The Theology of the Feast of Christmas

By Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos and Megalopolis

The Feast of Christmas is today, my Christian brothers and sisters. We celebrate the dogma of our faith, that God became human, a real human being, with flesh, bones, blood and a heart. A person like us in every way, except, of course, in regards to sin. This is a very great feast, the mother of feasts, since all the other feasts follow it: the baptism, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is why it’s been called the mother of feasts.

At this feast, we see the Son of God, Who formerly, in heaven, had only a divine nature, take on human nature at His incarnation. He is now God and human. Perfect God and perfect human. So, with Christmas, we have two natures united, the divine and human. This was precisely the purpose of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, my beloved friends: to unite our nature with that of God. We call this ‘deification’. From the beginning this was the purpose for which God made us: to be deified.

In Memory of Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos (1941-2021)

Metr. Hierotheos, Metr. Jeremiah and Fr. Arsenios Kombougias at the enthronement of Metropolitan Jeremiah.

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

The repose of the late Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos and Megalopolis caused me great sorrow, because we lack his earthly presence among us, but also joy, because he left the Church on earth and went to the Church in heaven, which he longed for and for which he lived and conducted himself.

In the last few years, his health was considered failing, but he, being noble, tried not to reveal it.

We have known each other for many years, I have known him since he was a deacon and preacher and from time to time we communicated, at first somewhat sparingly and then more often, especially since I came as Metropolitan to his birthplace, Nafpaktos.

I will write some of my first impressions of the late Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos.

The Foolish Rich Man

 

 

By Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos and Megalopolis

 

1. I mentioned to you on another occasion, my Christian friends, that our Church, like the caring mother it is, uses this period of winter - when living conditions have always been difficult - to present us with Sunday Gospel readings that sharpen our awareness of our brothers and sisters who are suffering. So, last Sunday we heard about the Good Samaritan and today about the Foolish Rich Man, which is a parable similar in content to the former.

2. Listen. The rich man in the parable didn’t become rich from the goods he acquired that year; he was already rich from previous years. So he had no worries about how he was going to get through the next year. He could easily have said: ‘I’ll give the whole of this year’s harvest as charity for the poor’. But he didn’t. And we don’t hear him thanking God either, for the blessing He gave with the rich yield from his fields. Farming depends mostly on God, since it it He Who’s responsible if the weather conditions guarantee a rich harvest. Yet, when the foolish rich man saw the bounty, we see and hear him thinking only about himself, and with great concern and anxiety. The hour is midnight: a time when the poor would be sleeping, exhausted from laboring throughout the day to earn their bread. The rich man, however, isn’t sleeping, even though he has everything and, with this exceptional harvest, has just acquired a great deal more. The rich man says something that really only very poor people and widows should be saying: ‘What am I going to do?’ His problem is that his granaries are too small to store that year’s rich harvest! As Saint Basil says: ‘The stomachs of the poor would have been other granaries in which to store this wealth of food’. ‘What am I going to do? asks the tormented and pitiable rich man in the parable. A very young school-child could have told him perfectly easily what he should do, but the rich man couldn’t see it. The child would have said: ‘Do some division’. If we know the price of many things and we want to know the price of one, we divide. This is the amount of your goods, this is how many poor people there are in the area, divide the first by the second and the solve the problem that’s confusing and worrying you and has you asking ‘What am I going to do?' Since I’ve mentioned Saint Basil, my friends, let me give you a wonderful excerpt from one of his homilies concerning today’s Gospel reading: ‘The more we use the water from a spring, the better it is for the spring and the water itself. Just as water becomes stagnant and polluted if we don’t use it, so unused wealth becomes unproductive and useless’.

Pascal's Wager and the Coronavirus

 

I will begin the ecclesiological sermons that I promised you, my beloved Christians of our Metropolis, but I consider it necessary to write to you a little more about the coronavirus.

1. We were at peace in other respects, but this evil has befallen us, which is reaping humanity. The doctors told us to take measures to protect ourselves from the evil, and the two basic measures are to keep our distance from each another and to wear the protective mask when we leave our homes and are among one another. The means were accepted and blessed by our Church and we received an order to transfer them to you. This I did as your Bishop. In fact, as you will remember from last year, along with these things I told you to pray and show repentance for our sins. Whatever evil that takes place is because of our sins. "Repent, my Christians," I said to you and I say to you. For even if the coronavirus were to be fought, another evil would come upon us, if we do not repent. But you do not care, because you do not associate the various evils with sin. Anyway!…

A Pastoral Letter Concerning the Coronavirus

Rejoice in the Lord and may you be in good health!

1. In these days we live in, days that are difficult for all people, I think more deeply about you, more than ever before. And in my humble prayer I especially remember you, the sacred flock, that has been entrusted to me by the Church of Christ with the command to shepherd.

I pray that our Jesus Christ will keep you safe from all harm, physical and spiritual, and will secure you in the faith and in His love. I ask that you pray the same for me.

On the Controversial Statements of Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou

I learned lately about the issue created around the sacred personality of His Eminence the Holy Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou concerning one of his pastoral messages and the uproar of many regarding this issue.

Because the pastoral issues of Bishops have universal power, I as a humble Bishop would also like to submit some thoughts, which I think are useful for this entire issue. What I will write will be done with simplicity, as a catechism for the people, by whom it will be read.

Saint John the Baptist as a Liturgical Forerunner

1. Yesterday, my Christian brethren, the 29th of August, our holy Church celebrated the beheading of the honorable head of the holy Forerunner and Baptist John. But his feast is also "pulled into" today, Sunday, which is why during the entrance of the Sacred Gospel, following the Resurrection hymn, we chanted the Dismissal hymn of the Honorable Forerunner. Thus, those who were unable to attend church yesterday, could listen today to his Dismissal hymn and honor him.

The Afterfeast of the Transfiguration

1. A few days ago, my Christian brethren, we celebrated the great Despotic Feast of the Transfiguration of our Savior Jesus Christ. This feast, great as it is, does not end on the same day it is celebrated, but it has a forefeast and an afterfeast. Now we are in its afterfeast.

We welcome every Despotic feast with fasting. And the fast of the first five days of August, as Balsamon says, is in expectation of the coming feast of the Transfiguration. Then, a day after the feast, begins the fast of the Mother of God for the feast on August 15th, although these two fasts have become consolidated and are regarded as one for the feast of our Panagia.

The Theotokophilia of Saint Kosmas the Aitolos

By His Eminence Metropolitan Jeremiah

of Gortynos and Megalopolis

I thought that since we are going through the month of August, which is entirely dedicated to our Lady Theotokos, and which we call "the month of the Mother of God", I wish to speak of our Panagia according to the teachings of Saint Kosmas the Aitolos. Saint Kosmas had a great and fervent love for the Panagia, which is called "Theotokophilia". And this is natural, because he came from an Athonite monastery that had a miraculous icon of her, the Panagia Glykophilousa. He prayed in front of this icon, and from this icon he received the blessing for his missionary adventures, during which he spoke of the Panagia all the time to his audience. I will offer two or three points, among the many, that concerns his message about the Panagia, which can be seen also in Orthodox patristic theology.

As We Prepare to Consciously Participate in the Passion of Christ

Sunday Encyclical of the Metropolis of Gortynos and Megalopoleos

Sunday, 29 March 2015

Consciously Participating in the Passion of Christ

1. This Sunday, my Christian brethren, is the Fifth Sunday of the Fast. When this week ends, Great Lent ends, as it says in the relevant hymn chanted on Friday evening: "Having completed the forty days that profit our soul." Next Sunday, which is Palm Sunday, we will enter Holy Week.

In today's Gospel reading the Lord spoke to us of His death, which He likens to a cup and to baptism. And what Christ said in today's Gospel reading to his two disciples, James and John ("can you drink the cup that I will drink and be baptized with the baptism that I will be baptized with"), He says to each of us. Our Lord Jesus Christ does not want us to merely observe His Passion, but He wants us to participate in them: to drink from the bitter cup of His death by crucifixion and to be baptized with the baptism of His blood and of His martyrdom. I pray, my Christian brethren, that this year you will consciously participate in this. For this reason, in my sermon today, I want to say two or three things about such a participation.

Slander and Condemnation According to Saint John of the Ladder

By His Eminence Metropolitan Jeremiah of Gortynos

1. On the Fourth Sunday of the Fast our Church has established the commemoration of Saint John of the Ladder. In fact, the feast of this Saint is on March 30th. But since this feast often falls mid-week, and a Divine Liturgy is not permitted on weekdays during Great Lent, this is why the Church, in order to not lose out on this feast, moved it to the Fourth Sunday of the Fast. This means that he is a great saint for the Church to care that his feast not be lost. And truly, my brethren, Saint John of the Ladder is a great saint. He is an ascetic father of the sixth century, who wrote only one, yet very famous, treatise, which he called The Ladder to Paradise (Κλίμαξ του Παραδείσου). From this book he received the surname "John Climacus" or "John of the Ladder".

The fox, says one fable, would make fun of the lioness because she gave birth to only one lion. But she said to the fox: "Yes one, but it is a lion!" There are many authors of many books. John of the Ladder wrote only one book, but he "is a lion!" It is a strong book, powerful, gigantic! Such books you should read, my Christian brethren, to be educated theologically, as well as to be saved. Truly, the Ladder of Saint John has important remedies for the therapy of our soul. Saint John called the book the Ladder based on the vision of Jacob, as we read in Genesis (28:12). There we read that the Patriarch saw a ladder in his dream, which reached from earth to heaven. This book of Saint John has thirty chapters. These are the thirty steps of his Ladder that reach Heaven. Purposely John made the chapters of his book to number thirty, which is based on the years of the maturity of Jesus Christ, when He began His divine work.

Sunday as the Lord's Day According to St. Kosmas the Aitolos

Sacred Metropolis of Gortynos and Megalopoleos

Dimitsana - Megalopolis

Sunday 24 August 2014

A Sermon of the Metropolitan

1. Today, my Christian brethren, the 24th of August, our holy Church celebrates the memory of a great Saint, that of the Holy Hieromartyr and Equal to the Apostles Kosmas the Aitolos. He was an Athonite Hieromonk who was pained when he heard that many Christians in our enslaved Greek nation were uncatechized, and thus they changed their beliefs. This is why, with the blessing of his Elder, he left the Monastery and went on an apostolic journey, which brought him to be martyred for the love of Christ.