Rating: 5,5|Votes: 13
While the mere facts of Bishop Nikolai's life inspire awe, such a skeletal portrait does not explain his spiritual magnetism and the soul-penetrating power of his writings. These were the fruit of his life-long striving to know and to serve the Truth, which, in turn, kindled a habit of ceaseless prayer and a practiced consciousness of continually abiding in the presence of God.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
Fr. John eagerly explained. "We know three theologians in the Church. The first is St. John the Theologian, the apostle and beloved disciple of the Savior. The second is St. Gregory the Theologian. The third is St. Symeon the New Theologian. These are the only ones the Church has named "Theologian" over its entire two thousand years of existence. You, then, are the fourth?"
St. Justin Popovic
Rating: 10|Votes: 12
Man sentenced God to death; by His Resurrection, He sentenced man to immortality. In return for a beating, He gives an embrace; for abuse, a blessing; for death, immortality. Man never showed so much hate for God as when he crucified Him; and God never showed more love for man than when He arose. Man even wanted to reduce God to a mortal, but God by His Resurrection made man immortal. The crucified God is Risen and has killed death. Death is no more. Immortality has surrounded man and all the world.
With each year the Church testifies through this Paschal exclamation to the event of universal significance which happened almost two thousand years ago. It was then that early in the morning the myrrh-bearing women came to the burial site of their Teacher and saw that the tomb was empty. The divine power of Christ had triumphed over the law of death. He had risen, testifying to all of humanity that death was not the end of life, that death was overcome by the power of God.
Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov)
Rating: 10|Votes: 8
Expectation and presentiment of joy fixes everyone’s limbs, and only their eyes look toward the holy doors. Now, quiet singing can be heard from the altar, and as if with an unbelievable effort, the curtain is pulled aside, the holy doors open, and a flood of light and sound streams out of the altar into the church, from the church into the nocturnal darkness, then spreads out commandingly over all the earth. Fr. Archimandrite and clergy proceed from the altar in gleaming festal garments that multiply the Paschal rays, and following the marked path, go forth from the church.
