Igumen Tikhon (Borisov)
Lent is an amazing opportunity for each one of us, for each member of the Church, to escape from the deadening vanity, running around, chattering, and the endless pursuit of some dubious “values”.
Bishop Mitrophan (Znosko-Borovsky)
The Holy Church warns us of the terrible power of sin, and calls us who stand before the doors opening to the Holy Forty Days, to force ourselves and tear ourselves away from the maelstrom of everyday vanity.
Hieromonk Pafnuty (Fokin)
Olsufiev’s presence at St. Sergius’s shrine played an exceptional role in preserving the Lavra's shrines and relics during that difficult time.
Archpriest Alexander Saltykov
Maslenitsa—Cheesefare Week—has begun. During this time, both fasting and the absence of fasting, festivity and thoughts of death, resurrection, and the Last Judgment are paradoxically united.
Archpriest Andrei Chizhenko
Before Meatfare Sunday, the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Holy Church has established a universal Ancestors' Meatfare Saturday, on which we perform memorial services for all Orthodox Christians who have fallen asleep from the beginning until now.
Saturday of the Commemoration of the Dead
Fr. Lawrence Farley
The Prophet Haggai reminds us that there is a day to be small and that a wise heart will leave questions of numbers, growth, and influence in the hands of God.
Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh
How simple and how restrained are the words in which the Gospel describes his cruel rejection of his father, and prepares his departure into the far, the strange country! “Father, give me my part of thy inheritance!” Do these words not mean, “Father, I can’t wait until your death! You are still strong, and I am young; it is now that I want to reap the fruits of thy life, of thy labors; later they will be stale.
Natalia Prokofieva
The village of Naberezhny in Russia’s northern Pechora region arose essentially on the site of what was once a large cemetery—a cemetery of prisoners of the labor camps that built the Pechora Bridge and railway.
Alexey Gunkin
Foolishness for Christ is a particular form of sanctity where spiritual gifts and virtues are consciously hidden behind external, ostensible madness.
The experience of the spiritual life of our brothers in Christ, who achieved knowledge of the purpose and meaning of life, provides examples of the attitude with which we must enter the opening gates of the Holy Lenten days.
Sergei Seryubin
As a former editor of an Orthodox newspaper, I had known about this particular episode from St. Andrew's life for seven years. And now I lived to see it materialize and try it on myself:
Priest John Pavlov
God met with man, the Bridegroom met with the bride, the Lord met with the earthly Church.
Hieromonk Isaac
One day, the Elder, sitting on a stone ledge near the monastery of Stavronikita, had a conversation with some pilgrims. One of them claimed that Abba Isaac the Syrian was a Nestorian.
Soon after the miraculous shedding of tears, the Moldavian Principalities were subjected to severe trials.
Peter Davydov
I noticed that despite all the terrible trials, Nun Magdalene was able to preserve a kind attitude towards people, even those who caused this suffering.
Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporozhye and Melitopol
Or perhaps for the same reason, we should burn the books of Kant, Hegel, Shelling, Fichte, and forget about the poetry of Goethe and Shiller?