sofia ☦

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.

[conduit-of-grace]

“God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.”

-St. Augustine

[whatinausername]

please pray for my friend, for her husband who was ordained to priesthood last week, and for her grandmother who passed today

[ad-crucem]

Corpus Christi by Paul Shad-Rossa, (1891)

[petitworld]

Yorkshire, England by Paul Moon

[expressions-of-nature]

by Artyom Lutovkin

[longstoryshort-143]

the horrors persist but so do books, art, hot chocolate, winter nights, the moon, the sea, the stars, sunsets, literature, libraries, cats, flowers, stories, love and the wistful feeling you get when you finally return home

[psalmlover]

pay phone shrine

from barucormorant on pinterest

[notsofancyphotos-blog]

Saints//Rome

[magdaleneanthony]

a good set of graffiti today

[wholesome-animal-images]

[descensos]

wake up

deny yourself

4. phone in bed

[creatureprofessor]

i love when museums have near exact replicas of their displayed objects for you to buy. haha 15th century ceramic cup you are in my possession

[dreamstars]

"Shadowbox with crosses", by Alexander Girard (1960-69)

[michael3900]

Girls in a Santa Lucia Pageant in the 1960s in Scandinavia. 

[descensos]

The beauty of woman is the greatest snare. Or rather, not the beauty of woman, but unchastened gazing! For we should not accuse the objects, but ourselves, and our own carelessness. Nor should we say, Let there be no women, but Let there be no adulteries. We should not say, Let there be no beauty, but Let there be no fornication. We should not say, Let there be no belly, but let there be no gluttony; for the belly makes not the gluttony, but our negligence. We should not say, that it is because of eating and drinking that all these evils exist; for it is not because of this, but because of our carelessness and insatiableness. Thus the devil neither ate nor drank, and yet he fell! Paul ate and drank, and ascended up to heaven!

St John Chrysostom - Homily 15 on the Statues

[orthodoxadventure]

I am going to (attempt to) write a detailed guide about visiting an Orthodox Church for the first time that’s kind of written in a questions & answers format. Although depending on the number of questions I get, the format may change.

If any of you have any questions about visiting an Orthodox Church, or if there’s any kind of areas that you would like me to cover, please do let me know. Please don’t worry about a question being ‘too silly’ or ‘dumb’, I am happy to try my best to answer. Just be aware that this is specifically about visiting an Orthodox Church so questions like ‘Can I participate in X Sacrament’ or ‘Can I visit Y Service’ rather than questions like ‘What is Baptism?’ or ‘Is Holy Communion the real Body and Blood of Christ?’. Questions about how one should prepare for visiting an Orthodox Church or what to do afterwards is also suitable.

You can send questions in comments/reblogs to this post, through messenger, or through my inbox. I will try my best to answer them as soon as I can, and then also include/develop my answers in the post based on the questions people give. I will not ‘credit’ people for their questions in the post because a) I may group similar questions together / reword for clarity and b) I think this allows for more people to feel comfortable to ask questions.

[cross-x-rose]

Teapot bird feeders