Rating: 5,8|Votes: 24
The basis of fasting is the struggle against sins through abstaining from food, not through physical exhaustion. Therefore all who keep the fast should take account of their strength and the degree of experience in following rules of fasting. Fasting is an ascetic labor which requires training and gradualness.
Vadim Venediktov
Today we are used to the fact that we have some democracy in our country. From TV screens and in different mass media well-known social and political observers tell us that Russia is a democratic state. Certainly, an authority and source for such kind of remarks and judgments is the last version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (Article 1, 1), which says: “The Russian Federation – Russia is a democratic federative constitutional state with the republican form of government”.
The Sacred Council of the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, which took place at the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and St. Sergius’s Laura of the Holy Trinity from October 3 to 8, 2004, addresses the Plenitude of our Church with the words of the Apostle: ’Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord’ (2 Pet. 1:2).
Yuri Klitsenko
Rating: 3|Votes: 1
The story about the walk of Agapius to paradise belong the apocalyptical genre of visions, miraculous ascensions to heaven and journeys to the other world. The main topic of the apocrypha is graceful tie of the Orthodox monastery with the shrines of Palestine and the Garden of Eden.
Jean-Claude Larchet
Rating: 9,7|Votes: 11
Although it is natural and usual to love those who love us and to do good to those who do good to us, to love our enemies is distasteful to our nature. One can say that it isn’t in our power but is an attitude that can only be the fruit of grace, given by the Holy Spirit. This is why St. Silouan the Athonite writes, "The soul that has not known the Holy Spirit does not understand how one can love one’s enemies, and does not accept it."
