Discerning Thoughts @discerningthoughts - Tumblr Blog

Abba Isaac the Syrian and Dostoevsky: Their Spiritual Relationship

+

SOURCE

+

View On WordPress

Divine Call and Human Response

+

View On WordPress

The Frequency of Holy Communion

by The Righteous Elder Pachomius Founder of the Skete of the Holy Fathers, Chios

Who would not weep at the ignorance and wretched state of our contemporary clergy? Where has it ever been heard, that the Christians should go to Church, seeking to receive Holy Communion, and the priests hinder them, saying to them, “Is Communion soup? Forty days have not yet…

View On WordPress

Church Synods and Civilization (Historical Context)

Church Synods and Civilization

Historical Context.

Biblical Faith is one’s co-operation with the Holy Spirit Who initiates the cure of the sickness of possessive love in the heart and transforms it into love which does not seek its own. This cure is consummated in glorification (theosis) and constitutes the heart of the Orthodox Catholic Church, which replaced paganism as the core of the Hellenic…

View On WordPress

A Blessing of Love from St. Gregory Palamas

† Bishop Klemes of Gardikion

Secretary of the Holy Synod

The work and teaching of that great Church Father, St. Gregory Palamas, constitutes, as is well known, a second victory of Orthodoxy in the wake of the resplendent celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the First Sunday of Lent. St. Gregory articulated the Faith in an authentic manner, basing…

View On WordPress

The Repose of the Most Reverend Chrysostomos, Metropolitan Emeritus of Etna

On Saturday, February 3, 2019 (O.S.), the Most Reverend Chrysostomos, Metropolitan Emeritus of Etna, reposed in the Lord, from complications of a long bout with heart disease.

His funeral service and burial took place on Tuesday morning, February 6 (O.S.), at the Saint Gregory Palamas Monastery in Etna, California, according to the Monastic Typikon, which was in…

View On WordPress

Elder Ephraim and Old Calendar Zealots The untold story of miracles and holy men. An interview in response to a question regarding the book "My Elder Joseph the Hesychast" by Elder Ephraim of Arizona. +++

Christians do not believe in kismet, in fate

FOR CONSIDERATION

Christians do not believe in kismet, in fate. Though God determines the chief lines of our life, He is willing by our prayers and works, to change them. Thus, He prolonged King Hezekias’s life by fifteen years (Is. 38), and our holy father Dios (July 19th) also had his life lengthened by a similar period. God extended the life of St. Basil the Great by one day, at the saint’s…

View On WordPress

#Asceticism #August 31/Sept 13 #Hesychasm #Prologue from Ochrid #St. Nikolai Velimirovic

The Power of Anathema

THE POWER OF ANATHEMA

In recent decades, the development of ecumenism and other heresies has been accompanied by several sustained attacks on the Church’s power of anathema in general, and in particular, on the Pan-Orthodox anathemas against the new calendar in 1583, 1587 and 1593, the anathemas of the Russian Church against all who cooperate with the communists in 1918 and 1928, and the anathema…

View On WordPress

#Anathema #Anathema of 1983 #Ecumenism #Ecumenism is heresy #Metropolitan Demetrios of America #Metropolitan Philaret of New York #Patristic Theology #ROCOR #St. Philaret of New York #TLDR #Vladimir Moss

‘Do we have Mysteries or not?’ A striking and Grace-filled contemporary discourse by a now reposed Presbyter, from among our Matthewite brethren, renders more accessible the view that we have been articulating:

#Against Ecumenism #Confession of Faith #Ecumenism #Ecumenists #Genuine Orthodoxy #Metropolitan Philaret of New York #Monastery of St. John the Wonderworker #ROCOR #St. John the Wonderworker #True Orthodox Christians of Greece

Responses to a Correspondent

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Volume XXIV, Number 3, 2007

+++

View On WordPress

#Against Ecumenism #Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna #Bishop Auxentios of Etna and Portland #Canonicity #Catechism #Confession of Faith #CTOS #HOTCA #Metropolitan Demetrios of America #Monastery of St. Gregory Palamas #Monastery of St. John the Wonderworker #Orthodox Tradition #Patristic Theology

Letter To Abbess Magdalena by St Philaret of New York (Written in 1979)

A Letter from Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) to Abbess Magdalena (Countess Grabbe), Superior of the Lesna Convent in France*

November 26 / December 9, 1979

Your Reverence,1

I am writing this letter en route — onboard the ocean liner Orion, which is sailing to Australia. The ship is a rather large one, 42,000 tons (that’s roughly the size of the Titanic)2 and comfortable enough. This morning…

View On WordPress

#Against Ecumenism #Confession of Faith #Metropolitan Demetrios of America #Metropolitan Demetrius of America #Metropolitan Philaret of New York #Monastery of St. John the Wonderworker #ROCOR #St. John Maximovitch #St. John the Wonderworker #St. Philaret of New York

Regarding Scandal

DISCOURSE Χ

Concerning (1) the Fact That Christians Should Not

Cause Scandal to One Another, (2) What Sort of

Scandal They Should Disregard, and (3)

the Fact That They Should Not

Be Easily Scandalized

Preface

Τhose who scandalize others, Ο blessed Christians, will suffer a condemnation as great as the reward that those who correct their brethren will receive. For he who turns a sinner away from…

View On WordPress

#Blameless in the Way #Discernment #Hesychasm #Sayings of the Desert Fathers #scandal #scandals #St. Gregory of Nyssa #St. Gregory the Theologian #St. John Chrysostom #St. John Chrysostomos #St. Mark the Ascetic #St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain #St. Symeon the New Theologian #The Spiritual Law #Trials

The Creation of the Universe [Empirical Dogmatics]

1. The Creation of the Universe In the beginning God created the invisible world, the noetic spirits, in other words, the angels. Then He made the world perceptible to the senses, the whole material creation, and finally, as the culmination, He made man, who is made up of invisible and visible elements. Thus humankind is the summary of the whole creation. a) God the Creator In the previous…

View On WordPress

#Augustine of Hippo #Created #Creation #Empirical Dogmatics #Glorification #Hesychia & Theology #illumination #James L. Kelley #logoi #Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos #Patristic Theology #Protopresbyter John Romanides #Purification #Scholasticism #St. Gregory Palamas #Theosis #Uncreated

Polytheism and the expulsion ofAdam from Paradise Writing on the expulsion of men from paradise, St. Justin refers strangely to yet another cause, polytheism, in addition to disobedience, "When they came out of paradise, they remembered the names of gods, being no longer taught of God that there are no other gods...Thus, having been cast out of paradise and thinking it was for the transgression alone that they were expelled, and not knowing it was also because that they believed there were other gods, they passed down the names of gods to the people who came after them.

#Demons of Darkness

"He who hopes, will be harmed if he recalls all his sins, one by one."

“He who hopes, will be harmed if he recalls all his sins, one by one.”

He who hopes, will be harmed if he recalls all his sins, one by one. The sorrow which will come with their remembrance, will drive away hope; if, again, he remembers his sins without feeling any sorrow, it is as though he is repeating them. When your nous forsakes itself, and succeeds in clinging exclusively to hope, then the enemy — under the pretext of confession — will remind it of past sins,…

View On WordPress

#Confession #Discernment #Holy Confession #Optina Elders #revelation of thoughts #St. Mark the Ascetic #The Mystery of Confession #The Spiritual Law

A Noetic Life

Eskimos really do have over 50 words for snow. In total, there are around 180 words for snow and ice. There is “aqilokoq” for “softly falling snow” and “piegnartoq” for “the snow [that is] good for driving a sled.” There is also “utuqaq,” which means, “ice that lasts year after year” and “siguliaksraq,” the patchwork layer of crystals that forms as the sea begins to freeze; and “auniq,” ice that…

View On WordPress

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Discerning Thoughts