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“For if the world, being made spherical, is confined within the circles of heaven, and the Creator of the world is above the things created, managing that by His providential care of these, what place is there for the second god, or for the other gods? … Beautiful without doubt is the world, excelling, as well in its magnitude as in the arrangement of its parts, both those in the oblique circle and those about the north, and also in its spherical form.” —St. Athenagoras of Athens, A Plea for the Christians, Ch. 8 and 16 (Father of the Church, Ante-Nicene Christian apologist, c. 175, E)
“Let's start with the earth: you see how big it is and how many every creature is on it – living and soulless. Looking at the earth in all directions, you notice that it seems to be flat; in fact, it is round like a ball: land surveyors have found this out as surely as possible, and we ourselves can be sure of this. You are often by the sea – look into the distance for departing ships or steam ships. At first you see the whole ship, but the farther it goes, the more the bottom of the ship is hidden from you, so that at last you see only the sails or one smoke from the steam ship, and finally this also disappears, as if the ship had sunk into a hole. Why does this happen? Because the earth is spherical. If at first glance it seems flat to us, it is because we are very small in comparison with the earth, and the earth is too large and, with its size, its sloping is imperceptible to us, insignificant ones. So, brethren, the earth is round.” —St. John of Kronstadt, Diaries of Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt, 1857–1858
“You often see, brethren, that the Lord Almighty is mostly written on icons with a ball, on top of which is a cross. This ball means the globe of the earth and is called the power – from the fact that in ancient times the Roman kings had the custom, on solemn occasions, to hold it in their hands. Our Lord Jesus Christ holds in his hand the globe of the earth, as the king of heaven and earth, as the Almighty. We say this in order to show you that our earth is round like a ball. But how is the sphericity of the earth proved by the phenomena at the rising and setting of the sun? As follows: if the earth were not spherical, but flat; then the sun would now hide under the earth, or come out from under it, and immediately leave us either in the full shadow of the earth, or illuminate us with full light. Now, since the earth is round, we use the remnants of light from the sun even when it illuminates the sloping side of the earth, when the sun, so to speak, is under the mountain and produces a dawn for us, as if the glow of a huge fire. This dawn happens because the rays of the setting or rising sun, illuminating the sloping side of the earth, at the same time illuminate the air that is near the earth and surrounds it like water, and thus makes the light of dawn. Watching the dawn, we see from the gradual decrease in light – from the way it gradually becomes paler and paler from light pink - that the earth is exactly round, and the sun, as it were, glides, step by step, evenly, in a circle.” —St. John of Kronstadt, Catechetical Talks
“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