Homily for the Sixth Monday of Great Lent - On Tithing (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Sixth Monday of Great Lent 

On Tithing 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

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

Our evening service has just concluded, at which we heard passages from the Book of Genesis, which are read during the Holy Forty Days, so that people may recall the creation of the universe and the beginning of our history, at a time when we are preparing for the feast of the re-creation of our universe — the feast of Holy Pascha of the Lord.

At this time, the Proverbs are also read, which show us how we ought to live in the universe, what the norms of a proper Christian life are. Today, the passage from Genesis and from the Book of Proverbs turned out to be interconnected. This is not by chance, but by the deep providence of God, manifested in the wisdom of the authors of the Church’s hymns.

You noticed that the first passage from Genesis speaks of how the righteous Jacob turned to his two wives, Rachel and Leah, asking what they thought about leaving their father. Jacob had been forced to flee from his own brother Esau, because he had deceived him, and to go to the land of Haran. On the way, he fell asleep and saw in a dream a ladder reaching up to heaven, upon which the angels of God were ascending and descending. At the top of this ladder stood God.

Homily on the Ark and the Flood (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

On the Ark and the Flood

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

(Delivered on the 14th Day of Great Lent - Thursday)

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

Today during the service, we heard about the Great Flood. We heard God's command to bring two of every creature into the Ark, except for the unclean animals, of which seven were to be brought. Seven of each unclean creature were to be brought so that after the Flood, man would be able to eat meat and could then thank God by offering a sacrifice. By the Lord's will, this is what happened. Imagine: the Ark stands on a high mountain, and entire crowds of living creatures are approaching it, pairs of two. A pair of elephants, a pair of dinosaurs, a pair of snakes crawling, a pair of wolves walking, seven cows and their bulls together, seven sheep. All of them walked without human intervention; Noah merely carried food for these animals. Thus, the Lord called people to repentance for the last time; there could be no better sermon than the movement of these enormous animals. Imagine: crowds of living creatures are led together by invisible Guardian Angels into Noah's Ark.

Prologue in Sermons: March 4

Even the Beasts Obey the Righteous

March 4

(Commemoration of our Venerable Father Gerasimos of the Jordan)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

You know, brethren, that the Lord gave us authority to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the beasts, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth (Gen. 1:26). And that through sin we lost this authority. But do you know that if through a holy life we restore within ourselves the image and likeness of God, then this authority will return to us again? If you do not know, then we shall now tell you about this.

Concerning the Venerable Gerasimos of the Jordan, it is said in his Life that, having preserved within himself the image and likeness of God, he came to have mastery even over beasts. Thus, once, a huge lion came to him and began to tend the monastery’s donkey, which brought water to the monastery. The lion shepherded it and led it to and from the monastery.

Homily on the Fall (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily on the Fall 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

After the Fall, Adam attempts to deceive God; he desires to become a god himself. When a man begins to sin, it becomes exceedingly difficult for him to stop. Therefore one must never say: “I will sin now and repent later.” For it is by no means certain that repentance will follow. Sin carries a man away, as it carried Adam away.

And do you know how far Adam was carried?

To the very depths of hades itself, where Christ found him after His saving death upon the Cross.

God said to Adam:

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?” (Gen. 3:11).

Thus Adam already regards God as an enemy; he is ashamed before God and fears Him. Even now many people perceive God in the same way — as some distant and terrible force: something exists, yet it would be better if that Something remained far away. For men fear God because they do not wish to repent. This disposition comes from that very moment of the Fall.

Homily on Paradise (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

 

Homily on Paradise 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

On the fourth day of Great Lent we heard the narrative from the sacred book of the Old Testament concerning Paradise, into which the man fashioned from the dust of the earth was introduced.

This is the most detailed description of Paradise given in Holy Scripture — that ancient homeland of ours, our primordial fatherland, to which we long to return, knowing that through the hidden path of Holy Baptism access to it has now been opened for us. Because the Lord was born, the barrier standing between God and mankind has been destroyed.

Indeed, the description of holy Paradise, in which we were settled by God, ought to inspire us to enter upon the path of righteousness.

Homily on the Sixth and Seventh Days of the Creation of the World (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily on the Sixth and Seventh Days of the Creation of the World 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

We see how wisely the Church guides us, showing us in every detail and from every side the greatness of God. Today we conclude the account of how the world came into being. We shall speak about the sixth and the seventh days of Creation — about Friday, the day that completed all creation, and about Saturday, which received the name of the day of rest.

On the sixth day, when the beasts were created, the earth brought forth living creatures possessing sensation and movement, yet not endowed with reason. At this point, the Lord, as it were, pauses in speaking about the creation of the world and begins to take counsel with Himself. Why?

Because the Lord resolved to create an astonishing and inconceivable union. He decided to unite two universes: the visible, material world and the world not perceived by the senses — the invisible or intelligible world. God resolved to bind these two worlds together by creating a flesh-bearing, mammalian angel.

Homily on the Fourth and Fifth Days of the Creation of the World (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

On the Fourth and Fifth Days of the Creation of the World

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

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

During these days, God created the luminaries from nothingness. By His will, the primordial light created on the first day of Creation was collected into the luminaries, as if into vessels. The planets were placed like mirrors to shine upon the earth. We also heard of the creation of the first beings, endowed with a living soul. On this day, I would like to reflect on what some current teachings oppose. 

Nowadays, many people, even those who consider themselves Christians, profess a false doctrine of the planets. How many people do we have today who believe that their lives are somehow determined by the positions of the luminaries in the sky! And with the advent of the fashion for celebrating Chinese New Year, many Christians have begun calling themselves all sorts of animals. And this frenzy in our country reaches its peak with the arrival of the civil New Year.

This would be understandable if they were atheists, for an atheist is "a slave to all the elements," as the Apostle Paul says; such a person works for all the elements of the world. But a Christian, who has been freed from slavery to the elements of the world through the Blood of Christ the Savior, how dare he return to these feeble elements and think that they will somehow influence him?! Nevertheless, I have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of Orthodox Christians who sincerely believe that the stars influence, if not their fate, then their character. As if there are bad days and good days (if the day starts badly, it will continue to be bad). All these superstitions are spread with complete seriousness. There are countless people who consider themselves Orthodox, yet in reality they worship not God, but the luminaries. Because a real person who believes in horoscopes, who believes that he is subject to the voice of these luminaries, can he really be called a Christian? He is an idolater in the literal, not figurative, sense of the word. How did paganism itself originate? People worshiped the celestial bodies. Seeing the terrible, catastrophic impacts of celestial bodies on Earth (humanity has witnessed asteroid impacts and floods caused by cosmic objects), people decided that the celestial bodies themselves governed the world and were supposedly animate beings. There were even heretics in the Church — Origen, for example — rwho claimed that the Moon, the Sun, the stars, and even planet Earth itself were living bodies endowed with intelligence.

Adam, the Twilight, the Footsteps and the Voice of God

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani

Adam is man. It is the name of the first man, according to Holy Scripture. He is the first-formed, our forefather, the representative of the human race. He is the most perfect divine creation. Adam — man — is the crown of the entire creation of the all-wise God.

Undoubtedly, in the Book of Genesis, the first three chapters are foundational. They describe the creation of the world, of irrational creation, but also the creation and formation of man. They also speak of his original state, as well as of his fall. They recount the exile of Adam and Eve from Paradise and make reference to the divine promise concerning restoration. Certainly, in the sacred text, the expressions are anthropomorphic, so as to be accessible to our understanding; yet within the words and explanations are hidden profound and most subtle symbols and realities. The ultimate purpose is the realization of the content of “according to the image” and the journey toward “according to the likeness.”

Thus, in the narrative of Genesis, both the greatness and the wretchedness of man are presented and revealed. First, we shall write about the greatness of man. This consists in the fact that man is a divine creation of the infinite love of the One and Triune God, who is truly Love. Consequently, man is not the result of random coincidences of blind, mindless forces. The creation of man was decided by the three Persons of the one Godhead. “Let us make man,” says Genesis (1:26) in the plural number. And God formed man as a psychosomatic being — body and soul. This is the dual composition of man, the spiritual and the material element in one harmonious unity.

Homily on the Commemoration of Adam's Expulsion (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily on the Commemoration of Adam's Expulsion 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

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

Today, on Forgiveness Sunday, our Church remembers the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. From the Paradise of sweetness in which we dwelt, from that beautiful Garden where we were with God. Where we could draw infinite knowledge from the infinite mind of God, and from His infinite strength we drew infinite power, from His life we drew our eternal life. From His joy we drew our eternal joy. But we were expelled from there in Adam and Eve, for we are all blood descendants of the first man. Our entire nature is the nature of Adam and Eve, which was expelled from Paradise. We remember how we were deprived of blessedness as a result of the sin of the first people. But if you pay attention to the order in which sin unfolded, you will see that nothing has changed since then.

When we prepare people for Holy Baptism, we rehearse the meaning of each episode of the exile from Paradise. I think it would be good for us to repeat this. The first woman walks through Paradise and approaches the Tree of Knowledge. According to ancient tradition, this tree was not an apple tree, as many believe, but a fig tree. It was not for nothing that our Lord cursed the fig tree in order to wither the tree of sin. So, she approaches the tree forbidden by God, because God did not want us to know good and evil at that moment. God does not want us to try to be our own judges of good and evil, to try to determine for ourselves what is good and what is bad. God wanted us to act based on His point of view, not on our own, which is limited in knowledge and understanding.

Homily on the Sunday Before the Nativity of Christ (Theophanes Kerameus)

Homily on the Sunday Before the Nativity of Christ

"On the Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ the Son of David"

Homily 14

By Theophanes Kerameus (+ 1152)

"A star has now arisen from the tribe of Judah; and when the kings perceived it, they set out from the East and hasten to arrive, that they might behold Christ, born in the flesh in Bethlehem." (Ode 3, Matins for the Forefeast of Christmas)

Just as when the sun rises and appears on the horizon the lights of the stars are overshadowed, unable to endure such brilliance, so too when the Sun of Righteousness rises from the womb of the Virgin, the choir of the Fathers appears to shine forth beforehand, like a choir of stars. For this reason the sacred Matthew, whose Gospel we begin to read today, seems to have gathered them together as if within a sheltered harbor. Come, then, let us examine together the purpose of this genealogy. First among the Evangelists, eight years after the Ascension of Christ, Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, in a God-inspired manner, addressing the Jews who had converted to Christ.

Homilies on the Books of Holy Scripture - The Pentateuch (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Homilies on the Books of Holy Scripture 

The Pentateuch 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Sunday, July 13, 2025)

The first five books of the Old Testament and the Holy Scriptures in general are called the "Pentateuch" and are understood as the "Pentateuch Bible" since the 2nd century AD by the Greeks and Christians.

In the Hebrew period these books are called the "Law of Moses" or the "Book of the Law of Moses", because they were given by God to Moses, so that with this law he could guide His people. Christ Himself considered the author to be Moses, which is why in a conversation He had with the Jews of His time He said: “If you believe Moses, believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:46).

These five books are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.