2/22/2011
Priest Valery Dukhanin
God calls parents to become like the guardian-angels of their children—that is, to protect them from sin and nourish them with the life-giving dew of the Holy Spirit. Let’s think seriously about how much is entrusted to us. So much that it is terrifying.
When some people in the Church become interested in liberalism and reforms, expressing their dissatisfaction with the Church’s traditions, it would not be superfluous to remind them that that is precisely how Protestantism was born in its time.
It is known that a practicing occultist is indifferent to God, has no interest in fellowship with Him, as his goal is to make a profit using cleanly delivered magic manipulations. The healers will surely make you believe that they have no self-interest or they heal exclusively by appealing to God.
Her purity is incomprehensible to us, just as the existence of the Cherubim and Seraphim are incomprehensible to us. But to put it simply: She never betrayed God, not even once.
He did not see the Savior’s wondrous miracles, did not behold His inexplicable Transfiguration, and did not participate in the Last Supper.
You are risen, and everything in the universe has fallen into place!
Everything that’s arranged by God ultimately ends not with destruction but with victory, with the restoration of the broken, and salvation.
If a pastor has not learned how to build relationships with parishioners properly,
God became man, Heaven came down to earth, and thus people became related to the angels.
One turns to secular work from material need, another—from a spiritual temptation, another—as a spiritual labor. Only God knows who is who.
I want people to understand for whom they are fasting. The Dormition of the Mother of God is the Pascha of the Theotokos, and the fast is preparation for this Theotokion Pascha.
There was absolutely no inflammation either on his toe or on his foot. At the same time, there were small stitches where the infection had been, as if an invisible surgeon had operated on him at night while he slept and saved him from possible gangrene and from imminent amputation.
What kingdoms and dominions are in man’s possession today? Even a house cat doesn’t always obey him, let alone a lion. Moreover, man himself plunders nature like a wasteful tyrant.
Divine Revelation tells us that God didn’t place man in the primordial Paradise to relax under the palms and pick the fruit of the trees of Paradise.
Any loss causes grief. The abandonment of a wife by her husband, of children by their father, of friends by their friend—not to mention the abandonment of the ministry by a pastor—above all causes pain and sorrow. You can’t be happy when a tragedy occurs. Likewise, the fact that the preacher of “joyful Christianity”, who taught us how to get over various crises and overcome conflicts, has given up his pastoral ministry so easily shouldn’t be a cause for happiness.
This is what Laurentian Chronicle (Codex) says: “A most curious wonder has manifested itself in Polotsk: The heavy stamping of feet was heard at night, something was moaning in the streets, demons that looked like people were rushing about. Whoever came out to see what's going on would get imperceptibly stricken with the plague by the demons, and would die from this, so no one ventured out of their dwellings.”
Pandemics have shown how weak and feeble man is. But they have also revealed that there is no sense in living for the earth alone.
The mystery of suffering is the mystery of God’s compassion towards us.
Love of neighbor is a clear test of our Christian life. But in order to understand what the love of our neighbor is, it would be good to first clarify who in fact is our neighbor?
The Angels reign over the universe, give us good advice, strengthen us in doing good works, protect us from the evil spirits—and all of this is barely perceptible to us.
Unlike laypeople, who can abstain from Communion if they are feeling insulted, a priest celebrating alone does not have that option—he has to celebrate the Liturgy anyway. Therefore, we asked some Orthodox pastors to tell us how we can eliminate the feeling of resentment as soon as possible.
What is Holy Rus’? Is it some historical/geographical concept that belongs to past eras or an ideal we are expected to strive for? Does Holy Rus’ exist today?
I get terrified as I hear this! What should I do, a sinful and fallen man? How can I learn to control myself? How can I “conquer” sinful anger inside me?
Perhaps our greatest tragedy is not in the absence of strong politicians but in the lack of saints, whose example could serve as a powerful reviving stimulus.
The Lord, allowing a hopeless situation, pre-arranged a miraculous deliverance, which we will now speak about.
That was a tough time; the era was breaking into pieces. In 1990, Anya’s mother made up her mind to leave for Israel with her daughter to try her luck there. She seemed to have all the rights for it due to her origin. She soon realized that luck and happiness are not connected to a place or even origin. True happiness can only be granted by the Giver of happiness, and it grows in a pure heart, or at least a heart that is being purified.
Deathlike silence fell in the studio. No one considered the thrice-repeated fall a mere coincidence.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 69
Natalia had no idea what the Jewish woman’s reaction would be, nor did she know what else she could offer to relieve Tabitha’s sufferings. With her simple heart and sincere faith, Natalia wanted to share the thing she held dearest with Tabitha and used the Gospel as the source of her personal spiritual consolation.
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 40
It is crystal clear that our society is infected with a shortage of love. I think that our contemporaries, choked up in the general atmosphere of enmity (because of the lack of love), above all expect love from the Church. That is why above all we should tell those on the outside that God is love.
Rating: 9.4|Votes: 12
Genuine love cannot not be incarnated, but is incarnate.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 19
Ingratitude is the same as unbelief.
Rating: 8.5|Votes: 76
Now your flock is scattered all across the world, like nestlings without a nest, like children without shelter. You know well what the grief and sorrow of separation feels like, the pain of cutting children off from their mother. Why do you bring this same pain on others?
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 24
Archimandrite Lazar’s main merit as a spiritual writer of our times is that his words were sobering, helping you to realize your true situation and, pushing off from there, to move forward.
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 18
A paradise without God is hell full of earthly comforts, a decorated coffin with decaying dead flesh inside. Man without God is an orphan with eternal melancholy in his soul, with a vacuous mind and despair in his eyes.
Yuri Pushchaev
Rating: 8.4|Votes: 20
So should priests marry all who ask for it only because the engaged couple wants it? How can we bring home to newlyweds the importance and greatness of this holy sacrament?
Rating: 9.6|Votes: 34
Is drunkenness a mortal sin?
Rating: 10|Votes: 11
It is just the right time to have a rest. But do many people enjoy their vacations without any harm for their bodies and souls?
Priest Valery Dukhanin, Priest Dimitry Shishkin, Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov
Rating: 9|Votes: 7
The holy, right-believing Prince-Passion-bearers Boris and Gleb were the first saints to be canonized in Rus’. Despite this, many Christians, and especially in our time, do not understand the meaning of their podvig. And really, where is the virtue in being meekly killed? Deacon Valery Dukhanin, Fr. Dimitry Shishkin, and Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov speak about the meaning and importance of the podvig of the holy princes and the last Russian tsar.
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 36
What Christians should do in order not to “drown” in this sea of words which have become worthless?
Anna Erakhtina
Rating: 7.6|Votes: 14
In our time, many laypeople ask the question: Why should people of the twenty-first century act according to rules written by monks and for monks in deep antiquity? Why should they read monastic books in which there isn’t even a remote mention of the problems that we face today?
Rating: 8.8|Votes: 8
We are now in the fourth week of Great Lent, and many of us feel some cooling compared to the first days due to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. How can we keep a prayerful and focused spirit through the whole of Lent? How can we keep from losing the spiritual fruits acquired in the first days?
Rating: 6.8|Votes: 11
It is impossible to imagine a meaningful Christian life without a daily prayer rule. But what should this prayer rule be? How long or short, and consisting of which prayers? How can we prevent our daily prayer rule from becoming purely a formality? What should we pay particular attention to, and what mistakes should we avoid? And what is the most important thing in a prayer rule?
Priest Valery Dukhanin, Priest Nicholai Bulgakov
Rating: 10|Votes: 7
The feast of the Protection of the Mother of God is a feast very warm and dear to us, because in it is expressed the special closeness to us of the Most Pure Virgin. She spreads her veil over all those who pray, regardless of how righteous or pious we are, if only we turn to her with our whole heart.
Rating: 7.3|Votes: 11
To say it right out and frankly, it would be hard to find anything comparable within the last several hundred years. He is still alive. What did this man do?
Deacon Valery Dukhanin
Rating: 10|Votes: 4
The Fast is always the possibility to become better, to conquer ourselves, to conquer our bad habits, organize ourselves for spiritual life. If the time of the fast did not come, we would just go on spinning like hamster in its wheel in our earthly affairs and rarely remember any kind of repentance.
Valery Dukhanin, Igumen Nektary (Morozov), Priest Sergei Begiyan, Priest Dimitry Fetisov
Rating: 6|Votes: 2
The fourth Sunday after Pascha is dedicated to the Gospel of the paralytic, who spent thirty-eight years by the pool of Siloam waiting for healing, and was finally delivered from his serious infirmity by the Savior Himself. That unfortunate man was physically paralyzed, while we are spiritually paralyzed to one or another degree.
Valery Dukhanin
Rating: 7.5|Votes: 17
In their quest for health, wellbeing, or even the development of esoteric powers, many of our contemporaries are turning their attention to various Eastern practices, particularly yoga. What, however, does this wisdom of sunny India have in store for us?
Rating: 10|Votes: 6
The fast is not a diet or temporary vegetarianism. The fast is first of all a spiritual activity by which we attempt to bring our soul and flesh into submission. Fasting teaches us to control our nature, rule over desires that arise, and through this, to achieve the most difficult victory—victory over our own selves.
The seduction of occultism is directly connected with man's first fall into sin. The devil tempted our fore-father and mother by telling them that if they taste of the forbidden fruit, they will receive secret knowledge that will make them powerful, like gods: In the day you eat of it (the forbidden fruit) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5).
