Christian Behaviour: according to the Saint Pope Kyrollos the Sixth, is a great little book that captures the spirituality of this great saint, not while he was a Pope but in his first few years in the monastic life. The book reveals the spiritual insight of this saint and the virtuous life that he practiced …
In a letter to a monk ordained a priest, H.H Pope Kyrillos wrote, "Grace and peace from our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, our guide and comforter. I pray that you are in good spiritual and physical health, rejoicing in this heavenly gift that you were called to by Christ …
We may at times mix between ‘monastic poverty’ and ‘real poverty’ when we read the life of a saint or consider the life of a monk or nun, however the distinction is rather valid and important to note. For the purpose of this paper, ‘monastic poverty’ describes a monk or nun’s voluntary vow of poverty, …
Saint Arsenius is one of the saints who became very famous for his weeping. It is said that his eyelashes fell due to the intensity of his weeping, and that two cavities formed on his cheeks because of his weeping. During summer he would wet the palm leaves with his tears, and he placed a …
Monasticism is not like you see it in movies. It is not like you read of it in books. It cannot be described in words. It can only be experienced and felt. Monasticism is a calling and you cannot walk this path unless you have been invited to it by God. But how does one …
Psalms have a prominent place in our church. In ancient times, one of the Popes of Alexandria refused to ordain one of the bishops because he hadn't memorised all the psalms by heart. It was a condition for the three ranks of priesthood (bishopric, priesthood and deacon) to recite all the psalms before their ordination. …
St Shenouda was an abbot of the White Monastery of Atribe in the desert of Thebes for more than sixty five years during the fourth-fifth century. He is called Archimandrite for he used to practice the solitary life from time to time, and encouraged some of his monks to withdraw to the desert after a …
“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 …
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 …
