Rating: 10|Votes: 2

The Resurrection of Lazarus, the Four Days Dead, of Bethany

Fr. Seraphim Holland

Imagine what he felt. He was in Hades, and he heard the voice of God, all the way in Hades, and He brought him back in an instant, in a flash. He knew the power of God, and those around saw that power, as Jesus, with a loud voice said, "Lazarus, come forth." And the same voice calls us -- the same voice calls us to come forth. The same voice says, " I am the resurrection. If you believe in Me you will have eternal life." We must believe. We must understand.

Rating: 8|Votes: 1

Homily on the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent—
On Uniting Fasting with Mercy and Prayer

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

And I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and I made my confession (Dan. 9:2-4). The state to which fasting and prayer brings a person makes him especially capable of receiving Divine benefactions and Divine revelation.

Rating: 10|Votes: 1

On St. John Climacus, and the Miraculous Revelation of Patriarch Tikhon's Relics

Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

The Patriarch was the spiritual leader of the Russian people during a very difficult time. He continues to be so during our difficult time in Russia—a time of schism, separation, and falls. The Church's duty in such trials is to inspire and unite the people for the sake of saving their native land, faith, and truth, serving for unification.

The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete

Archpriest Victor Potapov

And yet, the Bible is not merely a history of the people of Israel. It is also a great chronicle of the soul of mankind, of the souls which would repeatedly fall and stand up again before the face of God, which repeatedly fell into sin and repeatedly repented. If we were to examine the lives of those mentioned in the Bible, we would see that each of them is presented not so much as a historical figure, an individual that did such and such, but as an individual standing before the Living God.

Rating: 9,6|Votes: 8

Many Confess, But Few Repent

Monk Moses of the Holy Mountain

Repentance is a freely-willed, internally cultivated process of contrition and sorrow for having distanced ourselves from God through sin. True repentance has nothing to do with intolerable pain, excessive sorrow and relentless guilty feelings. That would not be sincere repentance, but a secret egotism, a feeling of our “ego” being trampled on; an anger that is directed at our self, which then wreaks revenge because it is exposing itself and is put to shame—a thing that it cannot tolerate.