“Metropolitan” Nathaniel of Kos and Nisyros (Greek Islands) wanting to honor the tradition of the Muslims, wished them warmly for Ramadan and took part in the typicon of prayer and food and wished them that “God bless them and may they be granted all good things.” One of the religious celebrations of Ramadan is iftar, which is typically observed communally by Muslims who come together to break their fast. Around sundown, or shortly after the call to the Maghrib prayer, is when the meal is eaten.[3] Though it’s not required, breaking the fast traditionally involves eating three dates in rememb ..read more

Still about 9 “no oil” days left in this year’s Great and Holy Lent ..read more

we must desire heaven, but before heaven is granted, Christ orders us to realize heaven on earth, to behave on earth as if we were in heaven and to carry in our prayers the concern of the whole world. ~ Saint John Chrysostom ..read more

ὑπὸ μοναχοῦ τινὸς ἐξ᾽Ἁγίου Ὄρους ΥΠΑΡΧΕΙ-ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΑ-ΕΙΣ-ΤΟ-ΚΑΤ-ΕΠΙΧΥΣΙΝ-ΒΑΠΤΙΣΜΑ ..read more

“Greater than all the virtues is discernment” ~St. John Abbot of Sina, Author of the “Ladder of Divine Ascent” “Greater than all the ascetic feats is obedience” ~St. Syncletica ..read more

Saint Gregory Palamas reminds us, “Truly as many belong to the Church of Christ belong to truth and those who belong not to truth, they belong not to the Church of Christ. All the more so these ones lie to themselves calling themselves and each other shepherds and sacred archpastors. We have been taught, however, that Christianity is not characterized by the personalities but rather by the truth and by the exactness of the Faith ..read more

The “Metropolitan” of Didymoteicho, Orestias, and Souflion didn’t lose the oppurtunity to go to visit the Grand Mufti of Didymoteicho Osman Hamza and to wish him a Happy Bayram for Eid al-Fitr for the end of Ramadan ..read more

Priest Timothy Porfiryevich Strelkov was born on January 15, 1880 in the village of Atyazhkino, Pomayevskaya volost, Buinsky uyezd, Simbirsk province, in a Mordovian peasant family. He went to a village and a city school, and then to Simbirsk pedagogical seminary. Then he was sent as a teacher to the village of Mikhailovka, twelve kilometres from the regional centre of Duvan, Bashkiria. He married Nadezhda Ionovna, and became a priest in the village. He had four sons and one daughter.         Fr. Timothy was the younger brother of another prie ..read more

“In older days, many Christians were receiving Holy Communion, especially before Pascha, without preparation. The Fathers, seeing the harm that was being caused by this, established the 40 days of fasting and prayer as a preparation.” -St. John Chrysostom (Against the Judaeans 3. P.G.47:867) Christians were being harmed by not preparing for Holy Communion through fasting and prayer. The greatest feasts of our Church are preceded by a fast. The Apostolic Canon says that Saturdays are not fasted. Fasting in this sense means: Not eating anything at all, keeping the ninth hour, and then eating on ..read more

By Vladimir Moss Only in one part of the Russian Church outside Russia was the new calendar ever implanted firmly – in Finland, whose Church had been taken away from the Russian Church by Patriarch Meletius of Constantinople. Already on July 19, 1923 he moved to force the great Russian monastery of Valaam, which was now outside Russia and within the bounds of the Finnish State, to accept the new calendar, writing mendaciously to Archbishop Seraphim (Lukyanov) that the new calendar had been accepted “with the agreement and by means of a decision of all the Orthodox Churches”.[1] Now, sinc ..read more