Joseph ☦️🇦🇲

Eastern Orthodox

[Joseph ☦️🇦🇲 @EOArmenian]

Everyone check out the updated @OrthodoxEthos website. Lectures, Interviews, Blog Posts, Forum, Reading List, and much more.

https://t.co/CltKnZ74lZ

[Fr. Borjan Vitanov @prezviteros]

The Spiritual Fruits of Vigil
THURSDAY

“And He continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). This is the foundation and principle of Christian all-night vigils. The fervor of prayer drives away sleep, and the rapture of the spirit makes the passing of time imperceptible. True men of prayer do not notice it. It seems to them that they have only just begun to pray, yet daylight is already appearing.

However, much labor in keeping vigil is required to attain this perfection. Hermits have undertaken and continue to undertake this ascetic struggle; it has been and continues to be practiced in cenobitic monasteries; devout and God-fearing laypeople have also practiced it and continue to do so.

Keeping vigil requires effort, but its fruit in the soul is evident and lasting: peace and compunction of soul amid bodily exhaustion. How precious this state is to those who zealously seek spiritual progress! On Mount Athos, where these vigils are established, they have no desire to abandon them. Everyone feels how demanding vigil is, yet no one wishes to change the order, because of the benefit the soul receives from it.

Sleep, more than anything else, refreshes and nourishes the body, while vigil, more than anything else, humbles it. One who has had his fill of sleep is sluggish in spiritual works and cold toward them, whereas one who keeps vigil is swift as a deer and fervent in spirit.

The body must be taught what is good, like a servant. Nothing accomplishes this so effectively as frequent vigils. Here the body fully submits to the authority of the spirit; here the habit of the body ruling over the spirit is overcome; here the spirit learns to govern the body.

+ St. Theophan the Recluse - Thoughts for Every Day of the Year

[Father Spyridon Bailey @Fatherspyridon]

"In every test, say: "Thank you, my God, because this was needed for my salvation." - St Paisios of Mount Athos

[OrthoTaoX Tradition @OrthoTradz]

A wonderful interview about Elder Ephraim's life, especially his mission to America! The humble, down-to-earth demeanor of the Constantine Zalalas and his interviewer really stood out to me, no trace of internet showbiz, from the pace and the manner of speaking, you can tell it is done in a simple and approachable way.

https://t.co/rqORPOvz5q

[Orthodox Ethos @OrthodoxEthos]

Repost and share this widely…

[Dr. David Patrick Harry @DrDPHarry]

The West never rejected Christianity because it was refuted. That’s a myth.

Secularism didn’t win a debate. It changed the rules of knowledge.

Sacramental and ascetical knowing — prayer, fasting, the mysteries, a purified heart — were treated as inferior to syllogistic logic and inductive science. Then people said, “See? Christianity isn’t knowledge anymore.”

That isn’t a refutation. That’s a demotion of the mind.

The Church never said reason is worthless. She said it is not first.

[Conrad (WWIII⚡️Analyst) @GnomeRad]

I will be attending this conference! This speaker lineup is, I think indisputably, the greatest Orthodox conference ever assembled in America! Very exciting 🙏🏻☦️

[Fr. Borjan Vitanov @prezviteros]

Be Ready to Meet the Lord
SATURDAY

“Watch therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).

To watch does not mean to sit with folded hands, but to be mindful of the Lord’s sudden coming and always to conduct ourselves as our meeting with Him requires. In this way, we remove the fear of deserving reproach or condemnation.

How can this be accomplished? Very simply: by fulfilling His commandments and allowing none of them to be transgressed. If we do happen to transgress one, we must immediately cleanse ourselves through repentance and make the necessary amends on our part. Then everything within us will be clean.

Do not allow sin to remain upon your soul for even a single moment. Repent immediately, weep within your heart, and hasten to your spiritual father to confess and receive absolution. Then return once more to fulfilling the commandments of God.

If you are zealous in leading an upright life, you will soon correct yourself. Only do not remain for long in a fallen state. With such a disposition, your falls will become less and less frequent until, through the help of God’s all-healing grace, they cease altogether.

Then the joyful assurance will take root within you that you will not meet the Lord unprepared.

+ St. Theophan the Recluse - Thoughts for Every Day of the Year

[Father Spyridon Bailey @Fatherspyridon]

"I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world & I said groaning, "What can get through from such snares?" Then I heard a voice saying to me, "Humility."" - St Anthony the Great

[Father Spyridon Bailey @Fatherspyridon]

"Christianity is not a matter of persuading people of particular ideas, but of inviting them to share in the greatness of Christ. So pray that I may never fall into the trap of impressing people with clever speech, but instead I may learn to speak with humility, desiring only to impress people with Christ himself." - St Ignatius of Antioch

[Јасмина @JasminaKovacev2]

„Немогуће је да човек побожно проведе данашњи дан, ако не мисли да је то последњи дан његовог живота.“

Свети Јован Лествичник

[VenomVaxo @VenomVaxo]

«А ты, встав на молитву, представь себе, что Христос пришел на землю, Суд завершен. И Господь уже уходит с теми, кого Он избрал, а ты — остался. Представь, как ты закричишь Ему вслед… Вот так и молись.»

Старец Ефрем Катунакский

[World War Now @WorldWarNow_]

What crimes did the Talmudic Bolsheviks commit during the ‘Russian Revolution?’ 🤔💭🇮🇱

• They nailed him to the floor of the church. He remained alive for a long time. Red-hot ramrods were slowly driven into his body until one pierced his heart… This is how Bishop Sylvester (Olshevsky) of Omsk died in February 1920.

• Bishop Tikhon (Nikanorov) of Voronezh was crucified on the Royal Doors of the iconostasis.

• Bishop Andronik of Perm was buried alive in a pit which he had been forced to dig himself.

• Bishop Hermogenes of Tobolsk was tied to a ship’s wheel and drowned.

• Bishop Seraphim (Chichagov) was carried on a stretcher to be executed at the Butovo firing range, as the nearly 90-year-old elder could no longer walk.

• Grand Duchess Elizabeth & the nun Barbara were thrown alive into a deep mineshaft in Alapaevsk.

• Bishop Benjamin of Petrograd, along with several laymen, was shot after a show trial based on false charges related to the confiscation of church valuables.

• Priest Peter Skipetrov was shot in the face in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

• Archbishop Nikon Rozhdestvesnky (accused of ‘antisemitism’) was stabbed & maimed to death outside of his monastery (Trinity Sergius Lavra), his body was disfigured beyond recognition. The Bolsheviks also beheaded him.

• Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Kiev was dragged outside the walls of the Kiev Lavra, shot, and bayoneted while he gave his blessing to his executioners.

• The elderly ascetic, Bishop John (Pommer) of Latvia, was tied to a door torn from its hinges, laid on a workbench, brutally tortured, and then set on fire while still alive.

• Bishop Thaddeus of Tver was drowned in human waste.

• Father Alexey Merkuryev of the Urals was murdered in front of his congregation, daughter, and son.

• Bishop Theophan of Solikamsk was stripped, his hair braided, a pole threaded through it, & he was slowly lowered into an icy hole in the Kama River. His body became encased in ice. But the hierarch was still alive - and then he was drowned.

• Some priests and laymen had their hands tied behind their backs, their eyes blindfolded, and were ordered to walk across the ice until they fell into a hole. The torturers mockingly called them ‘divers.’

• The holy prisoners of the Solovki labor camp had their beards and mustaches ripped out and were starved to death…

No number of pages or tears can recount all that our land endured so recently - just yesterday. This is only a drop in the ocean of blood shed by the Holy New Martyrs, whose memory we commemorate.

Hundreds of thousands of priests and millions of laypeople were killed and torn apart for their faithfulness to Christ. More than 2,000 have been canonized as confessors and martyrs - and how many more are known only to God?

And this was not some mere political struggle. It was hell itself unleashed. Only demons devoid of all conscience could torture people in such ways.

The scale, ferocity, and mercilessness of Soviet persecution of the Church is encapsulated in a single figure: out of 80,000 churches and monasteries at the beginning of the 20th century, by 1939, barely a hundred parishes remained across the vast Russian land. Not a single monastery. Not a single seminary. Not a single bishop at liberty. Just a scattered handful of monks.

The results of the June 1941 German Operation Barbarossa should not surprise anyone researching WWII history, especially in the context of the 20th century Bolshevik Revolutionary Russia.

Do you know of a greater miracle than the fact that, after this hell, the Church rose again?
Do you know of a greater miracle than what is happening right now before our very eyes: the resurrection of the Church, once nearly destroyed, the multiplication of the faithful, the return of thousands of churches, hundreds of bishops, and monasteries springing up again across the Russian land - with monks flowing back into them?
Our generation has not see a greater miracle.

[Theophan @uncreated_light]

Elder Dositheos speaks about an unknown elder who prayed to God out of love to cure cancer. God responded, “three times I sent you but you did not keep it!” meaning there have been three people in history who would have cured cancer in their life but all were killed in abortion.

[Άγιος Σπυρίδων @agiosspyridon]

Να μην θυμώνεις
Να είσαι πράος και να μην θυμώνεις, επειδή ο θυμός είναι καρπός της φιλαρέσκειας και της ισχυρογνωμοσύνης, ενώ η πραότητα είναι ο καρπός της ταπεινής καρδιάς και της άρνησης της δικής μας βούλησης.
Όταν θυμώνει ένας άνθρωπος, το μυαλό του χάνει τη λογική και, ως συνέπεια, παρασύρεται από ανάρμοστες σκέψεις και εικόνες.
Γέροντας Εφραίμ Αριζόνας

[Theophan @uncreated_light]

New Orthodox Series on the life of St. Joseph the Hesychast is being filmed. From the same producers of the widely beloved St. Paisios show “From Farasa To Heaven.”

The same actor who played St. Nektarios in Man of God will play St. Joseph. Expected release sometime in 2027.

[Conrad (WWIII⚡️Analyst) @GnomeRad]

On August 30th 1533 St. Alexander of Svir reposed in the lord. He was a monk & devout ascetic of the Valaam monastery in northern Russia & saw the Trinity in the form of three angels 📿🇷🇺

His relics are astonishingly incorrupt after 500 years, looking as if he reposed in the past few weeks even today. During soviet times the atheistic authorities sought to disprove the miracle of St. Alexander’s relics by finding evidence of embalming or interference & they could find none. God is glorified in His Saints! St. Alexander of Svir pray for us! 🙏🏻☦️

[Father Spyridon Bailey @Fatherspyridon]

"Whoever can weep over himself for one hour is greater than the one who is able to teach the whole world; whoever recognizes the depth of his own frailty is greater than the one who sees visions of angels." - St Isaac the Syrian

[Father Spyridon Bailey @Fatherspyridon]

“If we want to have our heart filled with divine love we must first empty them of the love of this world, its frivolous & sinful customs.” - St Tikhon of Zadonsk

[Theophan @uncreated_light]

Uprooting the passions. From the show St. Paisios the Athonite “From Farasa To Heaven.”

[Fr. Borjan Vitanov @prezviteros]

When God’s Long-Suffering Reaches Its Limit
WEDNESDAY

How great was the mercy that the Lord showed toward Jerusalem—that is, toward the Jews! Yet in the end He was compelled to say: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). We all know the consequences of the Lord’s words: the Jews have remained without a homeland to this day.

Does not something similar happen to the soul? The Lord cares for it and seeks in every way to bring it to its senses. The obedient soul follows the path shown to it, while the disobedient soul persists in resisting God’s call. Yet the Lord does not abandon even that soul, but employs every means to bring it to repentance. As its stubbornness increases, so also does God’s providential action.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to everything. If the soul becomes utterly hardened, the Lord leaves it in its own hands to perish, seeing that nothing more can be done with it. And it truly perishes, like Pharaoh.

Let everyone who suffers from the passions learn from this that he cannot continue indulging them lawlessly without end. Is it not time to abandon them—not merely for a little while, but with the firm resolve to make a decisive change? For no one knows when he will cross the boundary. Perhaps only a little remains—and the end of God’s long-suffering has come.

+St. Theophan the Recluse - Thoughts for Every Day of the Year