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. …
They used to say that Abba Sylvanus had in Scete a disciple whose name was Mark, and that he possessed to a great degree the faculty of obedience, he was a scribe, and the old man loved him greatly for his obedience. Sylvanus had eleven other disciples, and they were vexed because they saw that …
Saint Macarius (which means blessed) the Great was born in the year 295, in a village named Shabsheer, to pious Christian parents; Abraham, who was a priest, and Sarah. Before the saint’s birth, his father saw a vision where an angel told him he was going to have a son, whose name will be known …
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 …
In a word, great signs and a multitude of miracles were worked by our father abba Shenoute, truly the true prophet and the bearer of the Holy Spirit. When they were spread abroad, they filled the face of the whole earth so that his renown even reached the ears of the pious kings. They were …
St. Shenouda the Archimandrite (348-466 A.D.) was the abbot of the White Monastery of Atribe in the desert of Thebes, Egypt, for more than 65 years. He was the abbot of over 2200 monks and 1800 nuns. He is called Archimandrite (the head of anchorites) because he used to practice the solitary life from time …
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 …
