On the Second Coming of the Lord (St. Chrysostomos of Smyrna)

On the Second Coming of the Lord

By the Holy Hieromartyr Chrysostomos, Metropolitan of Smyrna

The discourse concerns the Second Coming of the Lord.

But does the Second Coming of the Lord truly exist?

Is there immortality and a life everlasting to come?

Is there a future judgment?

Is there recompense after death?

Or do all things cease at the grave in this present life, and is the grave the final end — where together with the body life itself is buried and forever extinguished — and beyond the grave there exists nothing but the void?

This question is among the most serious of all and bears the highest importance for every earthly human being.

In View of Meatfare Sunday, a Sermon on the Second Coming of the Lord (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

In View of Meatfare Sunday, a Sermon on the Second Coming of the Lord 

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani

We confess and say in the seventh article of the Symbol of Faith:

“And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.”

This concerns the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ — a subject exceedingly important, primary, and of interest to every human being.

Let us recall, for consolation and spiritual edification, a few things about the Second Coming of the Lord.

First of all, the Second Coming of the Lord is called in Holy Scripture a “day” (1 Cor. 3:13), and indeed “that day” (Matt. 7:22; Luke 6:23; John 14:20), “the last day” (John 6:39), “the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5), “the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), “the coming” (Matt. 24:3), “the appearing of glory” (Tit. 2:13), and “the revelation of His glory” (1 Pet. 4:13). The hymnography calls it “a dreadful day,” “a fearful day,” “the day of judgment.”

Homily for the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Sunday of the Last Judgment

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

I congratulate you on Meatfare Sunday, during which we remember the terrible events that await us all — the Last Judgment. God will clearly appear on earth to reward each according to their deeds, to restore the whole world.

Then the whole universe will change, the heavens will pass with a roar and melt in flames, and the earth and all the works that are on it will burn up, and then all people will appear before the terrible Throne of God Almighty and Christ will gather us all to judge and reward each according to his deeds.

Each of us will stand in the flesh before God, naked, clad only in the garments we wove on earth from our deeds. If we lived ordinary lives as ordinary people, without doing good deeds, or even worse, if we committed iniquity, then we will remain naked. And on the day of great trial, on the Day of Judgment, all our deeds will be tested. All Christians have one foundation — Jesus Christ — but everyone builds their lives on Him differently. Some build houses of straw, others of wood, and such houses will burst into flames on the Day of Judgment.

Saint Anthimos of Chios (1869-1960): Hesychast, Philanthropist and Confessor

 

Christos Klavas, 
Theologian, Sociologist, Chanter

It is an indisputable fact that even in more recent times, closer to us, the Orthodox Church continues to bring forth saints. This admission is of great significance for contemporary man who, perhaps more than in any other era, has need of hope as well as lofty ideals.

A contemporary sanctified figure is, among many others, Saint Anthimos of Chios, whose life constitutes a model of spirituality and philanthropy.

Born in Chios on July 1, 1869, Argyrios Vagianos (his name in the world) grew up in an environment of deep faith and piety. He did not receive much formal education, although he was endowed with remarkable natural gifts. On August 23, 1889, at the age of 20, he visited the Sacred Skete of the Holy Fathers in order to deliver to the monastery’s icon workshop the icon of Panagia Voitheia (the Helper), which he had received as an heirloom from his ancestors. This visit became the occasion for him to make the great decision to enter the ranks of the monks and submit to the Elder Pachomios, "renowned for his virtue.”[1] This was the elder who taught the ascetical, neptic tradition to Saint Nektarios of Aegina, Bishop of Pentapolis.[2] Consequently, Saint Anthimos and Saint Nektarios were disciples of the same spiritual teacher; they were spiritual brothers, flowers that sprang from the same root.

Holy Apostle Onesimos in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Onesimos was a slave of Philemon, a Roman man, to whom the Holy Apostle Paul writes (the homonymous epistle of the New Testament, the Epistle to Philemon). Onesimos became a disciple of Paul (when he had fled from his master Philemon and took refuge in Rome, where he met the Apostle Paul, who was under custody awaiting trial before Caesar), and he ministered to him. After the death of the Apostle, he himself was also arrested and brought before Tertullus, the governor of the region, and by him was sent to Puteoli. When Tertullus also went there, he found Onesimos persisting in the faith of Christ, and so he first ordered him to be beaten severely with rods and then to have his legs broken. In this manner he departed from this temporary life.

The Apostle Onesimos is yet another case of a man who received in his life the almighty energy of divine grace and was converted: from a harsh and difficult slave he became an Apostle of Christ. That is to say, from a man who, because of the oppression he felt, harbored negative feelings toward the world, he became one who placed himself in loving service to his fellow human beings, even giving his life in the end for Christ’s sake. This of course means that, in order to reach the point of accepting the word of the Gospel, he preserved within himself good elements; that is, there existed in his soul a certain search for the truth. In this respect he resembles his spiritual father, the Holy Apostle Paul, who himself, from being a persecutor of the Christian faith, became its greatest preacher and theologian.

Prologue in Sermons: February 15

On Patience

February 15

(From a saying of the Paterikon about a certain monk who went from monastery to monastery, unable to endure annoyance from the brethren.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

There are people who think things are good only where they themselves are not. Wherever they live, they complain about everyone, saying that all treat them badly and all offend them.

“If only I could settle over there,” they say, “then things would be different.”

They are always searching for something, always running from place to place. But will they ever find peace?

If they do not abandon their irritability and impatience — never; but if they arm themselves with patience and discernment, they will find it very soon.

A certain monk lived in a coenobitic monastery, and there five brethren loved him, but one insulted him. Unable to endure the offense, the monk left, thinking to find peace in another monastery. There eight brethren began to love him, but two hated him. He fled to a third. There seven loved him and five hated him. What was he to do?

Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in Faith (St. John of Damascus)

PROLOGUE

Here I wish to add a very important note of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite concerning Memorial Services:

“Since the present discussion concerns memorials, we note that the third-day memorials performed for the departed brethren signify, according to the sacred Symeon of Thessaloniki, that the departed brother was from the beginning composed by the Holy Trinity.

The ninth-day memorials signify that, having been dissolved into the elements from which he was composed, he is to be numbered among the nine immaterial orders of the Angels, being himself immaterial.

The fortieth-day memorials signify that, in the future resurrection, having again been re-constituted in a higher manner, he too is to be taken up as the Lord was, and, caught up in the clouds, to meet the Judge.

These three states of man are also signified by the three-month, six-month, and nine-month memorials; in general they are performed for the purification of the departed — especially the fortieth day, as is indicated by the example of our Lord, who in His three births kept three complete forties, thus imprinting our own life in Himself. For the day of birth and the death of each person are called a ‘birthday,’ according to the temple in Laodicea.

The Apostolic Constitutions (Book VIII, ch. 42) say that the third day is observed because Christ rose on the third day; the ninth day in remembrance of the living and the dead; and the fortieth day according to the ancient type — for thus also the people mourned Moses.

Some say the third day is for the purification of the threefold aspect of the soul; the ninth for the purification of the five bodily senses together with the generative, natural, and transitional faculty; and the fortieth for the purification of the four elements in the body — each of which served in the transgression of the ten commandments; and four times ten make forty.” (Pedalion, Athens 1886, p. 221)

Memorial Services for the Reposed

Memorial Services

By Fr. Theodosios Martzouchos

"The dead man has not lost his place 
in the conscience and the mind of people, 
because he is absent from their eyes." 
— John Henry Newman

More or less, all of us have attended a Memorial Service for a relative or acquaintance. All of us have taken part in “remembrances of the dead.” We have all experienced the awkwardness of the mournful atmosphere, in which we do not know how to react or what to think. We have all felt uncomfortable, offering cold and indifferent condolences that we did not truly feel. Memorial Services, whether for acquaintances or relatives, have taken their place in the lives of Christians without the “why” of them being self-evidently understood and accepted.

In our own day especially, Memorial Services tend to become a psychologically comforting habit and at the same time a rational denial and objection. I do “something” for my loved one who has departed and remain with a sense of communication through the offering. At the same time my mind “protests” as to whether all this has any substantial usefulness, since when you die… everything seems futile and useless, just as indeed all material human things are useless for the dead.

What truly happens? What is a Memorial Service and why are Memorials needed?

Something Deeper (A Poem for the Saturday of Souls)

 

By Fr. Ioannis Papadimitriou

Many times, out of good intention,
some people leave an electric candle
on the grave of their loved ones.
It is not bad in the sense of sin,
but our Church has taught something deeper.

We do not light the vigil lamp or the natural candle
because our departed are afraid of the darkness.
They do not need it in order to “see.”
The oil symbolizes the mercy of God
which drips like balm
upon our suffering souls,
and the candle symbolizes the person who melts
little by little from sacrificial love;
and because love is not activism or an idea,
but becomes incarnate in the Person of Christ,
who is both Light and Life,
as it burns it spreads light all around!