Hieromonk Job (Gumerov)
Rating: 8.1|Votes: 27
The skeptics gather “witnesses” in order to cast doubt on the miracle of descending the Holy Fire, they once again display incompetence in basic methods of scholarly and scientific research. Unbelief and skepticism are barren, infertile. “As someone withdrawing from the light does not in the least do harm to the light, but does very great harm to himself, becoming immersed in darkness, so also one accustomed to scorning the power of the Almighty does not in the least do harm to it [His power], but upon himself brings extreme harm” (John Chrysostom).
Rating: 8.9|Votes: 7
On Holy and Great Monday we commemorate the blessed Joseph the All-comely and also the withered fig tree. Inasmuch as the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ has its beginning on this day, and as Joseph is regarded as an image of Christ from former times, he is thus set forth here.
Archpriest Alexander Schmemann
Rating: 7|Votes: 21
"Having fulfilled Forty Days... we ask to see the Holy Week of Thy Passion." With these words sung at Vespers of Friday, Lent comes to its end and we enter into the annual commemoration of Christ's suffering, death and Resurrection. It begins on the Saturday of Lazarus.
Rating: 10|Votes: 1
“In former times, God, being without form or body, could in no way be represented. But today, since God has appeared in the flesh and lived among men, I can represent what is visible in God. I do not worship matter, but I worship the creator of matter who became matter for my sake … and who, through matter accomplished my salvation. Never will I cease to honor the matter which brought about my salvation.”
St. Gregory Palamas
Rating: 10|Votes: 7
Impossible to recount is Christ’s descent according to His divinity, but His ancestry according to His human nature can be traced, since He who deigned to become Son of Man in order to save mankind was the offspring of men. And it is this genealogy of His that two of the evangelists, Matthew and Luke, recorded.