Prologue in Sermons: March 24

Against Dancing Among the Common People

March 24

(A Homily of Saint John Chrysostom on Games and Dancing)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Among you, Orthodox Christians, there exists a very bad custom, especially on Sundays and feast days, of gathering in your village streets and beginning dances there. This custom both angers God and brings about destructive consequences.

In order to abandon it, listen to what Saint Chrysostom says about it.

“Dancing,” says the universal teacher, “is not a human but a demonic activity. Demons teach it to us so that they may not be the only ones tormented in hell. And of all amusements it is the worst, for it draws a person away from God and leads him down to the depths of hell. And a woman who dances is called the bride of Satan, the adulteress of the devil, and the consort of demons; and she who dances will not only herself be brought down to the depths of hell, but also all who danced with her. She does not preserve her honor, and through her the devil tempts many, both in sleep and in wakefulness. All who love dancing will be condemned to the unquenchable fire. And it is vile and shameful for a man to live with such a woman.

Listen to what happened: people sat down to eat and drink, became full and drunk, and began to dance — and then to commit sin. After that they turned to idols and began to offer sacrifices to them. Then the earth opened and swallowed twenty-three thousand of them. Thus the Lord showed an image of punishment to all who sin and do not do the will of God. Therefore, brothers and sisters, beware and do not love unlawful, demonic amusements. Especially avoid dancing, lest you be condemned to eternal torment.”*

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.

Saint George the Drunkard, Saint George the Poor, Saint George the Sower

Throughout Greece on November 3rd the Orthodox Church celebrates a second feast of Saint George the Great Martyr and Trophy-bearer, whose main feast is on April 23rd, which honors the translation of his relics from Nicomedia where he was martyred to Lydda of Palestine, where his sacred relics rest to this day. Because Saint George, whose name means "farmer" in Greek, is such a venerated Saint by the Greeks, and this feast falls around the time of the harvest in Greece since ancient times, rural Orthodox Christian farmers have appropriated ancient pagan festivities to November 3rd.

Some Orthodox have even gone so far as to create an entirely new Saint George to distinguish him from Saint George the Great Martyr and Trophy-bearer, and for this reason they call this other one "Saint George the Lesser" (του Μικρού), and what this Saint George celebrated on November 3rd by these rural and poor Orthodox Christians is known for is tilling and sowing the land and getting drunk on the new wine. This is why he carries the epithets of "Saint George the Drunkard" (Μεθυστής), "Saint George the Poor" (του Φτωχού) and "Saint George the Sower" (Σποριάρης). Therefore, in many parts of Greece, sowing is done on November 3rd, and the barrels with the new wine are opened on this day.