A blog on Orthodox Christian life

I am a priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Church. I have another blog, Cycledays, that covers everything from cycling, working out, photography, and martial arts to Orthodox Christianity. I wanted this to be strictly about living an Orthodox Christian life.

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церковь Спаса Преображения на Яру в Рязани.

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Olli Boehm

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Mark Cohen, from the book Tall Socks. New York City, 1970s

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Keith Haring, New York Subway, 1983. Tseng Kwong Chi

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Cher and Raquel Welch perform the song I’m a Woman on the Cher TV variety series, originally broadcast by CBS on February 16th, 1975. Cher and Raquel’s gowns were designed by Bob Mackie.

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In memory of Raquel Welch… September 5th, 1940 - February 15th, 2023 ❤

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“Grieve not the Holy Spirit - with a single sharp glance, prayer departs!”

You often speak about the rope that pulls us to heaven. Can we say that in our prayer we need not one but two ropes?

One to pull us continually upwards and one to pull us down, ‘back to earth', to humble us?

If we think carefully about it, it is in fact the same rope. When we take the downward path of humility, we do not need a rope because the very hand of God comes to help us. ‘Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time’, says Saint Peter.

We read in Saint Silouan that prayer for the world, and prayer in general, is lost with even a single glance that lacks compassion:

“Remember that the Lord sees you, and be fearful lest anywise you offend your brother. Neither dispraise nor grieve him, even by a glance, an expression on your face, and the Holy Spirit will love you and Himself be your help in all things. At all times I beseech the Lord Who is merciful to grant that I may love my enemies; and by the grace of God I have experienced what the love of God is, and what it is to love my neighbour; and day and night I pray the Lord for love, and the Lord gives me tears to weep for the whole world. But if I find fault with any man, or look on him with an unkind eye, my tears will dry up, and my soul sink into despondency."

With a sharp look, prayer departs. How demanding yet how delicate the Holy Spirit is! Saint Paul says, 'Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,' because the Holy Spirit is a humble and hidden Friend Whom we lose with a single cold glance.

This law is a great cross, especially in a community, because we are in constant contact with others. Saint John of the Ladder says that in a monastery we are like stones that rub against each other until we all become round and smooth. We cannot become round and smooth if we build a wall of protection around ourselves, looking down on the others from the perfect safety of our fortress, and not even greeting them with a 'good morning' when we cross paths. Saint Silouan emphasises that, 'Grace proceeds from brotherly love, and by brotherly love is grace preserved; but if we do not love our brother, then the grace of God will not come into our souls.’

We must be vulnerable; we must see our shortcomings and failures in our contact with others and we must lament and repent so that we gradually blunt all our rough edges and become round and smooth. We do not become perfect by protecting ourselves, but by making ourselves vulnerable in the Name of Him Who for our sakes became vulnerable and delivered Himself to every suffering in order to save us.

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

“Wavering in Quest of the Kingdom which cannot be moved”

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“DEPRESSION "Prayer is the remedy for gloom and despondency

Depression is one of the plagues of the modern age, overtaking many with it’s insidious poison, and ravaging many a life. The pain and suffering that comes with deep depression can infect those who surround the sufferer, for the depression of one person can spread like mold on stale bread. Psychiatrists are kept busy writing prescriptions, and drug companies rake in the money manufacturing the "cure”. Families are destroyed, marriages come apart, and young people drop out of school, all because of depression.

Although there are certainly cases where depression can be caused by imbalances in the chemical makeup of the body, it far more common for depression to be the result of the sickness of the soul. The cure, in this case, is to be found in the life of the Church. Giving oneself over to the pursuit of God, and increasing the time we spend in prayer and worship, can gradually transform depression and turn it into joy.

Saint John Cassian wrote: “But first we must struggle with the demon of dejection who casts the soul into despair. We must drive him from our heart. It was this demon that did not allow Cain to repent after he had killed his brother, or Judas after he had betrayed his Master”. The period of Great and Holy Lent is a perfect time to confront the spirit of depression, for the increased attendance in the Church’s divine services, and the time spent in private prayer, contribute to the healing of the soul, taking our minds off our problems, and turning our hearts towards the things of God. Spiritual reading, frequent confession, and the reception of the Holy Mysteries, all come together, bringing the healing the soul longs for.

With love in Christ, Abbot Tryphon"“ by @orthodox_christian_life on Instagram http://ift.tt/1ULcgBj

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If Saint Silouan acquired unceasing prayer very soon after he came to the monastery, then why did he struggle with thoughts for fifteen years?

It was God's providence. God saw that he would ‘not give sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids, until he found out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob'. When someone has such determination, God allows trials and places new obstacles in his path in order to render His friend truly great.

We approach God with all we have, with all our heart and desire, but it is God Who makes the programme for our life and arranges these obstacles so that we make the effort to leap over them. We should not ask God to remove them, but accept them and surrender to His providence, for 'all things work together for good to them that love God.'

“Flying Over the Abyss”

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

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Does not the thought of the end bring spiritual profit?

Indeed, the mind should be fixed in the present as if it were in a monastic cell. The Holy Fathers say: 'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.' Saint Paul declares: 'Behold now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.’

The enemy works tirelessly to rob us of this 'now' by drawing our mind either to the past with melancholic sadness and regret, or to the future with anxieties, insecuri-ties, morbid imaginations, false promises and phantoms of truth. If the thought of the end brings fear, uncertainty and anxiety, it is surely from the enemy. But if it intensifies our prayer and expectation, it is from God. This is indeed the memory of death whereby we do not project the present into the future, as the enemy would have us do, but we 'hold converse with the future as if it were the present'; that is, we bring the future into the present in an eschatological way.

Whilst the enemy tries to rob us of the present moment and transfers our thoughts to the future or to the past, prayer does the exact opposite: it brings both the future and the past into the present, and in this way we redeem time. Therefore, the ascetics of old, knowing that desire for the last times, for the Second Coming, keeps man firmly fixed in the present, measured their spiritual progress by the desire they had at the moment they stood before God in prayer, always remembering the word of Scripture: 'The Lord is alive before Whom I stand today.’

In prayer, we purify, correct or overcome the past through the consolation of the present; and prayer gives us wings to stretch forth towards the future in the hope of salvation, 'forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before’.

“Flying Over the Abyss”

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

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The Vulnerability of the Sensitive Soul:

What can we do if we are very sensitive, and the devil takes advantage of this state by continually bringing thoughts of sadness and despair?

There are two powerful ways of dealing with this difficulty. If we are psychologically healthy, we must be brave enough to take the blame. This is the first way of overcoming despair. When we see our poverty, we can say to God: 'Lord, You see how poor and desolate I am. I deserve this because of my wretchedness. According to Saint Sophrony, having the courage to blame ourselves and acknowledge our sinfulness before God is the only way to become truthful, because our fallenness is the very truth of our existence.

To him who earnestly judges and reproaches himself, God gives not only contrition, but also a word of wisdom for his prayer of repentance, a mouth and wisdom, which all his adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist'." There is also another way, which is milder but leads to the same result. If we have faith and make it a habit to continually give thanks to the Lord, we justify all His gifts to us, and we provoke His goodness.

Saint Barsanuphius the Great says that thanksgiving, this second way of fighting despair, intercedes before God for our weaknesses. The more we thank God, the more He gives us grace, and the eyes of our soul are opened to see more and more benefits. Knowing that the Lord deserves more worthy thanksgiving, we begin to repent for not being able to thank Him worthily for all His benefits. And Saint Sophrony says that this repentance out of gratitude and love for God never ends on earth.

What thought or prayer can help

me fight the sadness I feel because I am alone during holy feasts?

Yes, this sadness is real, and it is no small thing. But I remember Father Sophrony telling us that the man who prays never feels loneliness because he is continually in the presence of the Person of Christ:

Engendered by God in prayer, man is never alone. The hypostasis does not know loneliness: he is always in the presence of God the Omnipresent.

In fact, solitude, which is unbearable in our poor psychological state, becomes a great gift for our spiritual life. Then our converse with God is continuous, uninterrupted.

The saints of God never feel lonely, and although they love their fellow ascetics, they do not speak much with them, not wanting to interrupt their converse with God, because in that converse there is life. The only remedy for such sadness is to pray more often, and then we delight in the presence of God and begin to desire it more and more. The traces of such abiding in the presence of God accumulate in the soul, and the heart is gradually perfected as the temple of the Living God.

“Flying Over the Abyss”

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

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