The Miracle of Panagia Vlochaitissa and the Drought of 1893

By Spyros Symeon

On the mountain where the ancient acropolis of Thestia is located in the region of Aitoloakarnania, just a few kilometers from Agrinio, is the Monastery of Panagia Vlochaitissa with its miraculous icon.

The icon shows the Panagia enthroned and holding Christ in her arms, flanked by four prophets and two angels who place a precious crown on her head.

In this icon of the Panagia we see something very rare: the Panagia is smiling!

Numerous are the miracles she has performed for the sick, those in pain, and everyone who hastens with supplications before her icon and begs her to intercede with our Lord and God.

Women who could not bear children finally through her intercessions succeeded, those sick even with incurable diseases made doctors confess to her miraculous intervention.

Saint Plutarch of Cyprus as a Model for our Lives

St. Plutarch, Archbishop of Cyprus (Feast Day - June 5)

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas

Saint Plutarch was the Archbishop of Constantia in Cyprus and lived at the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century. He is included among the Orthodox Archbishops of Cyprus, since Constantia was then the "Metropolis" of the Great Island (Megalonisos). He is number thirteen in the list of Archbishops, and is listed among the Saints of Cyprus. He is not mentioned in the Synaxaria, but is mentioned in the "Chronicle" of the medieval chronicler Leontios Machairas, as well as in the chronicles handed down by Strambaldi and Florio Bustron.

Saint Plutarch occupied the see of Constantia from 590 to 625/6 A.D. and he is also known from the epigraphic evidences that have survived, those related to the construction of parts of the aqueduct of Constantia, which mention him as a builder. Specifically, he is mentioned as the builder of three arches of the aqueduct in 620, and other arches of an unspecified number in 621, and fifteen arches in 625. This fact, among others, shows that the Saint was interested not only in the spiritual needs of his rational flock, but also for the material ones, since, after all, man is a psychosomatic being.

How Do We Imagine God?

 

By Konstantinos Papadimitrakopoulos

God, my good friends, is He who is, of course. Just as we are what we are. To see God (with our spiritual eyes) is everything, not as we would like Him to be, but as He really is. Because if we want to see God as we want Him to be, then we are not much different from the idolaters. Who did what? They made gods to their liking, with their weaknesses, with their passions. They made them to be what they themselves would like to be.

Homily on the Paralytic, the Samaritan Woman and the Man Born Blind (St. John Maximovitch)

The Paralytic, the Samaritan Woman and the Man Born Blind

By St. John Maximovitch

(Delivered in Bitola in 1928)

Before concluding today's service, I would like to draw your attention to three Gospel events commemorated on the Sundays between the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women and the Ascension. In one the Gospel is read about Christ’s healing of the paralytic, in the other about the conversation with the Samaritan woman, in the third about the granting of sight to a man born blind. Three were honored to converse with Christ and accept His gift: one was healing from a long-term illness, the other was the resolution of issues that she herself could not resolve, the third was bodily vision. But their future fate is different.

Homily Two for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman (St. John of Kronstadt)

 

By St. John of Kronstadt

A wondrously touching sight is presented to us, beloved brothers and sisters, by today's Gospel reading from John! The beginningless, omnipotent, awesome in glory, unapproachable to the Angels, Creator of heaven and earth, who took upon Himself human nature for the salvation of mankind, sits at the well of Samaria and meekly converses with a woman, and even with a well-known sinner in the city. And about what does He converse? About what every person needs, what each of us needs most, about living water, or about the grace of God, quenching the thirst of the immortal human soul, scorched and exhausted by sins; about living water, cleansing human sins, giving man strength to live chastely and in holiness – and catches this daughter of Adam for salvation. Yes, I repeat, a wondrous and touching sight is presented in today's Gospel to our eyes! All the angelic hosts marveled at the extreme condescension of the Creator of angels and men, seeing their Lord, unapproachable in His divinity, as a man accessible to all, conversing, eating food and drink with the children of men, healing all their infirmities, enduring ingratitude and slander from many, and at the end of everything - the cross and death. But let us listen to the very story of the Evangelist John.

Saints and Feasts of the First Sunday of June

 

Synaxis of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of 

the Eparchy of Chełm and Podlasie

 

Synaxis of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of the Eparchy of Chełm and Podlasie

Synaxis of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of the Eparchy of Chełm and Podlasie

During the Second World War in Poland, pseudo-military groups were formed who were under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, with the aim of cleansing the Orthodox flock of Poland. These ethnic and religious purges took place during the night in all the villages of Eastern Poland. Thousands of people were executed, either because they were Ukrainian citizens (about 12,000), or because they were Orthodox (about 1,200 Martyrs). On June 8, 2003, the Polish Orthodox Church, by its Synodal Decision, canonized seven clergymen, Protopresbyter Basil Martysz, Priest Paul Szwajko and his matushka Joanna, Priest Nicholas Holz, Priest Sergius Zacharczuk, Priest Leon Κorobczna, Priest Peter Οhryzko, Monk Ignatius of Jableczna, and all those who martyred for the Orthodox faith together with those known to God.

Homily One for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman (St. John of Kronstadt)

By St. John of Kronstadt

“Jesus answered and said to her (the Samaritan woman): If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water" (John 4:10).

Today, during the Liturgy, the Holy Gospel was read about the conversation of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman from the city of Sychar about the living water, or about the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is necessary for every person; also about the worship of God in spirit and truth, and after the woman left about the conversation of the Lord with His disciples about spiritual food, about spiritual fields and spiritual harvest. Today's Gospel thus speaks of many spiritual subjects that are very important and instructive for each of us. Let us talk this time, with God's help, about the first two for our edification and salvation, i.e. about living water and the worship of God in spirit and truth. For greater clarity and intelligibility of the conversation, let us repeat a part of the Gospel read.

The God-Man: The Fundamental Truth of Orthodoxy (St. Justin Popovich)

The God-Man: The Foundation of the Truth of Orthodoxy

By St. Justin Popovich

(1937)

All the truths of Orthodoxy emerge from one truth and converge on one truth, infinite and eternal. That truth is the God-man Christ. If you experience any truth of Orthodoxy to its limit, you will inevitably discover that its kernel is the God-man Christ. In fact, all the truths of Orthodoxy are nothing other than different aspects of the one Truth--the God-man Christ.

Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy by reason of the God-man, and not by reason of anything else or anyone else. Hence another name for Orthodoxy is God-manhood. In it nothing exists through man or by man, but everything comes from the God-man and exists through the God-man. This means that man experiences and finds out about the fundamental eternal truth of life and the world only with the help of the God-man, in the God-man. And it means something else: man learns the complete truth about man, about the purpose and meaning of his existence only through the God-man. Outside of Him a man turns into an apparition, into a scarecrow, into nonsense. Instead of a man you find the dregs of a man, the fragments of a man, the scraps of a man. Therefore, true manhood lies only in God-manhood; and no other manhood exists under heaven.