It happened once that a man came to St Shenouda. He was a man from Pemje and he had with him a hundred and twenty pieces of gold. Someone else, a friend of his, came with him, and the man said to his friend: ‘I want to give a small gift to the sanctuary of …
This vocation of folly for Christ's sake is not limited only to Russia, but is also a characteristic of Greek and Syriac Christianity from the fourth century onwards. Holy fools are to be found likewise in the Christian West. One of the earliest examples in Eastern Christendom—perhaps the earliest of all—is not a man but …
“If virtue is revealed it is snatched by the demon of vain glory” In the Orthodox Church we have a number of Category of saints, for example we have martyrs, military martyrs, bishops, monks, nuns, lay reformers. Yet a very obscure category of saints is that of the Holy Fools. The character of the holy …
“Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” - St. Jerome We all know that the reading of the Bible is as essential to our Spiritual growth as food is to our physical growth. So why then do we so often neglect the Scriptures going days without opening it and sometimes even weeks? In the quest …
The blessed father Abdel Messieh el Macarii was born in 1892 in the village of Abu Shehata, district of Mattai in the provience of El Minya. His father's name was Henain and his mother's was Estere. When he grew up he wanted to be a spiritual soldier in the army of celibates, so he gave …
Isaac describes the ascetic life as a constant variation between periods of ‘assistance’ and ‘feebleness’, presence and abandonment, spiritual ups and downs. Periods of abandonment and spiritual decay are necessary for a person so that he may feel his helplessness and dependence upon God. Abandonment is not a withdrawal of God from a person: it …
In the book by Tito Colliander, The Way of the Ascetics, a brief conversation is recorded between a monk and a layman. The layman asks the monk, “What do you do there in the monastery?” And the monk replies, “We fall and get up, fall and get up, fall and get up again.” It’s not …
By night on my bed, feeling worn out and exhausted, I sought the one I love; I sought him, but I did not find him. The verse, I sought him, but I did not find him, is a painfully moving and disconcerting one. What is the meaning of, I sought him, but I did not …
One of the great church fathers of the 4th century is St Basil the bishop of Caesarea. He has no comprehensive biography, yet from what we know about him in the funerary oration by St Gregory of Nyssa (his brother) and by St Gregory of Nazianzus (his best friend) and his extensive volume of writings …
The love of God is not something that is taught, for we do not learn from another to rejoice in the light or to desire life, nor has anyone taught us to love our parents or nurses. In the same way and even to a far greater degree it is true that instruction in divine …
