Homily Three on the Holy Great Martyr George (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery on Mount Athos

Both in earlier times and in recent times, people, out of love for someone dear to them, have not hesitated to perform a heroic act — even to sacrifice their own life. But there is no other example of “laying down one’s life” (cf. John 15:13) not only for one’s friends but also for one’s enemies, and even for those who crucified Him, except the example of our Lord. For the Lord was sacrificed on the Cross not only for the sake of His friends and His disciples and those who loved Him, but also for the sake of His enemies and those who crucified Him. And here the greatness of the love of God is revealed. And it is this love of God that conquered death. And Life could not remain in the tomb, but rose and became life and incorruption for the whole world.

Thus, those who follow the God-man Lord, like the Holy Great Martyr George, whose memory we celebrate today, also, in their love for God and for man, for the Crucified and Risen Lord, offer their lives. And outwardly it appears that the world and the devil prevail, because, according to human judgment, the end for the Holy Martyrs is painful and without hope. But the Holy Martyrs, because they had within themselves the Risen Lord and the love of God, saw beyond the veil of the flesh.

Homily Two for Cheesefare Sunday (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

Homily Two for Cheesefare Sunday

Forgiveness of Our Brethren as a Prerequisite for Our Union with Christ

(Delivered at the Supper of Forgiveness in Gregoriou Monastery - February 24, 1992)

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

We thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed us also this evening, all united as brothers, to celebrate Cheesefare Sunday; and in a little while He will vouchsafe us to be forgiven, and forgiven and reconciled in love, to enter into the blessed and holy period of Great Lent.

It is a Tradition of our Church and of our Orthodox Nation that on this evening Orthodox Christians, both in the cities and in the villages — where formerly there was piety and where some piety still remains — go to the Vespers of Forgiveness, listen to the beautiful hymns which move the human soul toward spiritual struggle, and afterward receive forgiveness from the priest and from one another. Then they go to their homes, set a common table with relatives and friends, and rejoice together as families. And thus, all Christians, forgiven, begin the Holy and Great Lent, and in some places even keep the Three-Day Fast.

Homily Two on Andrew, the Apostle of Christ (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

Homily Two on Andrew, the Apostle of Christ 

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,

Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery

On today's feast of the Apostle Andrew, we feel spiritual joy, because the Holy Apostle Andrew is the illuminator of the Greek Nation. For each Saint we celebrate, we feel spiritual joy, but we feel much more joy for those Saints who walked the soil of our homeland and enlightened our people and dyed this land porphyry with the fountains of their blood.

We are struck by the fact that the Holy Apostle Andrew from the beginning had followed the Lord with great desire, leaving his first teacher, Saint John the Forerunner. He obeyed and humbled himself before Christ and served Him together with the other Holy Apostles until the end and even shed his blood in a horrible death for the love of the Lord Christ.

The Honorable Forerunner and his Holy Parents Zechariah and Elizabeth (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

The Honorable Forerunner and his Holy Parents Zechariah and Elizabeth 

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

We all know the great mission that the Honorable Forerunner accomplished in the work of salvation and that he continues to this day with his unceasing prayers for the world.

But we must not forget that behind the Honorable Forerunner are hidden two blessed, simple and humble souls, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Those who had dedicated their lives to God. Those who longed for a child, but since the gift was not given to them, they did not lose their trust in God, nor did they grumble against God or become indignant, but were patient and offered their pain to God in prayer.

It was seemingly a dead end in the life of these two blessed elders. A sterility of which there was no human hope of overcoming. But where there seemed to be no way out, where there was no human hope, God performed His miracle. The barren, dead womb of Saint Elizabeth sprouted a glorious fruit.

On the Beheading of the Honorable Forerunner (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

On the Beheading of the Honorable Forerunner 

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

(Delivered in 1981 at Gregoriou Monastery of the Holy Mountain)

We have noticed two contrasting images in tonight’s feast, described to us by the hymnography of our Church and the sacred Gospel we read (Mark 6:16-29).

On the one hand we have Herod, Herodias, the daughter of Herodias, that wicked banquet, the triumph of human wickedness and sinfulness. Promiscuity, illicit marriage, drunkenness, fearlessness of God, passions, anger, hatred, revenge, lack of repentance. In contrast to this image, so gloomy, stands the pure, holy figure of the Baptist, the Prophet, the man of God, the righteous man, Saint John the Forerunner.

Great indeed is the difference! In the person of the Honorable Forerunner we see the man of God, man as God willed him to be, the man of obedience, love, faith, hope in God, perfect devotion to the Lord, sacrifice. In the other persons, of the enemies of the Honorable Forerunner, we see the man who was enslaved to the devil, as he became because of his disobedience to God. On the one hand, we have the highest peak of holiness, and on the other hand, we have the lowest depth of sinfulness and the passionate state. These two images summarize the drama of man's salvation, the fall and holiness.

The Fourth Sunday of Great Lent and the Gift of Saint John Climacus (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

Our Lord, the leader of our faith and the founder and head of our Church, has taken care and is taking care that His Christians, His faithful, have proper spiritual guidance for the life in Christ. For this reason, He has raised up within the Church many Spirit-bearing and God-bearing teachers, who, with the illumination of the Holy Spirit, teach us the life in Christ. Among these great teachers of our faith is Saint John the Sinaite, the author of the "Ladder", whose memory we celebrate today.

He himself struggled as a monk, as a coenobite, and as an abbot. He succeeded in climbing – with struggle, of course – the steps of theosis, starting from the first stages of the spiritual life and reaching the highest, which is perfect love for God and people and union with God and theosis.

Homily Three for the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 The Tradition of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

The great Apostle of the Gentiles, the apostle Paul, when he came here to our blessed homeland - three times he passed through here, and here in Macedonia, he walked and sanctified it - what did he preach? He preached Christ. What did he preach to the Thessalonians? Christ. What did he preach in Beroea? The God-man Christ. What did he preach to the Corinthians? Christ. What did he preach in our country, bit by bit? Christ, the God-man.
 

From the apostle Paul and from the apostle Peter we also received the faith of the God-man Christ. And this is the faith of the Church, this is the foundation of the Church, this is the tradition of the Church which the Church received, lives and delivers: the God-man Christ.

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent - Saint Mary of Egypt (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

(Delivered in 1999)

Today, the Fifth Sunday of the Holy Fast, our holy Church puts forward the figure of Saint Mary of Egypt. Her life is moving. Seventeen years in sin. She lured many people into sin. When she heard that people were going on a pilgrimage, she also wanted to go to Jerusalem to see what was going on. Mostly out of curiosity. But beneath the curiosity lay some spark of God's Grace.

And as you know, for her fare, because she had no money for the ship from Alexandria to Palestine, she gave her body to sin with the sailors. And when she arrived in the Holy Land of Jerusalem and saw all the people going to the Church of the Resurrection to venerate the Honorable Cross, this unfortunate woman also went to enter, but an invisible force pushed her away, and did not let her go in. She was hindered by her sins.

Awaiting Christmas (Archim. George Kapsanis)

 

Awaiting Christmas

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

In these days the Orthodox Christian world is called to celebrate or rather to truly live the great event of the salvation and redemption of people and the world from the woes of the wicked and the devil. They are called to receive the mystery of the incarnate economy and to be filled with Divine Grace and Blessing.

The holy Fathers invite us to open the eyes of the heart and contemplate this great mystery, which literally changed the shape of the world.

What is the purpose of the Lord's incarnation? All the teachings of the Fathers about the incarnation of the Lord is contained in the phrase of Athanasios the Great: "The Word became flesh, to make man receptible to divinity." Christ did not come to earth to simply bring us a new teaching, but to transmit to us the Divine Life, the life of God. To make us sharers of Divine Life by grace. God becomes man, so that man may become God by grace. This is the central and essential meaning of this great and important celebration.

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Luke (Archim. George Kapsanis)

 

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Luke

On the Pious Young Man

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

(Delivered in 1989)

The rich young man, as we heard today in the holy Gospel, was very concerned about the problem of his salvation, how he will inherit eternal life. That is why he asked Christ what to do. How to be saved.

He knew the commandments because he was a pious youth. He knew God's law. Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not bear false witness, etc. "These things I have kept from my youth," he said. And this young man was waiting for the Lord to tell him, that in as much as you kept them, you won the Kingdom of heaven.

Saint John the Forerunner as a Monk and Social Worker (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 By Archimandrite George Kapsanis

(Homily Delivered on August 29, 1988)

Today's feast (Beheading of the Honorable Head of the Honorable Forerunner), like every feast of the Honorable Forerunner, is a feast of the whole Church, though it is also a feast for Monks in particular. Because the Honorable Forerunner was the first Monk of the Church and the model and example of every true Monk, for his asceticism, for the love he had for Christ, but also for the spirit of sacrifice that distinguished him.

So when the time came for him to sacrifice himself for the love of God and people, having rebuked the illegitimate king, he did not hesitate to do so. The rebuke he addressed to the king was for the good of the king and the good of his illegitimate wife and the good of the people. For, when the people see their rulers transgressing, what will they also do?

Homily for the Epistle Reading of the Eighth Sunday of Pentecost - Holy Unity Within the Church (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 

Holy Unity Within the Church

 

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery

We heard in the apostolic reading (1 Cor. 1:10-17), which is from the first letter to the Corinthians of the apostle Paul, that the Apostle recommends to the Corinthians, but also to Christians of all ages, to be united in the Church with a unity not external but spiritual and internal.

"Brethren," he says, "I appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree." He did not say this by his own name, but by the name of Christ, who is the Head of the Church.

Let not one person say one thing and the other another. Let there be no disagreement within the Church, among Christians. There should not be different opinions and views and teachings, but all of you should follow the opinion, the teaching and the spirit of Christ, in order to agree.

Homily Two on the Glorious Prophet Elijah (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 By Archimandrite George Kapsanis  

 

(Delivered in 1988)

 

Many holy men before Christ were adorned with various gifts of the Holy Spirit, as was the Prophet Elijah whom we celebrate today, who, apart from the common characteristics he had with the other holy men of God, also had this special feature: that he was a man who for the ordinances of God, for the commandments of God, for the faith in the true God, made great and heroic struggles. He risked many times in his life and did not rest unless he saw the will of God, the justice and commandments of God and faith in the true God prevail.

The Israelite nation in those years - about five hundred years before Christ - faced a situation similar to the situation we face today.

There was a great influence of foreign peoples, who were idolaters, and the people were being led astray. They abandoned the tradition of their fathers, faith in the true God, for whom they had so many proofs and had seen so many miracles, and from a spirit of pseudo-modernization and modernism, so to speak, they followed the religions and ideologies that came to Israel from the neighboring states.

Christ and Humanistic Society (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery of the Holy Mountain

As much as a man is cleansed of his passions, so he acquires the possibility of true communion with God and other human beings.

Those who view man romantically and externally transfer the evil from individuals to society, which is why they preach that the improvement of society will also bring about the improvement of individuals. But the Orthodox, without denying the importance of social influence on persons, give priority to the transformation of the person through repentance and Divine Grace.

It is a great delusion to want to change society without struggling to change ourselves. It is at least naïve to believe that changing some social institutions will bring about change in people without repentance.

Homily for Holy and Great Thursday (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery, Mount Athos

Today our Church "commemorates" the Lord's Secret Supper, during which the Lord delivered the terrible mysteries of the Divine Eucharist, His Body and Blood, and His words were fulfilled: "Take, eat, this is my Body" and "drink of it all of you, for this is my Blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mat. 26:26-28).

Thus the Lord left to humanity an ever-flowing source of deification for people, the forgiveness and remission of their sins and their revitalization, in His all-holy Body and Blood. Without them the Church would not exist. Because the Body and Blood of Christ exists, the Church exists. That is why today we celebrate not only the birthday of the mystery of the Divine Eucharist, but also the birthday of the Church. Great is the feast! Great is the gift!