified God is Risen and has killed death. Death is no more. Immortality has surrounded man and all the world.” —St. Justin Popovich
“Let no one fear death; for the death of the Savior has set us free.” —St. John Chrysostom
“This, then, is the way in which we interpret the Eighth Day…namely that when the time that is measured in weeks comes to an end, an Eighth Day will come into being…It will remain one day continually, never to be divided by the darkness of night. Another Sun will bring it into being, radiating the true light; embracing all things in it's luminous power, it will produce light continually and will make those who share in that Light into other suns.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Psalms
“He made Him who was righteous to be a sinner, that He might make sinners righteous.” —St. John Chrysostom
“The Word of God became man, that man might become god… becoming by grace what God is by nature.” —St. Athanasius the Great, On the Incarnation
“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” —Matthew 19:26
“Glory be to God for everything! Glory be to God for having created me to His image and likeness. Glory be to God for having redeemed me, the fallen. Glory be to God for having extended His solicitude to me, the unworthy. Glory be to God for having led me, the sinner, to repentance. Glory be to God for having offered me His holy words, like a lamp in a dark place, thus setting me on the path of righteousness. Glory be to God for having illumined the eyes of my heart. Glory be to God for having made known to me His holy name. Glory be to God for having washed away my sins through the bath of baptism. Glory be to God for having shown me the way to eternal bliss. The way is Jesus Christ, Son of God, Who says of Himself, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’
Glory be to God, that He has not brought me to perdition through my sins, but suffered them because of His kindness. Glory be to God for showing me the vanity and emptiness of the world. Glory be to God for helping me in various temptations, misfortunes, and calamities. Glory be to God for protecting me in accidents and mortal dangers. Glory be to God for defending me against the Devil, who is the enemy. Glory be to God for raising me when I was prostrate. Glory be to God for comforting me in my sorrow. Glory be to God for converting me when I was erring. Glory be to God for punishing me as a father. Glory be to God for announcing to me His last Judgment, that I might fear it and repent of my sins. Glory be to God for revealing to me eternal torment and eternal bliss, that I might flee the one and seek the other. Glory be to God for offering to me, the unworthy one, food, clothing, and shelter.” —St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, from St. Tikhon of Zadonsk's Will, B#26, p. 240
“When I am dead, come to me at my grave, and the more often the better. Whatever is in your soul, whatever may have happened to you, come to me as when I was alive and kneeling on the ground, cast all your bitterness upon my grave. Tell me everything and I shall listen to you, and all the bitterness will fly away from you. And as you spoke to me when I was alive, do so now. For I am living and I shall be forever.” —St. Seraphim of Sarov
“Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man takest thy crown (Revelation 3:11).” —Metropolitan Philaret of New York, the last words of
“«δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν» (Glory be to God for all things!)” —St. John Chrysostom, the last words of