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 for Cheesefare Sunday -- The Expulsion of Adam from Paradise (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for Cheesefare Sunday 

The Expulsion of Adam from Paradise 

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

"But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to be fasting” (Matthew 6:17).

Beloved faithful,

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came down from Heaven to obey His Father and to serve in the salvation of the human race, delivering it from the bondage of the devil and of death. Throughout the entire Gospel He ceaselessly taught people how to do the will of God and how to perform good works for His glory and for the salvation of their souls. In today’s divine Gospel, among other teachings, He shows us how to fast and where to gather treasure for our souls. Behold what He says concerning fasting, so that it may be for the glory of God and for the salvation of our souls: “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:17–18).

But the Savior commanded us not only to fast in secret, in order to escape the glory of men, but also to give alms, to pray, and to perform all good works in secret. For behold what He says: “Take heed that you do not do your righteous deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in Heaven” (Matthew 6:1). “Therefore, when you do a righteous deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your almsgiving may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:2–6).

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 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 for Cheesefare Sunday (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Two for Cheesefare Sunday 

By St. John of Kronstadt

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matt. 6:14).

This present Sunday is called among the Orthodox Russian people “Forgiveness Sunday,” from the good and pious custom of asking one another’s forgiveness before the Great Fast and preparation for Holy Communion. This custom has taken firm root from the command of the Savior, who in today’s Gospel enjoins us to forgive one another’s sins, if we desire that our Heavenly Father also forgive our sins — He whom we grieve and anger without number every day and every hour.

Since beginning tomorrow the Great Fast commences, and we all, according to Christian custom, intend to cast off from ourselves the heavy burden of sins; and since this casting off of the sinful burden requires some self-denial on our part and some spiritual skill, the Lord teaches us what exactly is required from us so that our sins may be forgiven completely, without remainder — what we must relinquish on our part, given that the Lord God, on His part, is always ready to have mercy and to save repentant sinners. Namely, He says that what is required of us is simplicity and freedom from malice, absence of anger, forgetting of offenses, friendliness, love toward enemies.

All the Venerables Who Shone in Asceticism: The Hymnography of Cheesfare Saturday

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“On the same day we commemorate all the venerables, men and women, who shone forth in ascetic struggle.”

Gently and gradually, through the previous feasts, the God-bearing Fathers — after instructing us and preparing us to be ready for the spiritual arena — and after removing us from luxury and excess and setting us on the path of fear of the coming judgment, and likewise through the week of Cheesefare properly pre-cleansing us, wisely placed between them the two fasts, in order little by little to encourage us toward it.

And now they add in the midst all those who lived in holiness with many labors and struggles, men and women, so that through their memory and their contests they may make us stronger for the arena of Great Lent, having their lives as a kind of outline and guide. Thus, with the alliance and assistance of these venerable saints, let us enter into the spiritual contests, reflecting that they too possessed the same human nature as we do.

Just as generals — once the armies are drawn up and standing face to face — exhort their troops with words and examples and with remembrance of men of history who excelled in war and showed courage, so that their own army may advance into battle wholeheartedly strengthened by hope of victory; in the same way now the God-bearing Fathers act with similar wisdom: they encourage men and women toward spiritual struggles by the examples of those who lived holy lives and guide them likewise to enter the arena of fasting.

The Infants of Babylon and the Rock

In Holy Scripture there are many passages difficult to understand, which ill-intentioned people misinterpret and use to criticize the Bible. Yet Scripture was written precisely in this way — to reveal the inclinations of our hearts, to expose a bad disposition, or to reward with its wisdom those who, with a good disposition, seek the true meaning and search within it for the real depth that God hid there for all of us.

A Strange Passage

A strange (at first glance) passage of Holy Scripture is found in Psalm 136 (137):7-9:

“Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said: ‘Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!’ O daughter of Babylon, wretched one — blessed shall he be who repays you the recompense you have paid us. Blessed shall he be who takes and dashes your infants against the rock.”

The reasonable question arising from this passage is the following:

How is it possible that God praises the one who will smash the infants of Babylon upon the rock? What did the poor infants do?

Various enemies of the truth — neo-pagans and atheists — hastened to use this passage to claim that Holy Scripture supposedly encourages barbarity. In doing so, however, they clearly revealed their bad disposition and received from Scripture the message fitting to their own personality.

As we have said, Scripture is “Jacob’s well,” from which each person draws according to his disposition — good or evil. Let us therefore leave the ill-intentioned to their satisfaction that they supposedly found something evil in the Bible, and let us, as Christians, see what we will draw from this well of truth.

We will present three levels of interpretation of the passage: a historical one, a prophetic one, and a spiritual one. Let each Christian draw according to his needs.

Meatfare Sunday: Love Yes, But What Kind of Love? (Fr. George Metallinos)

Meatfare Sunday: Love Yes, But What Kind of Love?

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

“Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40)

1. Today’s Gospel reading comes to remind us of a great truth. Last Sunday the Holy Gospel spoke about the goodness of God the Father, who awaits His creature to return. But this must not make us forget His justice as well. God is not only a tender Father; He is also a just Judge. “Neither is His mercy without judgment, nor His judgment without mercy,” says Saint Basil the Great. He will judge the world, the Gospel tells us — and indeed not arbitrarily, but according to our deeds.

Thus today’s passage brings us face to face with the fact of judgment. And we say “fact,” because the universal judgment constitutes for our faith an eschatological certainty and reality, confessed in our Creed as an ecclesiastical belief:

“And He shall come again to judge the living and the dead…”

We are therefore called today to realize three things:

First, that our Judge will be Jesus Christ as God. Christ is Savior but also Judge. If the first time He came humbly to earth “to save the world,” now He will come “in His glory” to judge the world. He who became for us a “curse” upon the Cross has every right to judge us if we have allowed His sacrifice to remain inactive within us and within our society.

Homily for Meatfare Sunday -- On the Dread Last Judgment (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for Meatfare Sunday
(Sunday of the Dread Judgment)
About the Fearful Last Judgment

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)

Beloved faithful,

Today all of us present have heard the words of our Savior Jesus Christ about His coming at the most dreadful Last Judgment. Know that from the foundation of the world until the end of the ages nothing is more fearful than the coming of the Lord at the Last Judgment. Not even the angels can describe to us in detail that most terrible coming of the Lord, when He will judge all the nations of the earth from Adam until the end of the world. We, being very weak and uncomprehending, cannot speak fully about that unspeakable terror and fearful coming of the Lord.

But from what we have heard today in the Holy Gospel and from what Divine Scripture shows, as well as from the teachings of the Holy Fathers about the Judgment of the great day, we shall set down here a few teachings, according to our weak understanding, about the Lord’s coming at the Last Judgment. And first we will show, with testimonies from Holy Scripture, in what manner the Lord will come and what will be the first signs of His coming.

A Simple Priest Gives Profound Meaning to the Triodion

I asked an elder priest:

"My dear father, the Triodion is beginning. What can we say about this period?" (The elder is simple and has not studied the theology of the universities, but the theology of prayer, as he himself says.)

"My child, the word 'Triodion' itself says it… That is: we sinners, if we have three passions to fight, let us make them two… That is the Triodion… the striking down of our passions, the reduction of our weaknesses… In short, to drive away the defects we have… We won’t manage to get rid of all of them, but even if we drive away just one, God is pleased.*

But we must be careful not to cover them up, like women do when they put on makeup — or men, who nowadays I think adorn themselves even more — that is, only outwardly… A passion needs uprooting from the root. You must dig deep into the soul to find where it begins and then uproot it completely…

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.

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!

Morals and Customs Targeted for Deconstruction

Archimandrite Philip Hamargias,
Protosyngellos of the Holy Metropolis of Messinia

With sorrow and great surprise I read the news:

“An appeal to block Tsiknopempti in schools sent to the Minister of Education by the Federation,” and then the justification of the Panhellenic Federation NEMESIS, which, as stated on the same website, “sent letters to the Ministry of Education asking that a ‘brake’ be put on the now-established school events with grills and souvlaki.” Continuing in the article, we see the same Federation presenting the following reasons:

1) Tsiknopempti is not a school holiday and events of mass meat consumption within school premises are irregular and unlawful, with possible legal consequences for those who organize them,

2) it violates the pedagogical role of education,

3) it creates pressure and exclusion for students with different dietary choices,

4) it conflicts with the principles of inclusion, non-violence, and animal-welfare education.

Tsiknopempti: Hypocrisy Smells Worse Than Charcoal

Every year around these days the same play is performed. The same articles, the same announcements, the same “concerns.” About Tsiknopempti (Barbecue Thursday). About what children are eating. About whether it smells like meat on the streets. About whether it “fits” in schools. About whether it “promotes the wrong messages.” And somewhere there always appears the same protagonist: the morally superior one — usually vegan, automatically animal-loving, permanently annoyed by anything that resembles tradition that hasn’t passed through an activism filter.

Suddenly, Tsiknopempti is labeled a problem. Not because it threatens health or safety, but because it doesn’t fit their ideological mold. Schools, they say, are not taverns. Correct. But neither are they spaces of ideological re-education, nor places where a minority choice becomes the rule for everyone. Nor halls of guilt because a child ate a souvlaki.

Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son -- On True Repentance and the Mercy of God (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for the 34th Sunday after Pentecost
(Sunday of the Prodigal Son)
On True Repentance and the Mercy of God

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you” (Luke 15:18)

Beloved faithful,

In Holy Scripture God is called the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3), because He continually shows mercy to sinners who return to Him with all their heart through true repentance. God says through the Prophet Isaiah: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In another place, through the same Prophet, God says: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil… Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:16–18).

This truth was also fulfilled in the case of the prodigal son from the Holy Gospel that was read today. First, he came to himself; he longed for the happiness he had enjoyed when he was in his father’s house; then he said: “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!” (Luke 15:17). These were the words of the prodigal son when he came to himself — that is, when he began to recognize the weight of his sins. Without this feeling and awakening, none of the sinners can return with all their heart to the all-good God.

Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

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

Today we began to sing the 136th Penitential Psalm: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion; upon the willows in the midst thereof we hung our harps” (Psalm 136:1-2). The time of Great Lent is approaching. And in this wondrous and terrible Psalm, we hear both the lament of the Jews expelled from their earthly Fatherland, and the lament of the Christian who has lost his heavenly Homeland. We are all strangers and aliens, exiles on this earth. Our Homeland is in Heaven with God the Father, to which we must strive. We all hear and sing at the Divine Liturgy the words: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). These words signify not only a lament for sins, but a lament for the fact that man has not yet reached his homeland in Heaven. Gregory of Nyssa said that "truly blessed is he who has no permanent city on earth, who seeks the Heavenly Fatherland, who strives for Heaven." Such a person will certainly be comforted. He will find his homeland — the Promised Land; he will find that very Heavenly Jerusalem, the homeland of all Christians. As the Apostle Paul said: we all "died with Christ" (Col. 2:20).

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son 

By St. John of Kronstadt

“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you” (Luke 15:18)

Beloved brethren, who among us has not labored and does not labor for sin every day, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, in understanding or in ignorance? Who has not angered the Lord, infinite Truth and Love? Who has not been wounded by the blade of sin and felt its sharpness and bitterness — the heavy confusion of conscience, sorrow and distress, those constant companions of sin? All of us, from the least to the greatest, are sinners before God, and therefore are subject to punishment and separation from Him. And if the Lord, in His boundless love and mercy toward fallen humanity, had not granted repentance and the forgiveness of sins for the sake of the sacrificial death on the Cross of His only-begotten Son, then all people would have descended into hell, the place of eternal torment. But glory be to the all-good and all-wise God, who has given repentance to sinners unto eternal life. Countless multitudes of sinners have been washed by the words of repentance, justified and sanctified by the most pure Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself our sins and bore all the punishments prepared for us — and now they rejoice with the Angels in the dwellings of the saints. All of you standing here, sinners like myself — do you cherish this priceless gift of the Lord, the gift of repentance? Do you sigh like the publican, weep like the harlot, wash your bed with tears like David the forefather? Do you return to the heavenly Father with sincere and deep repentance, like the prodigal son of whom you heard in today’s Gospel reading?