July: Day 14: Teaching 2: Holy Apostle Aquila

  

July: Day 14: Teaching 2:
Holy Apostle Aquila
 
(Believers Must Be of One Mind)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostle Aquila, whose memory is celebrated today, was a Jew from Pontus, who believed in the Lord Jesus, and lived in Rome with his wife Priscilla. On account of unrest among the Jews, Caesar Claudius expelled them all from Rome, and then Aquila moved to Corinth, where he lived by his trade making tents. When the Apostle Paul arrived in Corinth from Athens, he settled in the house of Aquila, and they both worked together, engaging in the same trade. Paul found in Aquila and his wife zealous co-workers; they helped him spread the word of God, joyfully enduring persecution and danger for the holy cause. They followed Paul to Ephesus and there labored with the same zeal. In the Acts it is mentioned that when Apollos of Alexandria began to teach about the Lord, Aquila and Priscilla received him and also explained to him the ways of the Lord, for Apollos knew only the baptism of John. When Apollos went to Achaia, Aquila and Priscilla gave him letters to the disciples there, so that he would be received with love. “So the believers then acted with one mind” with “zeal and a fervent spirit,” serving God with all their strength, with all their means. Ardent love united them; they all considered themselves brothers in Christ and loved one another as brothers. In many of his epistles the Apostle Paul mentions his faithful co-workers. In the Epistle to the Romans he says: “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who laid down their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles, and the church in their house” (Rom. 16:3-4).

July: Day 14: Teaching 1: Venerable Elli of Egypt

 

July: Day 14: Teaching 1:
Venerable Elli of Egypt
 
(On the Means of Combating Temptations)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. From his early youth, the Venerable Elli, whose memory is celebrated today, loved the strict ascetic life. In his adolescence, he had already attained such holiness that he was honored with miraculous grace: he would take, for example, burning coals in his clothes and, without harming the latter in the least, bring them to his elder mentor. Now this same Elli once withdrew into a remote desert for the highest monastic feats. He was walking, and suddenly he smelled honey. “With what pleasure would I eat honey now,” the passion for delicacies and gluttony prompted him. And then suddenly honey was found in the rock. What does the Venerable One do? He stops, thinks, and finally begins to reproach himself: “Get away from me, deceitful desire; for it is written in the word of God: 'Walk in the Spirit and do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.'” And the Venerable One left that place without even touching the honey he had found, and went into the deepest desert, in order to humble his flesh still more by hunger. Three weeks later, while walking in the desert, he found beautiful apples lying on the ground. The feeling of lust again awakened in the Venerable One. And now the Venerable One stopped this sinful feeling with reflection. “I will not taste or touch this fruit,” he said to himself; “for it is written: 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'” For such strict vigilance over himself during his four-week wandering in the desert, Venerable Elli was finally granted such consolation, that during his light slumber, an angel of God appeared to him and said: “Go over there, and there you will find food for yourself; you can use it without any doubt for the glory of God and you will be strengthened." Elli woke up and in the indicated place he really found a source of spring water and some fragrant herbs growing around it, very tasty. The Venerable One strengthened himself with the food and drink indicated to him with such spiritual joy, as he himself said, which he could not convey to the brethren when they asked him about it.

Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Synod: The Struggle on Behalf of the Orthodox Phronema (Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios)

 

Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Synod: 
The Struggle on Behalf of the Orthodox Phronema 

By Archimandrite Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

(Delivered at the Monastery of Komnenion in Larisa on July 19, 1981)

"Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19).

There exists, my beloved, a tendency among humans, precisely because of their fallen state, to always distort the truth. Many have the inclination to insert their own subjective views into the objective reality; as a result, a distortion and corruption ensues. Naturally, this is a consequence of human selfishness, which is the core of the sin that exists in every descendant of Adam, who is fallen. I need not mention that this is also present in the devil. The devil, particularly proud, would never wish to accept God's truth as it is offered, but would rather insert his own subjective views and distort God's truth.

Thus, as you perceive, the integrity of the word of God is a matter of utmost importance, which every believer must heed if they truly wish to be saved. The Lord, being fully aware that He is being heard by people, not merely fallen individuals but also those quite corrupted, like the rulers of the people, the priests, the clergy, the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the lawyers — those who were leaders of the people — these individuals possessed great arrogance and thus always sought to distort the word of God. My beloved, if one considers their rabbinic output known as the Talmud, which contains six thousand commandments, this alone is sufficient for you to understand… the majority of which are a distortion, a perversion of the truth, you can grasp from this how these individuals operated.

July: Day 13: Teaching 1: Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel

July: Day 13: Teaching 1:
Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel
 
(What Should the Certainty That the Holy Angels Are Sent by God to Serve Us and Care for our Salvation Encourage Us To Do?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the day of the Synaxis in honor of the Holy Archangel Gabriel, all his miraculous appearances are remembered and glorified as the harbinger of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God and the servant of the dispensation of the salvation of the world.

While the Lord's Archangel Michael, who at an unknown time began the battle with the spirit of evil, was given a certain divine and pre-worldly power for the conduct of this battle, by which he was appointed as a guide to Christ and a defender of the Jewish people (Dan. 10:13, 12:1), and at the same time the pre-eminent servant of the Old Testament (Heb. 2:2), the Holy Archangel Gabriel was entrusted by the Holy Spirit with the service of the mysteries of God and especially the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God for the salvation of man. For this reason, the Holy Church calls him the herald of the mysteries of God and the servant of miracles, and, according to ancient tradition, depicts the Holy Archangel sometimes with a jasper mirror on his left hand and a lantern with a lit candle in his right hand (since God's plans for the salvation of man were hidden for a time and were revealed to people only in a conjectural manner, like unclear images of an object reflected in a mirror), sometimes with a branch of paradise in his hand, which was brought by the Archangel to the Mother of God at the hour of the Annunciation.

Thousands of People Visit the Tomb of Saint Paisios on his Feast to Capture the Scent of Eternity

Saint Paisios: Thousands of People at his Tomb From Every Corner of Greece – The Only “Popular Pilgrimage” That Smells of Eternity

Published on 11 July 2025

By Eleutherios Andronis
Sportime.gr

Social “explosion” in the world’s love for the Saint in recent years - A blessed phenomenon that shows that nothing has been lost.

If the love of the Greeks for Saint Paisios had already been excessive for decades, after the screening of the series “Saint Paisios, from Farasa to Heaven”, reverence for the Saint has evolved into a social phenomenon, one of the few pleasant phenomena in our sad times.

Hundreds of thousands of people who had no particular contact with ecclesiastical life and had never read a book about the Saint, saw the series and were “electrified” by his life, his unhypocritical love, his inexhaustible sacrificial spirit and the spiritual freshness that only a Spirit-bearing man of God, such as Saint Paisios, offers to every heart.