Rating: 6|Votes: 4
Fifty years after the death of St Theodore, the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), wanting to commit an outrage upon the Christians, commanded the city-commander of Constantinople during the first week of Great Lent to sprinkle all the food provisions in the marketplaces with the blood offered to idols. St Theodore appeared in a dream to Archbishop Eudoxius, ordering him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the marketplaces, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey (koliva).
Rating: 6|Votes: 2
When we loved sin, these sins were living boughs on the tree of our life and they fed from it. When we turned away from them, became disgusted with them, repented and confessed, we thereby severed them from ourselves. At the moment of absolution they fell away from us. Now they are dry branches, and the Lord comes to scorch in us this forbearance of transgression. Through the absolution of sins He is preparing a worthy dwelling place for Himself in us. —St. Theophan the Recluse
Fr. Evan Armatas, John Maddox
Rating: 7|Votes: 3
We often think of the mysteries or sacraments of the Church in a personal, individual way. We even look at our life as, “me and Jesus”, and this does great damage to the Gospel and the words of Jesus Christ, when He said "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also."
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Archimandrite Lazar (Abashidze)
Rating: 10|Votes: 2
Often the mind does not remember a sin committed, or may hardly recognize it as a sin. However, the soul remembers—it feels hell inside, it languishes and suffers, and the whole person is filled with a kind of melancholy, anxiety, and despondency.