The Brother of the Prodigal Son (Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol)

The Brother of the Prodigal Son

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is enough in itself to teach us the whole mystery of the Father's divine love and the way of salvation and of the return of people to God. Thus, usually, greater importance is given to the prodigal son and the way of his salvation, but also to the presence of the Father, who with His ineffable fatherly love accepts his prodigal son back. However, the other son, the prodigal's brother, remains on the sidelines, without anyone dealing with him. When I therefore hear this parable, my mind remains on this type of man, because I feel that we "religious" people are most like him.

We are in danger from the syndrome of this man. It is a great danger that lurks for all of us. In the Gospel, the eldest son is mentioned in a few words.

When the prodigal son returned and was welcomed by his father and ordered that the best robe be brought to clothe him, and that the fattened calf be sacrificed and that there should be joy and gladness in the house, because the prodigal was like a dead man who has survived, who was lost and is now found, the parable continues: “Now his elder son was in the field.”

Eldress Mariam the Paralytic (+ 2004) - 1 of 2

 

 

Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol spoke the following in a recorded Livestream a few years ago:

I don't know if you met Mrs. Maroula in Limassol. Mrs. Maroula, that's what they called her - Sister Mariam later, when she became a nun - was a woman who lived a few houses from the Metropolis. I knew her long before I went to the Metropolis but she happened to be there near us.
 
She was a woman who had been paralyzed and bedridden since she was 18 years old.

For more than 35 years she was in bed all the time, locked in a room. As for her house, its a miracle that it didn't fall on her head! At one point, the floor of her house was so rotten that one day she sank with her bed into the floor.

She had nobody in the world. She was married and some ten years ago her husband died and she was left completely alone. She had no one in the world! There were some very distant relatives, but they had nothing to do with her. Her brother was in Australia, also old. This woman was completely alone, in the true sense of the word. Completely helpless, paralyzed in bed unable to do anything. She had not been out of her room for years. Her husband died and she couldn't go to his funeral because the condition she had was such that she couldn't even sit in a wheelchair. She was always in bed. A woman completely alone.

"I Was Angry With Saint Kosmas Aitolos" (Metr. Athanasios of Limassol)

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

 

When I was on Mount Athos, there we honored Saint Kosmas Aitolos. I did not give honor to this Saint, to confess to you, because I was angry with him for leaving Mount Athos. And I said, "Look, my child, at the desire he had to leave Mount Athos." If only I knew that I would do the same!

He left Mount Athos and went to Greece to visit the villages, to give sermons! Was this necessary?

Didn't he have others to do these things?

He left Mount Athos, which was an ideal place for monks in that blessed monastic state, and he went round all the villages and built schools.

The Triodion and our Spiritual Life (Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol)

 

 By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

The period of the Triodion is a miniature of the entire spiritual life of man. It is enough for one to follow the meanings of the hymns of the days, to see the course of the struggle that man has made before him. It begins from the foundation of the spiritual life to the end, which is the sanctification and deification of man. The Triodion is a very rich spiritual period, and due to the particular circumstances of each person, living within the various obligations that each person has, it is not easy to completely follow all the spiritual opportunities that this period gives us.

The course of the Triodion is divided into three periods. One before the beginning of the fast, the other is the period of the holy fast and then the Great Week of the Holy Passion of the Lord and the Resurrection. The period before fasting is a preparatory period, which shows us how we can struggle and what is the real way that man can enter into this spiritual struggle. The basis of all life in Christ is nothing else but the attitude of repentance. Repentance is born of humility.