2/1/2010
Protodeacon Vladimir Vasilik
The poisonous slogans, “there is no need to create poverty” and “you will still have children”, destroyed many more people than the carpet bombing of Korean cities and the burning of Vietnamese villages with napalm.
Among my acquaintances with many children, there was no case where doctors in consultation or even in the prenatal ward did not blackmail expectant mothers and try to persuade them to have an abortion under one pretext or another.
St. Gregory the Theologian
In the hymn, St. Gregory’s favorite themes are developed, including the unity of the Holy Trinity, the creation of the world, the creation of man as an “image of light”, his enlightenment and theosis, universal harmony, and man’s ascetical life.
Then one day I had a dream. I saw Elder Paisios coming towards my bed, and he took me by the hand and carried me somewhere.
She walked the earth following in Job’s footsteps. Just like him, against all the odds, she glorified God!
The thesis, “God is not in power, but in truth,” and St. Alexander’s call not to enter into someone else’s territory is an affirmation of legality at the international level.
The Canon is a broad historical panorama outlining the history of human sin and human righteousness, of the rejection and acceptance of God.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 13
Are catastrophic events connected with envy characteristic only of Byzantium? Alas, no.
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 91
The way concentration camp prisoners died was horrific. Some died of famine, backbreaking labor, and epidemics. Some were executed by shooting, but the majority of them were killed with cold steel: The Ustase would cut their throats with special knives (“Serb-cutters”), fracture their skulls with hammers, cut off their hands, legs, fingers, ears, lips, put out their eyes, hack off women’s breasts.
Deacon Vladimir Vasilik
Rating: 10|Votes: 64
Sasha took his dad to his grandmother’s room. There he clambered up onto the stool and pointed his finger at the ancient icon of St. Nicholas in the modest prayer corner: “Papa, it’s him!”
Rating: 8.5|Votes: 13
The sin of judging others, among other sins, is constantly mentioned by the Church as being a grave sin. One may ask, however, “Why are we not allowed to judge?
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
The joint declaration signed by the Pope and the Patriarch leaves one with mixed feelings. On the one hand, one is glad that they raised their voices in defense of the persecuted Christians of Syria and Iraq, called for peace in the Ukraine and restoration of Europe’s Christian roots, and came out in defense of the family and the right to life of all people, especially infants.
Rating: 2|Votes: 1
We are about to partake in the services for Holy Pentecost, as the Church celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Disciples. The Matins service is especially notable for Canon II, a monument of ecclesiastical poetry. We offer this commentary on that canon by liturgical scholar Deacon Vladimir Vasilik. The excerpts from the canon are from the translation by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash.
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 32
The weather forecasts were good, and nothing indicated any trouble. Just the same, on the horizon there appeared at first a large dark cloud, which started growing rapidly. A sharp wind blew, which grew into a strong squall. A storm began. Huge waves started beating against the small ship.The ship was tossed from side to side. Water flowed into the machinery area. The ship was on the verge of stopping, and that would fatal for all.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 20
Hearing this, St. Seraphim sighed softly and waved his hand: “What are you thinking, Matushka? Do you understand who you are giving your daughter to? He’s a convict! A convict! What wedding? What crowning? The Great Siberian Way is in store for him."
Rating: 10|Votes: 8
But then let us think about what kind of purity a man must acquire in order to enter into this Kingdom. Let us not put off our salvation till later, nor hope that we will be purified before death or even at the time of death, or that we will land in “purgatory,” as the Catholics mistakenly think. For those who say, “Later,” it will never come. Therefore let us be concerned about our salvation now, while it is still possible to say, “Now.”
The problem of the theological opinions of priest Georgiy Kochetkov has reached a peak following the latest scandal surrounding the sectarian activities of one of his followers, a priest of the Archangelsk diocese, John Privalov, who not only intentionally disrupts ecclesiastical peace and liturgical discipline in his own parish, but also separates his congregation from the Russian Orthodox Church, forbidding those under his care to have any communication with other priests or to make pilgrimages to monasteries.[1] In connection with this, the question arises about Kochetkov’s own spiritual foundation, which upon investigation is found to be a collection of vulgar heresies. A number of our foremost theologians and pastors have already spoken and written about this many times.
Rating: 2.3|Votes: 3
The understanding of justice has lost its ground; its motives and impulses have become one-dimensional. It has lost its noble direction, its original, sacred premises, and has submitted itself to the spirit of skepticism, in which everything is doubtful, to the spirit of relativism, and to the spirit of nihilism, which does not want to believe in anything.
