SACRAMENTAL LIVING

“When we come to realize the numerous mistakes that we have made and our shortcomings, we should start reforming the way we untangle tangled threads, for instance. It is useless to fiddle about with a bundle of tangled threads—nothing will come of it. We should take one thread, find the tip, start pulling it out, and so the whole ball will gradually unravel. That is why prudence, graduality, and patience are required in spiritual life.” (Priest Anthony Borisov) “Maturation in

Quotes of the Day for September 29, 2026 – Thoughts on making the world a better place “Many of our wealthiest citizens are deeply involved in various schemes to “make the world a better place.” Almost without exception, they are schemes that the general population would prefer to forego. The “better world” is “their” better world, not ours.” (Father Stephen Freeman) “We can make the world a better place but usually not the way we think we can. It may sound trite nowadays to

“In our everyday speech, the words “to listen” and “to hear” are often used as synonyms. But in a spiritual sense, there is a vast difference between them—one that brings either salvation or condemnation. Listening is a process. You can stand in church, listening to the reading of the Epistle or the Gospel, and even understand the meaning of the words with your mind—yet remain deaf in your heart. External listening without inner acceptance is like looking in a mirror, walking

“One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Orthodox Christian Faith is a therapeutic view of salvation. Christ is the Great Physician Who restored people to physical and spiritual health in His earthly ministry. He set people free from demons, enabled the blind to see and the lame to walk, and even raised the dead. He continues to restore strength to us who are weakened and paralyzed by our passions. We find healing as we become “partakers of the divine nature” by gr

“He [man] is the only being that is distinguished from all else in creation, because he is the only one which can become a god. The phrase “in His image” describes the gifts which God gave only to man in order to complete him as an icon of God, and not to any of His other creatures. These gifts are: a logos related nous, conscience, and individual sovereignty, i.e. freedom, creativity, eros, and the yearning for the absolute and for God, personal self-awareness, and anything

“Christianity is not a religion. It is a spiritual path towards union with God. Jesus did not come to usher in a new system of how to get what we want. He “emptied Himself,” and repeatedly invited us to do the same. That emptying is the path of union, and the very definition of love. If unfulfilled desires can be of use to us, then this world becomes the perfect arena of our salvation…we can describe two essential actions within that life as it has been passed down to us by T

“The Tradition of the Eastern Church largely avoided the concept of the guilty man that came to dominate the Christian West. Instead, sin was largely understood in terms of disease, a force that comes from outside us and yet is within us, corrupting us like a cancer. Sin is a “disease,” and the ministry of the Church is the “science of spiritual medicine…the sacraments and life of the Church are more accurately understood in a medical model. What truly takes place within the

“Our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that He had to leave them in order to send them the Holy Spirit. Ten days after His ascension to the heavens, The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, we are told “like tongues of fire.” All of the sudden, they were clothed with the Holy Spirit. They each became individually, temples of the Holy Spirit and they became more. I’m going to tell you something that might sound strange or controversial. They became Christs. Don’t misun

“The thinkers of the Enlightenment wanted a fixed and miracle-free universe so that science could operate without guidance from religion, which they saw as superstition. But living systems–complex and organic systems–live through cycles of death and life and, in some way that even science should recognize, are always miraculous…What we already believe shapes how we see things. It is why some see a miracle and others only see an event with a natural explanation. It is why mira

“…passion is an internal tendency a person struggles with (taken from the Latin word for suffering). It is not the transgression itself, or even the associated temptation, but rather a proclivity toward both. In general, the passions represent the disordered spiritual condition of an individual….The Church Slavonic word for “passion [strast, страсть]” is translated as “suffering.” From this comes, for example, the word “passion-bearer [strastoterpets, страстотерпец],” that is