Thinking and the Heart
Thinking and the heart: on guarding thoughts, discernment and the prayer that gathers the mind before God, in the teaching of the Holy Fathers.
Category How to Be Saved
Articles on the Orthodox path of salvation and spiritual practice
The Forty-Day Fast in Scripture and the Lives of the Saints
The forty-day fast of Moses, Elijah and Christ: patristic interpretations, the meaning of the number forty, and fasting in the Christian life.
How to Pray So As to Receive What We Ask
Why do we sometimes ask and not receive? Gethsemane, persistence, the will of God, and the way prayer first changes the one who asks.
Lending Between Christians: When It Is Right to Give, When You Must Say No, and What Happens When You Do Not Repay
How Christians can lend without losing love, when it is right to refuse, and what the borrower must do when a debt can no longer be repaid.
When Your Neighbour Blasphemes. A Word of St John Chrysostom, Read with Care
What should a Christian do when his neighbour blasphemes? A word of St John Chrysostom, read together with the measure of gentleness, discernment and prayer.
Is It Enough to Be a Practicing Christian?
The valid grace of the Mystery is not the same as the growth of the soul: on the spirit that forms us, Tradition, and discernment in troubled times.
Abbot Nikon Vorobiev — A Book You Can Always Read
Abbot Nikon Vorobiev, author of the letters «Repentance Is Left to Us», is one of the great Russian spiritual fathers of the twentieth century, a teacher of repentance and humility.
Martha and Mary: Work and Stillness
The feast of Saints Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus (June 4): their lives, who Saint Lazarus is, the patristic reading of the two sisters, and their liturgical veneration.
The Holy Martyrs of Niculitel: Confessing Christ and the Veneration of Holy Relics
The Holy Martyrs of Niculitel teach us how to confess Christ, why the Church venerates holy relics, and the courage to remain faithful in the world.
Why Does Man Not Change? Lot’s Wife and the Mystery of the Soul’s Hardening
Why does man not change, even when he sees the truth? Lot’s wife, the hardening of the heart, wounded will, grace, suffering, and repentance.