Rating: 6,1|Votes: 9
The First Ecumenical Council was summoned by Emperor Constantine the Great in 325, May 20th. The Council assembled at Nicaea in the province of Bithynia of Asia Minor and was formally opened by Constantine himself. The Council passed 20 canons including the Nicene Creed (described below), the Canon of Holy Scripture (Holy Bible), and established the celebration of Pascha (Easter).
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
The Mount of Olives is one of the holiest places on the earth. It is first mentioned in the Bible over a thousand years before the birth of Christ, in the Second Book of Kings, where one finds described the expulsion of King David from Jerusalem and his withdrawal to the Mount of Olives for prayer (II Kings 15:23, 30-32). It was here also that the Prophet Ezekiel beheld a vision of the cherubim and the glory of the Lord (Ezek. 11:22-23).
Evgeny Poselyanin
Thus, the yoke was cast off without any bloodshed. All of their contemporaries saw a miracle in this; they glorified God's mercy and said, "Let not the light-minded boast in the fearsomeness of their weapons! No, neither weapons nor the wisdom of men, but the Lord has saved Russia today!" Here are the words of the Chronicles: "Then there was a miracle of our most glorious and pure Sovereign Lady, the Mother of God. Fear of God came upon King Achmet and he fled from the Ugra River not pursued by anyone. Thus did God deliver the Russian land from the heathen, through the prayers of the Most Pure One, the great wonder-workers, and all the saints. Amen.
St. Leo the Great
Rating: 8,9|Votes: 7
This Faith, increased by the Lord's Ascension and established by the gift of the Holy Ghost, was not terrified by bonds, imprisonments, banishments, hunger, fire, attacks by wild beasts, refined torments of cruel persecutors.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
Rating: 9|Votes: 2
Today in the Gospel we heard a story about an exceptionally courageous man—the man born blind. This man, having come to know and having seen God, was not afraid of any of the trials, of any of the temptations that the spiritually blind Pharisees, who warred against the truth, who warred against Christ, were setting before him.
