September 5, 2010

Wisdom from Abba Moses the Ethiopian

Abba Moses the Strong

1. A devout prince, upon hear­ing of the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of St. Moses, went with his ret­inue into the desert to see him. Inform­ing Moses that the prince was com­ing to his monastery, Moses quickly ran out and began to flee and to hide some­where, but he unex­pect­edly encoun­tered the high-ranking vis­i­tors. “Where is the cell of […]

St. Mary’s Feast as a Celebration of Christ

Holy Theotokos

Many peo­ple who are not famil­iar with Ortho­doxy or the way it under­stands saints are sur­prised to see the Church cel­e­brat­ing the feasts of saints, like today. They think that, if the cel­e­bra­tion is not about Christ, it is merely a dis­trac­tion and con­trary to the Gospel. The answer to this is that we never celebrate […]

On Prayers for the Dead

St. Athanasius

In the Ortho­dox Church, it is com­mon to hear lita­nies and prayers for the dead. In these prayers, the Church as the Body of Christ exist­ing in time man­i­fests the rela­tion­ship between our tem­po­ral life in this world and our eter­nal life to come. There is no dis­tinc­tion between the Church here in the world […]

Seven Principles of Salvation

Abba Moses the Strong

Abba Poe­men once asked Abba Moses the Strong what men must do to attain sal­va­tion. In response, Abba Moses gave him the fol­low­ing seven prin­ci­ples that any­one could fol­low and per­fect to attain the King­dom of Heaven. These prin­ci­ples apply to those liv­ing as her­mits and monks in the desert as well as to those […]

Beware of Judging One who has Repented

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By true repen­tance with tears, prayer and good works the most defiled soul can be com­pletely cleansed and changed. There­fore be care­ful that you do not mali­ciously men­tion the sins of a repen­tant sin­ner but offer thanks­giv­ing to God and be aston­ished how from dark­ness, light is made and from slime, pure water.