What Proved to Me the Gospel of Christ Was True (Metr. Athanasios of Limassol)

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

 

When I first met Elder Paisios, within me - although I was a young child 18-18.5 years old - I said that indeed, what Christ said is true!

Since this man exists and since this man lives and I saw him with my own eyes and I experienced life with him afterwards - I lived with him for 16 whole years - then everything that the Gospel says is true!

Reflection for the Sunday of the Blind Man (St. Theophan the Recluse)

 By St. Theophan the Recluse

Simplicity of faith argues with crafty unbelief. Faith, coming to the blind man who received sight, enlightened his mind’s eyes, and he clearly saw the truth. See how everything was logical for him. They ask him: "What do you say of Him who gave you sight?" "He is a prophet," he answered, that is, the messenger of God, clothed in miracle-working power. An indisputably true conclusion! But learned erudition does not want to see this trueness and seeks to evade its consequences. However, this being impossible, it approaches unlearned simplicity with the suggestion: Give God the praise, we know that this man is a sinner. Simplicity of faith does not know how to connect these concepts — sinfulness and miracle-working - and expresses this openly: "Whether he be a sinner or not, I don't know; one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." What can one say against such deduction? But the logic of the unbelievers is obstinate, and even in the face of obviousness it is not ashamed to affirm that it does not know where he who opened the blind man’s eyes is from. "Herein is a marvellous thing," the sensible logic of faith says to them, "that ye know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God hears not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does His will, him he hears. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, He could do nothing" (John 9:17–33). It would seem as though after this nothing remained other than to bow down before the power of such a conclusion. But learned erudition could not stand the sensible logic of faith, and drove it away... Go now, prove the truth of the faith to those whose mind has been corrupted with obstinate unbelief. The unbelievers of all times are cut from the same cloth.

 

 

Thomas Sunday - Wrestling With God (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

"Unless I see ... I will not believe" (Jn. 20:25)

The Apostle Thomas, in order to believe in the Resurrection of Christ, asked to see, because he had not yet received the Holy Spirit and had not acquired an inner sense, which would assure him of the Deity of Christ. He wanted to see and feel in order to gain tangible knowledge of God. But the knowledge of God is not an experience of the senses, but of inner information, inner communion with Christ, which is channeled into the body as well. However, the sacred hymn of this Sunday calls the unbelief of Thomas "good", on the one hand because it was well-intentioned, and on the other hand because it became a cause to prove the Resurrection of Christ.

Reflection for Bright Wednesday (St. Theophan the Recluse)

 

By St. Theophan the Recluse 

 

The mind can prove the truth of the Resurrection through reason based on the Scriptures, and a non-believer cannot but admit the power of its arguments, as long as a sense of truth is not yet dead in him. A believer does not need proof, because the Church of God is filled with the light of the Resurrection. Both of these indicators of truth are faithful and convincing. But counter-reasoning can spring up and contradict mind’s reason, and faith can be trampled and shaken by perplexities and doubts, coming from without and arising within. Is there no invincible wall around the truth of the Resurrection? There is. It will occur when the power of the Resurrection, received already at baptism, begins to actively be revealed as it purges the corruption of soul and body, and establishes within them the beginnings of a new life. He who experiences this will walk in the light of the Resurrection, and anyone talking against the truth of the Resurrection will seem to him insane, like a person saying in the daytime that it is night.

 

 

Reflection for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman (St. Theophan the Recluse)

By St. Theophan the Recluse

The Samaritan woman's fellow citizens said to her after two days with the Savior in their midst, "Now we believe not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world" (John 4:42). It happens this way with everyone. At first they are called to the Lord by an external word, or as for many now, simply by birth. But when they taste in practice what it is to live in the Lord, they no longer cleave to the Lord through their external affiliation with Christian society, but through their inner union with Him. It is necessary for all who are born in Christian societies to make this a law for themselves; that is, to not limit themselves to mere external affiliation with the Lord, but to seek to unite with Him inwardly, that they may always bear witness within themselves that they are standing in the truth. Why is this necessary? It is necessary to embody within oneself the truth of Christ. The truth of Christ is a restoration of what is fallen. Thus, put off the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and put on the new man, which is created after God in righteousness and true holiness (cf. Eph. 4:22–24), and you will know within yourself that the Lord Jesus Christ is in truth the Savior — not only for the world, but also for you.

Homily on the Immortality of the Soul (St. Sebastian Dabovich)

By St. Sebastian Dabovich

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him. (Luke 20:38)

There are many proofs testifying to the immortality of the soul, and they differ by degrees of strength, and the source from whence they proceed. There are proofs of supposition, then positive ones, and, finally, decisive proofs. We have some in visible nature, others are had from the attributes of God's being, and from the nature of our soul, and then there are open and experimental proofs.

What do we see in nature? A change of one and the same being from one condition to another higher form of existence. This is observed more clearly, especially, in the world of insects. Take, for an instance, the creeping worm and the flying butterfly, etc. In the same manner does man here on earth undergo two principal forms of life, to say nothing of his ages.

First he is formed and lives unconsciously in his mother's womb, then, on being born into the world, he lives on the earth. This life is incomparatively higher than the first, yet here the days for man are exchanged by dark nights; after days of good fortune there come days of misfortune. It is natural for him to await a third and better life, when he will freely move in the space over the earth, where it is eternal day, and where there is no sorrow nor sighing.

Athenagoras and Early Christian Apologetics

By Jackson Watts

Early church history shows that believers took seriously the task of apologetics. They knew that their beliefs and practices had profound spiritual consequences, and thus sought to “destroy the lofty arguments raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5-6 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] ). One such Christian was Athenagoras of Athens, a philosopher whose passionate intellect is displayed in A Plea for the Christians.[1]

Written in A.D. 177, Athenagoras penned this letter to Emperors Lucius Aurelius Commodus and Marcus Aurelius. To a large degree, the letter is a “plea for civic toleration”[2] It is as striking in its philosophical and legal argumentation as it is in its theological appeal.

While we may be tempted to analyze Athenagoras through the lens of modern apologetic methodologies, his Plea resists narrow classification. Instead, we’ll consider three instructive elements of his work: (1) inconsistencies in Greco-Roman thought and life; (2) the use of secular sources to support religious arguments; and (3) respectful appeals to the character and intellect of the letter’s recipients.

About the "Apology" of Saint Aristides the Philosopher

We know of about twelve Apologists in the second century, but out of this number there are about five whose works have been entirely lost or from which we have only a few passages. The earliest Apologist whose work we possess in its entirety, is Aristides, a philosopher of Athens, whom Eusebius names immediately after Quadratus. Like Quadratus, Aristides is said to have presented his Apology to Hadrian (c. 117-138).

Synaxarion of the Holy Apostle Kodratos at Magnesia

St. Kodratos the Apostle (Feast Day - September 21)

Verses

The mindless assailed Kodratos with stones,

Because to stones he would not pay reverence.

On the twenty-first Kodratos found the crown of the contest.

+ + +

Like an athlete Kodratos soundly preached,

And in the heavens received many prizes.

On the twenty-first Kodratos found the crown of the contest.

Saint Athenagoras the Athenian and Apologist

St. Athenagoras of Athens (Feast Day - July 24)

Athenagoras was born about the year 133 and died in 190. Little is known of his life. In his writings he styles himself as "Athenagoras, the Athenian, Philosopher, and Christian". The quality of his writings show that he was well educated, familiar with Platonism and Stoicism, and may have been well known and influential. Only two of his works, his Apology or Embassy for the Christians and Treatise on the Resurrection, have come down to us. The absence of any mention of his writings among other Christian writers may have been due to his anonymous writings having been thought to be the work of other writers. The manuscript that preserved his writings dates to 914 A.D. Today he is noted as one of the ablest Christian apologists of the second century.

Violence in the Old Testament: A Patristic Perspective

By John Sanidopoulos

When we encounter troublesome violence in the Old Testament that unsettles us, we may take some solace in the possibility that these texts reflect theological and ideological concerns as encountered by the communities that first read these books. Similarly, the Church Fathers tended to not read these stories and interpret them literally, but they transcended the literal reading. They knew that God is not a genocidal maniac who seeks the destruction of human beings, therefore they understood that these passages only truly make sense spiritually and theologically, as they are intended.

The Place of Thought in the Acceptance of the God-Man

Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos

Man is a thinking being. By thinking he on the one hand confirms his existence, and on the other hand he captures the essence of things.

The Cartesian dictum is well known: "Cogito ergo sum" or "I think, therefore I am."

Thought is interposed between the internal activation of ourselves and external stimuli. So we have expressive, fantastic, logical, subjective, emotional and objective thinking.

Whatever I think, exists, because by thinking I realize my existence, the existence of which is directly related to the object, which exists.

However, the Triune God is not an object, which simply enters into a relationship with my thought. He is God, Who has manifested Himself in the flesh: "God has appeared in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16).

Was the Prophet Jonah Really Swallowed By a Whale?

By John Sanidopoulos

Many Christians are inclined to interpret the story of Jonah in the Old Testament as an allegory that was never meant to be understood as actual history. However, allegories or parables in the Bible are always either said to be so, or made evident in the context. The Book of Jonah, however, is written as a historical tale with a historical prophet mentioned in II Kings 14:25 and confirmed to have existed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 12:40-41. Christ here compares the experience of Jonah to His own approaching death and resurrection.

The Seven Youths of Ephesus, Guarantors of the Resurrection

By Father George Dormparakis

The biography of the Holy Seven Youths of Ephesus is considered one of the strangest and most amazing that has ever been written, which is why the story of these Saints inspired the pen of the renowned and famous writer John Michael Panagiotopoulos, transmitting it in a fictional way ("Τα εφτά κοιμισμένα παιδιά", 1956). The strangeness of the story lies not only in the fact that they were resurrected from the dead - something which challenges human logic, but is to be understood in the context in the resurrection of Christ, Who is the source of life and abolished death - but that they resurrected well after over a century elapsed from the time of their "death", and this event became known to everyone, while subsequently they handed their sanctified souls back to their Lord in peace.

The Faith of the Mind and the Faith of the Heart

By Protopresbyter Fr. John Romanides

Human beings can have two kinds of faith. The first kind of faith, which has its seat in the mind, is the reasonable faith of acceptance. In this case, a person rationally accepts something and believes in what he has accepted, but this faith does not justify him. When Holy Scripture says, “man is saved by faith alone,”1 it does not mean that he is saved merely by the faith of acceptance. There is, however, another kind of faith, the faith of the heart. It is referred to in this way because this kind of faith is not found in the human reason or intellect, but in the region of the heart. This faith of the heart is a gift of God that you will not receive unless God decides to grant it. It is also called ‘inner faith,’ which is the kind of faith that the father of the young lunatic in the Gospel asked Christ to give him when he said, “Lord, help my unbelief.”2 Naturally, the father already believed with his reason, but he did not have that deep inner faith that is a gift of God.

The Resurrection of Christ as an Historical and Existential Event

By Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos

These days the Orthodox clergy and people celebrate the Resurrection of the God-man Christ.

Saint Epiphanios exclaims: "Christ is risen, and is the resurrection of the fallen... Christ is risen, and joy has been bestowed upon all of creation" (PG 43, 465).

This event of the Resurrection is the strongest blow against the little faith that is produced by questionings, doubts and frustrations.

The Resurrection of the God-man Christ is confirmed by:

a) The empty tomb (Jn. 20:6-7).

b) The appearances of Christ to His Mother, to the Myrrhbearers, to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostle Peter, to Luke and Cleopa, in the Upper Room, to Doubting Thomas, to the five hundred people outside of His environment (1 Cor. 15), to James the Brother of God, to all of His Disciples on the Mount of Olives, and to the persecutor of Christians Saul who later became the fervent preacher of the Resurrection and the Apostle to the Nations Paul.

The Underlying Purpose of the Appearances of the Risen Christ

By His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos

of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

Christ, beloved brethren, heralded His resurrection to His Disciples, when He told them that the Son of Man must "go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life" (Matt. 16:21). The Disciples were unaware as to what it meant that the Son of Man will be killed and will arise after three days from the dead, and moreover "they were afraid to ask" (Mk. 9:31-32).

The phrases "Son of God" and "Son of Man" denote the two natures of Christ, the divine and human, which acted together in Christ, without either losing its properties.

After His resurrection, Christ appeared first to the Myrrhbearing women who went very early in the morning to the tomb in order to anoint His body with spices, and on the same day He appeared to His Disciples. One would have expected Him to appear to those who crucified Him, to the scribes and pharisees and chief priests, to Herod and Pilate and those who contributed towards His passion and crucifixion, and in this way He would cause them to believe. He did not do this, however, because there are special reasons.

Features of a Religious Extremist

By Archimandrite Arsenios Katerelos

God does not ask for advocates, who can raise the value of Christianity with their words. He asks for believers, who will show through their flawless life the power of Christ.

The best defense of Christianity, as well as its worst defamation, is derived from the life and works of those who allege to be believers.

Many speak of Christianity by the meter, but they live it by the centimeter.

How One Is Led From Unbelief To Belief

By Elder Teofil Paraian

I don't know if anyone can say that they led someone else to faith by their own power.

I have followed cases, as much as I am able, where people were led to the knowledge of God back in the olden days and in our time now. As many cases as I was able to follow I learned from.

The Orthodox Approach to Apologetics and Theological Knowledge

Fr. Philotheos Pharos:

- "Faith is not the intellectual coercion Western Christianity has come to know, according to which a person must believe because there exists logical argument A and B, for such a person has not personally verified these things. Faith is rather the path and means by which a person can make these verifications.