Articles for author: Elder Athanasios Mitilinaios

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

WHAT WILL I BUILD ON MY FOUNDATION?

a homily by

Blessed Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

on the theme

“Take care how you build”

Delivered at the Holy Monastery Komneniou, Larissa
on August 1, 1999

9th Sunday of Matthew (1 Corinthians 3:9-17)

The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scripture quotations are not direct quotations.

fr athanasios mitilinaios — Blessed Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

(1 Corinthians 3:9-17 RSV) For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw — each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.

Saint Paul, my beloved, likens the faithful of the Church of Corinth with two images. He calls them “God’s field” and “God’s building”. The workers, then, of the Gospel are God’s farmers and builders. For example, Paul and Apollos; they tend to God’s field and God’s building. That is, they develop the spiritual life of the believers. Then, each believer tends to the field of his soul and cultivates it; but moreover, he is mindful to build his spiritual existence.

Before we proceed, however, we note that Paul, in using the image of the building, determines the foundation of the building. This, as we will shortly see, is of foundational significance. In the Epistle passage which we heard today, Paul writes:

According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation (3:10).

He laid, he said, a foundation, but the foundation is “given”. Paul does not build this foundation; he simply takes and positions it. What does this mean? He says here:

It is not possible to lay any other foundation than the one which is Jesus Christ (3:11).

So can anything be laid as a foundation, the existence of every man? Therefore when he says “no other foundation can be laid”, the question arises: Is it possible for any other foundation to be laid down? And what might these foundations be?

Certainly, my beloved, very many foundation stones are used in the construction of every human being. The foundations of every person are laid according to their upbringing, whether at home, at school, in society or the times in which he lives. This is how he acquires the foundation of his existence.

So every man is created, is built, according to the times, his upbringing, etc, as I said. And thus we have the idealistic man, the materialist man, the one who builds with materialistic concepts or the one who builds with idealistic concepts. Moreover, he is the businessman. Every epoch forms the man. He is the man of technology, or the man of science, he is, moreover, the humanist, he is the knight of times past.

Here you see that in every epoch we have a certain ideal formation, and in accordance with the ideals of education, each man is made. Thus Paul defines what foundation he sets in people, those whom he baptizes and Christianizes, those whom he makes Christians. The foundation is CHRIST. This is what he says. CHRIST is the foundation.

But Paul adds: “There is no other foundation” (3:11). Other than Christ, it is those which we listed. But to replace Christ and lay another foundation, this cannot happen, because there is no other foundation. Zigavinos says:

The one who tries to lay down another foundation is not a believer; he is not Orthodox.

There is one foundation: CHRIST.

And it is a given that Christian families, when their children are growing up, will certainly include Christ in the education. Did you hear that? They will put Christ in the education. They will not put something else. We can, perhaps, take some elements, as we will see further below, which we will call “foundation” with some examples, just pedagogical, psychological, but only because, all of you have seen that the various forms of educational methods and the various psychologies that are circulating are moving away from the foundation Christ. Let’s not forget this.

And what does this foundation consist of? Zigavinos, again, tells us: “the teaching of Christ, or, faith in Christ”. This is the foundation. Christ, my beloved, is the cornerstone rejected by the Jewish builders as unfit. The Lord Himself put it to them. In fact, He will even say: “The stone which the builders rejected, this one was placed at the head of the corner” (Ps 118:22; Mt. 21:42; Mk. 12:10; Lk. 20:17; 1 Pet. 2:7).

In the old days, when we did not have cement, there were cornerstones, and the very best blocks were put at each of the four corners of the building. So, “the head of the corner” is what we call “cornerstone”, “the one that the builders rejected”.

For, I am the cornerstone. You who must build your people, you yourselves reject Him, the cornerstone. And He will continue:

And the one who falls on this stone will be broken; but the one on whom it falls will be crushed (Mt. 21:44; Lk. 20:18).

“Whoever stumbles,” He says “on this stone”. The scandal is what we call “stumbling”, because it literally means that we are scandalized, He is a scandal, an obstacle, I don’t see it, I don’t notice it, so where I am walking I happen upon it and I fall down…

It is like when I am scandalized by the subject of Christ’s Theanthropic nature. Is Christ God? Did God become man? If I stumble here, then I will fall on this rock. And the significance of this rock, then, is that it rises up as if it were a living thing, it rises, and “on whomever it falls, it crushes”; “He will be crushed,” He says. “It will crush him…”. It will crush this man.

So then, Christ is the living foundation for us Christians – not for outsiders, that is, for non-Christians. But what are we to understand when we say Christ is the foundation? We mean the entire teaching of the Gospel, both in dogma and in ethos. I cannot say that I am correct in the dogmas but not correct in the ethos, that is, in living the Orthodox life. I cannot say this. Consequently he must be ok in both of these, to live in harmony with the ethos of the gospel message and to believe whatever the Gospel reveals. And what does the Gospel reveal? Of course, very many pages of the Gospel refer to the ethos, and of course very many pages refer to dogma.

So we will accept the dual nature of Christ, the divine and the human, that is, that God the Logos became man. Therefore, he is Theanthropos. He is neither a mere man, nor God only (as Monophysitism would certainly like to say, for example). He is perfect God and perfect man. He does not lack in one or the other nature.

Moreover, I will accept the representative character of His death. Who did He die for upon the Cross?

Moreover, I will accept His sinlessness. You know, in our age there is a heretical notion going around from some archbishop outside of Greece, that Christ became what He was by progression. Heresy! Heresy! “By progression” he says, that He took care to correct Himself and was recognized by God. May the Lord God have mercy… It is total heresy. He does not accept that Christ was divine from the beginning.

I will also accept His death, which is redemptive, and His Resurrection, for we will also be resurrected with Him (those of us who are worthy), says St. Paul. God the Father will lead us also, together with Christ, on that Day, the great Day of the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.

We will, moreover, accept His Ascension and the sitting at the right of the Father.

So as we said, the entire Gospel, which describes the theanthropic nature of Christ as our Savior. And He is a real Savior. This is the foundation of a Christian, about which Theodoret says:

Do not therefore call yourselves of men, for Christ is the foundation. … Do not lay another foundation.

The man of science, the businessman (pay attention), these foundations are according to man. There is one foundation – CHRIST.

Today, my beloved, our Christians, by their baptism, laid a foundation which is Christ. From the time we are baptized, we have Christ as a foundation. The question is: If now I build upon His foundation, what am I to build? I have the foundation, but what do I build?

We have some Cyclopean walls here in Greece, those in the Peloponnese and in Crete, huge walls – and say I go there now to that very old foundation, an awesome one, which we admire when we imagine how they were raised, these huge stones, and now I go up these foundations to build my little house – what a pity! – my little one or two room house in order to go there for vacation. Do you go and build your little hut on such foundations? Your little house? Your summer house? Are you in your right mind, man?

The question, then, is: Upon his foundation, which we say is CHRIST, what does each one build? This matter not only pertains to the shepherd (as we will see further down), how the shepherd will help me build myself, but the matter is also for me, how I myself take care to build.

What is Paul doing here? He utilizes the image of a builder and makes a list: If any man builds upon (ἐποικοδομῶ) this existing foundation with gold, silver, valuable stones (the valuable stones are not diamonds and other such small rocks, but valuable stones such as marble, for example), wood, grass, reed”. He mentions six materials. He divides these materials, my beloved, into two categories. And what does he say? That everyone builds what? He is saying through an analogy, that he builds his character.

We say: He is an important Christian. He built upon the foundation CHRIST with gold, with silver, etc., while that other built his hut with insignificant things: wood, grass and reed. What can you do with wood, grass and reed? What can you do? This is what is important: When that day will come, Judgment day, the great Day, the Day which is fire, in this fire what will survive? That is, out of all the building I have done on my character, what will survive in eternity? Whatever is done and experienced in Christ Jesus, this will endure in eternity.

And Paul also says, “All that is not done from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). Whatever you did, not bound with faith, will not only be a loss on that day but is furthermore also a sin. Did you understand this?

So I do one purely charitable work. Is charity not a virtue? Certainly it is. But if I do not do it in the name of Jesus Christ but for my own name, then what? I do it to make me feel good, to make a good impression on others who see me do an act of charity, to have my name engraved on those plaques of donors and benefactors. What does this spring from? Self-love. Self-projection. So I did not do it for Christ. This is a loss. Not only is this a loss, but St. Paul also tells us that this is sin. So let us give some attention to this.

A glass of water… What could possibly be a more easily paid for thing to give someone? (One Evangelist even says “cold” water (Mt. 10:42), that is, freshly drawn from the well. But so I won’t get tired, I also go to the faucet there at my kitchen sink when someone asks me for some water, and I fill up a glass and give it to him. I will go and get it from the source.) And the Lord says, “I assure you, if you do this in the name of Christ, truly I say to you, this deed of yours will not go to waste.”

On the other hand, we may see a brilliant, elaborate cultural work, but if it is not bound to the name of Jesus Christ, it does not endure in eternity. It does not endure. Who would deny that the Hermes of Praxiteles is a marvelous statue? Who would deny that the Aphrodite of Milos has excellent symmetry. I wish I had the time to describe the symmetry of the statue to you. It is amazing! (which the French snatched from us – those smart Europeans, always smart – yes, and they have it in the Louvre. Well, let’s leave it at that.) The point is this: Whatever cultural works I construct, build, admire or acquire, there is no benefit from that which I do unless it is bound with Christ. If whatever cultural work it may be is done in the name of Christ, this will endure on the that Day as a work.

I run an orphanage. If I have done this for some reason other than to gather the orphan children, etc. etc., there is no doubt that it will be destroyed. If I did my good work in the name of Christ, my work will endure. If I did not do it in the name of Christ, but to make a good name for myself, it will go to waste.

So then, as we saw, St. Paul mentions two categories: precious materials and insignificant. The precious materials, we said, are the gold, silver and quality stones. Mansions and palaces are built with these. And the other materials: wood, grass and reed? These are usually combined to build worthless huts. Each material is tested by fire, as I told you. So with our works also, those which are built on the foundation CHRIST, the fire will test on that Day. Paul writes:

Every work will be disclosed for what it is; for a Day will be disclose it (the great Day of Christ), and every work will be disclosed by fire (it will be shown if the work survives the test of fire); fire will test each and every work. The one whose work withstands will receive a wage (3:14).

Notice something, if you will, he says “wages are received” (“the wage” is something beyond the scope of our subject). If Paul is saved, and I also am saved, can I compare my work with the work of Paul, and those others who were saved (assuming that I am saved). The reward depends on how much I labored.

“He will receive a wage.” It is known from various parables which Christ told us that not all wages are the same. Can I myself have first place in the Kingdom of God (I who am insignificant) in front of a Paul? Is it ever possible? St. Paul says: “One star differs from another star in glory” etc. (1 Cor 15:41).

Moreover, “If the work is burned up there will be a loss, but this one will be saved, but as though fire” (3:15). There are various interpretations concerning the last half of this verse. Perhaps the better interpretation is as follows: “He will be saved,” meaning, he will be found naked… how one moment I am asleep in my house, in my pajamas let’s say, and in an instant: Fire! Fire in the house! Are you going to tell me at that time: “I’m going to go get my shirt from the dresser”? Or will I be running out?

So the house burned down, with all its contents. And now, how do I remain? Naked. That is, without having a thing. This is how people will find themselves when they do not build correctly with the proper materials. They will remain naked, completely naked. And as Zigavinos says (pay attention):

The wood and the grass and the reed are the different kinds of worthless evil works.

So then, these inferior materials, wood, grass, reed, etc. are the worthless works – not the small works, as when we say the widow gave one penny, one or two pennies of charity (Mk. 12:42; Lk. 21:2). Not this small giving. Christ said most beautifully that the widow put in all that she had, her two pennies, and she is praised. So then, it is the worthless works.

St. Athanasios the Great adds: “The evil works.” What is this? When I place upon the foundation CHRIST my evil works: my fornications, my murders, my thefts. Yes, these.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says: “It is the nature of evil works that they are prepared for nothing else but to be consumed in the fire.” (PG 44-46, On Ecclesiastes, Homily 6)

And Origen says: “The evil works and the doing of them are, figuratively we may say, wood and the grass and the reed.” (PG 11-17, Vol. 8, Against Celsum, 4.13)

It is the evil works. Truly, how do we build the edifice of our existence, my beloved? How do we build?

This matter, however, is also for the shepherd. When they offer homilies, they make them secular in order to attract, but these worldly homilies do not save. –Beloved, have we realized the gravity of what was spoken by Paul?– This matter is for the ministers of the word of God, but it is also for every believer who builds in his existence the holy things or the evil things.

Do not be dazzled by a homily that is modern and charming. It does not save, because many times it is secularized. Such homilies do not endure in eternity and the shepherd does not lead the faithful to salvation. And the proper homily, which is supposedly anachronistic, we dismiss. “Oh”, he says “those ideas are old-fashioned.” Not so, my beloved.

I pray that we may all acquire genuine criteria for the building of our salvation, what will endure or what will burn, or else we will experience that great Day with many great surprises…

May the Lord show us mercy.

AMEN.

THE END – TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Translated from the original Greek by Anthony Hatzidakis, August 24, 2024. The source text utilized for this homily translation was taken from a post on Aktines, August 8, 2022. The Greek text was transcribed by the honorable Mr. Athanasios K. and digitized and edited by Ms. Eleni Linardaki, philologist. The original audio we consulted for this translation can be found at arnion.com. All emphases are the translator’s.

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

MAN AND HIS BOUNDARIES

a homily by

Blessed Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

on the theme

“Leave our borders”

Delivered at the Holy Monastery Komneniou, Larissa
on July 8, 1990
5th Sunday of Matthew (8:28-9:1)

In today’s gospel passage, my beloved, the Εvangelist Matthew tells us of the incident of the meeting of the Lord with two demon-possessed men outside the city of the Gergesenes. The entire story, on the one hand with the healing and the ridding of their demons, and on the other hand with the demonic-possession and drowning of about two-thousand pigs in the lake, terrified the inhabitants of Gergasa. And the attitude of the inhabitants of this city, having this double miracle in front of them, was disapproving. We are more astinoshed at this disapproving attitude of the Gergesenes than the miracles worked by the Lord. But let us see how the evangelist Matthew relates this incident to us:

When Jesus arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gergesenes, He was met by two demoniacs who came out of the graveyard, who were so frightful that no one could pass by that way; and they began to cry out and say: “What have You to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? Did you come here to torment us before our time?” In the distance there was a large herd swine feeding. And the demons begged Him, saying: “If you are going to drive us out, allow us to go into the herd of swine.” And He said to them: “Go!” And they went out of them and into the herd of swine. And immediately, the whole herd rushed and fell into the lake and drowned in the water. Then the herdsmen fled and went into the city and related all the things that had happened, and also what had happened to the demon-possessed men. Then the entire city went out to meet Jesus, and when they saw Him, they pleaded with Him to leave their borders….

You see, this strange, but not psychologically inexplicable behavior of the city’s inhabitants, makes an impression on us. I will tell you about it in the text:

And behold, the entire city went out to meet Jesus, and when they saw Him, they begged Him to leave their borders. And after entering the boat, He crossed over and arrived at the same city (that is, Jesus got back into the boat and went to Capernaum).

Certainly some fear seized the souls of these people, and this fear was a peculiar fear. It is the fear of the sinner who does not want to be corrected, because they were thinking to themselves: “This Jesus will find other things that are wrong in our city”, because for the Jewish people, raising pigs was not permitted. The law clearly stated that they were not to eat pork, nor were they to raise pigs, nor do business selling pork. This is why they thought, “If Jesus comes into the city and sees other things, He will harm us financially.” So they feared. The other Evangelists tell us that they were “terrified” [κατετρόμαξαν / ἐφοβήθησαν] (Mk. 5:15, Lk. 8:35)), and asked the Lord to leave.

We will not delve on explaining the behavior of these people, but only their action. Seeing Him, they begged Him to leave their borders. I emphasize this “leave their borders”, because this is precisely what our main subject will be: “leave their borders”. It is the man, my beloved, who does not accept the presence of God in the circle of his existence. He does not deny Him, but exiles Him. And “to exile” means to put outside the borders. I put Him outside.

But we must know that God always places borders, only these borders have varied in the history of mankind. Man must know his borders, so that if he wants to remove something from his borders, he knows what he will remove, and if he must keep something within his borders, what will he hold on to? Where will he keep it? God places the borders. Remember how the Apostle Paul said what is mentioned by Moses in Deuteronomy, in his last Ode, that God is the One Who established the boundaries of the Nations (Deut. 32:8). The borders, that is. And God is the One who, either by His good will or by concession, acts; it is He who regulates the boundaries of the Nations. He had said to David: I will widen the borders of your homeland. And Solomon found the widest borders ever in the history of Israel. But the borders of Solomon’s territory, the homeland, began to shrink, because he began to sin.1 And God said to him clearly:

I will not take the kingdom away from you, for the sake of your father, but from your descendants. (3 Kings 11:12 (1 Kings))

And as soon as Solomon died, not only did the borders shrink, but this Israel was also split into two kingdoms, the southern kingdom and northern kingdom; the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. So God is the One who establishes borders throughout history. He also establishes them in nature. Psalm 103 says:

You set a boundary which they shall not pass; neither shall they return to cover the earth. (103:9)

Here he is talking specifically about the sea. If, however, you consider the text above (it is from the introductory Psalm at Vespers), you will find that it is not just the about the sea, on which borders were placed, which may not be passed. On a first look, it is the sea, which, whatever it does, cannot go beyond the land, stormy as it may be, but because the plural is used here [παρελεύσονται – they shall not pass], we say it refers to and concerns all the natural laws and all the natural phenomena.

No natural phenomenon goes beyond certain limits. If there is a flood, it will pass. If it is hot, it will pass. If there is an earthquake, it will pass. There are limits, and God puts limits in His Creation, because if there was an unlimited presence of a phenomenon, then this would create disorder in nature. In fact, regarding the sea, the author of the Letter to Diognetus says: He enclosed the sea within its proper bounds. (Ch. 7)

And this same God protests about man, that although nature keeps within its bounds, man does not keep within his bounds, because if nature was made with bounds, that is, with boundaries, much more should man have them.

Boundaries do not restrict freedom. Who would ever think that by putting a railing on his roof or on his balcony his freedom would be restricted? But there is a boundary, a limit, because if you go beyond it, you will fall and be killed. So no one thinks that the railings of a roof restrict freedom. (I say this because we have a freedom complex in our days, which has surpassed everything else. Man has gone beyond every boundary, truly every boundary.)

Listen, then, to what God says through the prophet Jeremiah:

Now hear these things, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes and do not see, and ears and do not hear. Will you not fear Me? says the Lord; and at My presence will you not honor Me? The sand I have made as a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which shall not be passed over; and the waves shall hurl themselves against it and shall not prevail; they shall swell and shall not pass over it. (Jer. 5:21-22) (O people, do you not see? Do you not see the sea, that it is I Who made the boundary, the eternal ordinance? So the border is an ordinance, and the sea will never go beyond it. It will be troubled within, we would say, in her belly; her waves will roar but they will never be able to go beyond where God put the sea.) But My people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned away and abandoned Me. They do not say in their heart, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God’…” (Jer. 5:23-24a) (they did not say: “Let us fear the Lord our God. If He puts bounds in nature, and we exceed our own bounds, let us fear Him.”)

They have turned away and abandoned Me (turned away [ἐκκλίνω] means “I choose another path.”). These two actions express the overstepping of bounds by this people or by man. Man overstepped his bounds. And indeed, unfortunately for mankind, man overstepped his bounds from the very first moment. God placed one primary bound for him in Paradise: You shall not taste of this fruit. (Gen 2:17) He overstepped that boundary in Paradise. Adam and Eve tasted the fruit. What was the result? By overstepping this boundary, or boundaries, he left Paradise. This is one primary result. Also, since then, he has been outside the boundaries of his life. He entered into the realm of death. He went away from his destination, which is theosis and the Kingdom of God. He saw death as his destiny.

Man went still further beyond his own nature and introduced the phenomenon of homosexuality. What is this? Is it not the overstepping a divine boundary? You have gone outside the bounds of your nature. And what happened? What you should not have become you became. You became what God did not want you to become.

Civilization also is nothing anymore. It is not being divinized, because man has overstepped an agreement and the bounds of human life. Just one small example: The destruction of the environment in which man lives. He did something, he overstepped it, and destroyed this very home of his, the Earth. And he destroys it continuously. Is this not overstepping? Thus modern man became unrecognizably unnatural, because he overstepped his bounds.

But man followed the example of the devil. Because he was the first to leave the boundaries that God established for him. We read from holy St. John Damascene who tells us:

The highest in rank in the Earthly realm, into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the Earth… was roused against God who created him.”2 (The Earthly realm is, so to speak, planetary space, the space wherein the Earth remains and exists and moves and, along with the other planets, revolves around the sun.)

He was to watch over this same Earth, in which he was highest in rank. Into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the Earth. He received the order from God to watch over the Earth. But he was proud. What does “proud” mean? It means that he overstepped his bounds and lost everything. We are told by St. Athanasios the Great, who draws from Isaiah and Ezekiel:

Thus he said: I will ascend, and I will set my throne in front of God, and I will be like the Most-high (make himself equal with God).

This also inspires the wretched man today. How? When he says, “God does not exist.” And man, of course, surpasses the devil, because even the devil believes. “Even the demons believe, and shudder”, it says in Holy Scripture (James 2:19), but man says: “God does not exist.” He surpasses the devil. He became more demonic than a demon. What then is the man saying? “I am God. God does not exist.” This is anthropocentrism.

And so Lucifer went beyond his bounds and ended up, where did he end up? What an irony! He asked to go into the herd of swine! “Lord”, he says, “permit us.” Permit us! He does not even have the right to go into the pigs. You see, from being the highest-in-rank in the Earthly realm, he ended up having to ask to go into the pigs. It is a demotion. This is why Saint Gregory the Theologian says, in his First Theological Oration, in the fifth paragraph (and pay close attention to this):

Let us philosophize (philosophize means to theologize) within our proper bounds, and not from where we are carried away to in Egypt, nor from where we are swept down to in Assyria (4 Kg. 18:11-12 (2 Kg.)), nor should we sing a hymn of the Lord in a foreign land.

What does he wish to say by this? You know that the Hebrews, because they overstepped their bounds – they were commanded not to worship idols – God also allowed them to go away from the borders of their homeland. One time they were drawn away into Egypt, another time they were drawn away by the Assyrians, and another time they were led away by the Babylonians, about which they said:

How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land (in Babylon). (Psalm 136:4)

Why couldn’t this people sing in a foreign land? Because they had gone outside their bounds. And now Saint Gregory says,

Let us also not go out so that whatever happened to them will not happen to us.

And what could this be? Can you philosophize when you do not have theology? The ancient world did not have theology. You may philosophize, but according to your abilities. Can you theologize? According to your abilities. Not very high, not very much. Because you will go outside and really find yourself in strange places. We see this in the field of philosophy, foolish things. What did Sartre say: “What is the destiny of man?” he says, “Death. From nothing to nothing.” What does a theologian who oversteps his bounds become? A heretic. Heresy is nothing more than overstepping the bounds of theology. But how does he overstep? As the man wants, so he understands. So then, let us be careful.

This is why he says: They are standing outside our bounds. We will stay within our bounds. You know, it’s a matter of the mind, the pride of the mind, for man to want to overstep his bounds. This is why holy St. John Chrysostom, interpreting the behavior and calamity of Eve, says, “She did not uphold the family bounds”, and ended up having to submit to the man. She did not stay inside her bounds, but arrived at overstepping her bounds, and ended up being subjected to the man. God, at first, did not make Eve subject to the man. Now He subjects her to the man.

But the modern woman also, for a second time, after what happened to Eve, attempts to go beyond the bounds of her household, and developed what we call “feminism”. Feminism is nothing more than what she thinks is giving her prestige, when, in reality, she is tearing herself down. Yes. I do not have time to explain much. This became perceptible. The woman began to understand that feminism was degrading her. Yes, degraded. “While it goes for wool, it comes out with a haircut,” says the old folk proverb. The woman is degraded. Already in Europe, in France in particular, the women are saying: “What are we doing?” And as Saint John Chrysostom says about Eve, but also about every woman of every age: They learned through their experience, not so much by destructive counsel (the counsel of the devil, to overstep her bounds).

The Apostle Paul wants for the woman, when she prays in church, to cover her head, to wear a veil. Do you know why? Because he considers it to be a symbol of a woman’s subjection to the man, and if we retain the symbol, we will not lose the reality. By throwing out the symbol, we lose the reality.

One time, in Paradise, my beloved, a man, leaving his personal bounds, went out from Paradise. But now, out of love, the Word of God comes to seek the man who is outside his bounds. And the man whom we saw among the Gergesenes, says, instead: “I came out of my mountains, and You came to put me back in?” (like the shepherd who lost a sheep, which had left the bounds of its fold, who takes it back to the mountains); the wretched man says, “No. I want to be outside my bounds. Please. I want to go outside my bounds.”

Now do you now understand the significance of this gospel passage? “Get out of my borders. I do not want You.” The result is that God leaves, so the man drives God out of his life and ends up going outside the bounds of his own life. By exiling God, the wretched man exiles himself; distanced from God, he is alienated.

Moreover, he also goes beyond the limits of his bodily endurance, from sports to everyday life. (If you were to only hear what athletes go through in order for them to have a gain, which is the destruction of the body… they go beyond the limits of what the human body can endure. I do not have time to give you examples.)

Moreover, he goes beyond his financial strength. And what happens? He goes bankrupt. He goes beyond his talent, and he thinks he is something. And he is ridiculed, because he goes beyond his bounds.

Beloved, man forgets that he finds himself between two thresholds which he can never go beyond: space and time. He will never be able to go beyond these two. He will, however, go beyond them, but not on his own. God Himself will remove him from inside time and space (because God established these) when he will put man in the Kingdom of God. For now, however, he is not able to go beyond space or time. Neither should I be put in cold storage and remain frozen at 192 degrees below zero, in case some years down the line Science finds some way to resurrect me. Do you see? We are constantly trying to go outside our bounds…

Moreover, the bounds of the Ecumenical and local Synods, the Canons, are nothing but rules which limit a situation; when they are overstepped altogether you have disorder. When the Church oversteps its rules, the Canons, it has disorder. One can see this quite clearly in our era, and in every era. The dogmas of the Synods, then, safeguard the boundaries of our nature! They do not allow us go beyond our nature, and the humbling of the intellect is that which, at every moment, will prevent us from overstepping our bounds. Let us say: “Stop! Up to here, no further!”

But also simplicity of life, from a practical standpoint, will never allow unlimited research in Technology and in Science, as the verse of Psalm 16 [points out those who overstep]:

“…and [in the lifetime] of Your hidden ones [the audio recording ends here. –tr]; their belly is filled”… (16:14).

THE END – TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Translated from the original Greek by Anthony Hatzidakis, July 26, 2024. The source text utilized for this homily translation was taken from a post on Aktines, July 7, 2023. The Greek text was transcribed by the honorable Mr. Athanasios K. and converted to computer text and edited by Ms. Eleni Linardaki, philologist. The original audio we consulted for this translation can be found at arnion.com. All emphases are the translator’s.

(3 Kgs. 11:4-9) For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ash’toreth the goddess of the Sido’nians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not wholly follow the LORD, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. (RSV)
Blessed Abba Philimon: “For Solomon,” Abba Philimon said, “had received such wisdom and been so glorified by men that he was like the morning-star and illumined all with the splendor of his wisdom; yet for the sake of a little sensual pleasure he lost that glory.” (Philokalia, vol. 2)

St. Peter Damascene: “For of what use is it to possess all knowledge, or, rather, to receive it from God by grace, as did Solomon, and there will never be another man like him – and yet go into agelong punishment?” (Philokalia, vol. 3, Book 1, “A Treasury of Divine Knowledge”)
St. John Damascene, Exact Exposition, Chapter 4. “Concerning the devil and demons.”
O Lord, separate the few from their portion in their lifetime,
and in the lifetime of Your hidden ones;
their belly is filled, their sons are stuffed,
and they leave the leftovers to their immature children. (16:14)[our working translation]

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE DENIAL OF PENTECOST IS CALLED “GLOBALIZATION”

Translated from the original Greek by Anthony Hatzidakis from a transcription by Faye and the audio recording.

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “THE DENIAL OF PENTECOST IS CALLED GLOBALIZATION” on June 18, 2000. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

“THE DENIAL OF PENTECOST IS CALLED GLOBALIZATION” – a homily by Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Pentecost Sunday, Homily 838

“Close your ears and hold on tightly to the Orthodox Faith inside your heart. We have entered the land of the last days.”

The Holy Spirit, my beloved, had already been called up from the earth. The Father said it clearly:

“My spirit will not remain in these people forever, because they are carnal.” (Genesis 6:3)

The people were driven headlong. The two clans of Adam, Cain’s and Seth’s, had mingled, moved by carnal desires. It says that the sons of Seth, his descendants, saw that the daughters of the descendants of Cain were beautiful and they intermingled (Gen 6:2) and they were ruined, to the point that God was provoked to decide for the flood to come.1 He therefore says (pay attention to this passage): My spirit will not remain in these people forever (he does not say for eternity) because they are carnal. So I withdraw my Holy Spirit.

From this, let us learn that the carnal man cannot possess the Spirit of God. It is not the custom of the Holy Spirit to come down into a man who is carnal. We now know from the New Testament that man is – not his soul only but also his body, and especially his body – a temple of the Holy Spirit. How is it possible, then, that this body which will be dragged into various immoralities, after being compromised as a temple of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit to dwell there now within it?

Indeed, the whole way of life of the people was preserved 120 years more, and then the flood came. Only the family of Noah was saved, and humanity began to spread over the earth once more. But the root of humanity remained wicked, the will, the thought. It says this, of course, in the holy text of Genesis: the mind of man in bent on wickedness from his youth (Gen 8:21).

And when people decided to spread over the earth, they said among themselves to create a physical monument that they might remember the starting point of their beginning, from where they departed, from where they started. And they began to build the Tower of Babel. You know, to leave a monument behind, a physical sign that evokes memory, is not bad, but for them it was a work of arrogance. “Look at what we made, who we are.” God did not bless this, of course, and then God said:

‘Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that each one cannot understand what his neighbor is saying’; and the Lord scattered them far and wide over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city and the tower. (Gen 11:7-8)

They didn’t finish the tower or the city. Babel means “confusion”, and it was so named because there was a confusion of languages; one said one thing and the other understood it differently.

Fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, my beloved, the Holy Spirit came once again, as it is known, upon the people. This is why our Church in its hymnography notes something very characteristic,

When you descended and confounded the tongues, the Most-high divided nations…(Kontakion of Pentecost)

He divided into nations, into many groups of people. Pay attention. He was dividing into nations, it says in Deuteronomy (4:19). That is, he set boundaries for each nation, borders. To keep them is very helpful. We will see why.

…When the tongues of fire were distributed (on the day of Pentecost), He called all to unity…

While there was at first a scattering, now with Pentecost a unity occurred,

…and with one voice we glorify the all-holy Spirit.

We see, then, that Pentecost stood to correct the arrogance of the people who attempted to build the Tower of Babel, and of course, that which unites all people from now on is not culture, not buildings, not monuments, but the Holy Spirit, and whoever accepts the divine-human Person of Christ also accepts the Holy Spirit. If you do not have Jesus Christ, it is not possible to have the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit also accomplishes the spiritual life. What we call “spiritual life” is this, the life of the Holy Spirit – not the life of the human spirit (everyone who has breath). What we call the practice of “spiritual life” is not based on man’s spirit, but on the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we cannot be saved. If the people suffer, it is because they do not have the Holy Spirit, because they do not accept Him.

The main thing that we lack today, particularly in our days, is precisely this: the Holy Spirit. The prerequisite, of course, is that the people have, as I said, believed in Christ beforehand. You must have Christ in order to have the Holy Spirit.

You may ask yourself, What can the Holy Spirit give us? First of all, with the Holy Spirit we acquire the mind of Christ. St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ (2:16). How? If we have Christ, we have the Holy Spirit who gives us the mind of Christ, and this means I think as Christ thought. Think about it, my thinking is Christ-like. It is anti-worldly and it is squarely oriented on the eternal things and on the will of God. He will say, I have the mind of Christ.

Second, we have the Spirit of Truth, as the Evangelist John tells us in the fourteenth chapter (14:17). As God, of course, the Holy Spirit is always truthful; the Holy Spirit cannot lie. This is said in contrast to the spirit of lies and of deception which is the devil. The Evangelist John writes, do not believe every spirit (1 Jn 4:1), but only in the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Truth.

This means that in the world, the spirit of error prevails, which we should be aware of, in order to distinguish it from the Holy Spirit (1 Jn 4:6). And what is the fruit of the spirit of error? Pay attention: Fortune-telling. Magic. Heresies. The nature religions, which we Orthodox Christians are going to at an alarming rate, these foreign nature religions coming from the East. The Buddhist says, we know this, we know that. Woe to us! The worldly manner of living and thinking are spirits of delusion.

(And let me tell you the latest, something completely new. It was published in a newspaper, that in some elementary schools, as a trial, in the First Grade of Elementary school – you heard right – the subject of magic is being introduced. The newspaper gives examples, how in the primary school where we learn how to read and write, the ABCs and so forth, there is also a guide book which initiates children into magic. Did you hear that? There is a saying that nature abhors a vacuum. Now apply it to this: the moment we expel Christ from our lives, it is quite natural for the devil to take His place, and the patron saint of magic is the devil. Did you hear? I will challenge all of you, parents and grandmothers and grandfathers, if you see this case becoming common, to march in protest to save our children.)

The Holy Spirit, however, is the anointing of Truth. The Evangelist John writes in his first epistle:

…the anointing you have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you… (1 Jn. 2:27a)

You don’t need anyone to teach you because you are God-taught,

…but as this same anointing teaches you about all things… (1 Jn. 2:27b)

The Holy Spirit teaches us about all things. There is a separate Sacrament after our baptism where we are anointed with the Holy Chrism. Baptism is one thing, Chrismation another. Chrismation is to receive, through material means, with this Myrrh, the Holy Spirit – through material means – I say again, because the Holy Spirit is seated in this sanctified oil. This is how we take the Chrism, this second Sacrament, through which will be given to us whatever good God wants to give to us. The Holy Chrism is in fact our dowry, and this Chrism teaches us about all things.

…and it is true, and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, abide in Him. (1 Jn. 2:27c)

With the Holy Spirit, my beloved, we have a clear distinction of truth from falsehood, the earthly and transitory from the heavenly and permanent, the advantageous from the disadvantageous, the legitimate from the illegitimate. We are able to discriminate. This is spiritual discernment, which is different than physical discernment. Physical discernment is to discern with your eyes that this is darkness and that is light, a physical distinction. This is cloth and that is water, a physical distinction. The distinction of these other elements I mentioned constitute what is called spiritual discernment.

A third point. Isaiah says that we have a Spirit of fear of God (11:3). The Holy Spirit also gives us the fear of God. The fear of God, therefore, is not undesirable, but desirable. Yes, it is to be desired. And lack of fear? Lack of fear, my beloved, loses what is acquired. It will help me to not fear the devil, but God I will fear, because lack of fear, I repeat, loses what is acquired. This is why the Apostle Paul says “with fear and trembling (which is the intensification of fear) work out your salvation” (Phil 2:12).

If I lose my salvation, what happens? Lack of fear cast out the first-formed man and woman from Paradise, whereas fear of God admitted the robber into Paradise. Fear of God admitted the robber when he said to the other robber, his partner, ”Do you not fear God?” (Lk. 23:40) Because at first, both of them blasphemed Christ. Later, he came to his senses. The fear of God got into him! He was terrified! and when the other continued to blaspheme, he said to him, “Do you not fear God?”

For the one who does not have fear of God, which attracts the the Holy Spirit, everything is allowed, as Dostoyevsky says, what is lawful and what is unlawful, and to kill and to steal and to do evil. Everything is allowed since I do not have the fear of God. This is why our people say, “He is not God-fearing”, he has no fear of God, unlike the Christians in ancient times who were called “those who fear the Lord”.

Fourthly, and this point is the most important, the Holy Spirit becomes for us a Spirit of freedom. St. Paul writes,

“and the Lord is the Spirit (the Holy Spirit), and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17)

Do you see? Where the Holy Spirit is, there is freedom. A deep thought, and a key one indeed.

There are many today who do not have the Holy Spirit, and consequently they do not have a correct understanding of freedom. Freedom is the most abused thing. They view freedom as indecency (cf. Gal 5:13), and this is an element of self-destruction. Again, as the word of God says, the people who call for freedom are slaves of corruption (2 Pet. 2:19). These are phrases in the New Testament. The anarchy and the immorality are signs that the Holy Spirit who gives the correct understanding of freedom is absent.

Another, a fifth point, if you like. The Psalmist says that we receive a governing Spirit. It is in the 50^th Psalm: ”and establish me with a governing spirit” (50:14). It is the governing mind [νους], that which is established by the Holy Spirit. So the mind governs, not the feet, not the heels, not any other part. The mind governs. This is why David is frightened and says: ”Do not take Your holy Spirit from me” (50:13). Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me because of my sins, because I lost my way.

And one last point for now, because we could go on about the many, many gifts the Holy Spirit brings us. He gives us the Spirit of adoption. The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans says,

“but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry ‘Abba, Father!’” (8:15)

By this Spirit we call God “Father”. Tell someone to call God “Father” when they don’t get along with God. Impossible. He does not call God “Father”. Know that the Holy Spirit inspires us to call God “Father”, and when we say “Our Father”, this “Our Father” is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and from adoption the sense of security is born.

So, my beloved, when I have the support, the shelter of the Father, I feel secure. Do you know when a man does not feel secure? When he does not have God as Father. This is why we have many many bad situations today. That is to say, to call God “Father”, with all consistency, has enormous psychological significance.

Since we have so many privileges, beloved, from the Holy Spirit – and of course many more than we have enumerated – I say to you: WHO WOULD EVER BELIEVE THAT THE CHRISTIANS WHO HAVE RECEIVED THE ANOINTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WOULD THINK ABOUT RETURNING TO COMPLETE THE TOWER OF BABEL?

What do you all say? “Who would ever imagine this? Are the Christians going to return again to build the Tower of Babel?” My beloved, this “building up again of the Tower of Babel” is the rejection of Pentecost, which is called “globalization”. Did you hear that? The rejection of Pentecost is called globalization.

God made borders for the nations. If you want to read more about this, it is in Deuteronomy (3:14-17); it is also mentioned by the Apostle Paul from the Pnyx in Athens (Acts 17:26), and in other places in Holy Scripture. God wants borders, just as he wants curtains in the home of each and every family.

Do you know what happened some time back in Russia, with the [Communist] experiment. Someone says, “What will he call family? Everything is in common.” They quickly realized that this thing would not stand. Is this thing [Communism] standing? 2 This is also happening with the nations, and not simply because we have a cultural leveling; believe me, that’s the least of it. We are seeking the union of people through globalization in social unity, in commercial unity, in cultural unity, and above all, in religious unity. This is precisely what we call “ecumenism”. We throw all the religions into the melting-pot to produce that which we call “ecumenism”.

We therefore put God out of the way, the God who stopped the tower building and then gave us Pentecost. We get rid of God. We don’t need God. This kind of unity is utterly, utterly demonic, and with this unity – pay attention – the world will end. It’s not coming back. God is through. This is the course: Tower of Babel – Pentecost – we return to the Tower of Babel. There the world will end, and its end will be tragic. The end of the world will be inspired by the devil, the antichrist and the false prophet, this unholy trinity.

The Lord posed the question: ”When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8) My beloved, He will find faith on earth, but only in a few, the remnant (στο λεῖμμα) as the Apostle Paul says (Rom 9:27), in a small portion who are left.

And so, beloved, today we celebrate Holy Pentecost. Do we realize its great significance? and how the Holy Spirit has graced us? Without the Holy Spirit we have no reason to exist, just like the people before the flood.

Disdain the proclamations of various globalists, but above all in the religious sphere, ecumenism. Close your ears and hold on tightly (Rev. 3:11) to the Orthodox Faith inside your heart. We have entered the land of the last days. Everything points to this. We who have the Holy Spirit are becoming more and more sanctified, awaiting the Lord Jesus who assures us, “I am coming quickly” (Rev 3:11).

“And the Spirit and the Bride (the Holy Spirit and the Church) say (with one voice), “Come!” (Rev. 22:17) “I am coming quickly.” (Rev. 22:20) “Come, come, O Lord!” And whoever hears within the story, I say, let him say, COME! (Rev. 22:21) Amen.

THE END – TO GOD BE THE GLORY

Text source in Greek from ΑΚΤΙΝΕΣ, Audio source referenced for the translation: Arnion.gr

St Isaac the Syrian: “He brought [punishments] upon them in order to show that He hated sin. Why then were the generations of the days of Noah drowned in the Deluge? Was it not on account of the vileness of lasciviousness, because they had violated the beauty of the daughters of Kain? In that time there was no love of money nor adoration of idols, nor sorcery, nor wars waged [by men] against one another.” (Mystic Treatises, 78, tr. Wensinck, A.J., slightly edited)
Fr. Seraphim Rose says a few words about Communism here. -tr

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE ICON: ITS IMPORTANCE TO ORTHODOXY

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “The Icon: Its Importance to Orthodoxy” on March 23, 1986 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was the former abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live.

The Icon: Its Importance to Orthodoxy – Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Sunday of Orthodoxy, Homily Β154

Today, my beloved, the first Sunday of Lent, our Church celebrates her victory of the accuracy and the correctness of her faith and her traditions.

The Church has fought long to maintain the genuine interpretation of the revealed word of God, recorded in the Holy Scripture by God-inspired men, handed down as written works and teachings within the Church. One expression, one element of Orthodoxy among many others, is the icon as theology, and as the truth of Holy Scripture, the word of God.

Why the issue of the Icon is central

The issue of the icon was fought against for one hundred and twenty years by Iconoclasm, a heresy which broke out in Byzantium. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, however, eventually brought the icons back and settled the issue theologically.

The theology of the icon is an enormous and most important issue, so important that our Church honors the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council on the first Sunday of Lent, calling it “Sunday of Orthodoxy”. Although the issue of icons is one of many issues that constitute Orthodoxy, the Fathers considered it to be the most important.

Some are surprised to hear this and say, “Can one issue out of all the issues possibly be called the most important? Why icons?” Where, then, is the importance of the whole issue? It is, of course, the most important because of one aspect of theology, to which we owe our debt of knowledge to the icon.

The icon, my beloved, makes clear that God the Word really became a true man. How does the icon express this? In that we are able to depict Jesus Christ, and also the way in which we can represent the person of Jesus Christ, because here is the whole battle, here is the whole war, here is the whole struggle – if we are able to depict God.

Yes. It is possible for us to depict God. How so? Because He became human. The theology of the icon refers to and is based on the Gospel, and is of central importance to the entire Faith: “The Word became flesh.” (John 1:14) If, then, “the Word became flesh”, that is, as long as the Son of God became human, then it is possible to depict Him.

This is why one of the hymns from today’s Orthros service says:

“We now restore the icon of Your flesh, O Lord, and give it relative reverence, and by it show forth the great mystery of Your Dispensation; for You, O Lover of mankind, truly appeared in the nature of flesh unto us, not in seeming appearance as say the sons of Manis, who oppose You. Through Your icon we are led up to a longing and love for You.”

So you see that the icon constitutes a central place, because the accepting or not accepting the icon is to ultimately accept or not accept the truth of the taking flesh of the Son of God. This is why the issue of icons is central.

And if the Word really became flesh, then man can become Word [Logos], that is, divinized. I want us to understand, my beloved, that the theology of the icon is this: “The Word became flesh so that flesh becomes Word”, as the Fathers say. God became man in order for man to become god.

The question of whether Jesus is God was raised at the First Ecumenical Council. This raises the question of whether Jesus became human, that is, if he is a true man. This subject of the deity was raised at the First Ecumenical Council with the Arius and was fought against by the 318 Fathers and St. Athanasios.

And now the question is put forward: “Did God really become a human being? We recognize His divinity, but we doubt because of His humanity. It is precisely the opposite, which is why I told you that it was, in reality, fought against, again, first with the Docetists1, and then, once more, the Church battled Monophysitism at the Seventh Ecumenical Synod over the “icon” issue.

The issue is important, because if the Son of God really did not become man, then man cannot become god. That is, the theosis [deification] of man is impossible. That is, the salvation of man is impossible. If, however, God became man, if He partook of our nature, then this closeness of His to us offers us salvation.

Because of this approach to us, that is, His taking our nature and divinizing it and ascending with it into heaven and glorifying it, this nature of ours was also made able to be glorified in the person of the Word of God and we are all able to be saved. Therefore He is our forerunner in the heavens.

If, however, He did not become man, then God was God and remained God, and nothing more, and there remains a division of essences. In other words, there would be no union of essences. The union of essences was accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ. How? Because He truly became human.

So I repeat, once again, this is what the icon expresses. Because if I am able to paint the person of Christ as an Icon, it means that He became human. If he did not become human, how can the divinity be painted? It cannot be depicted, and it is not depicted. Do you see how important an issue this is, and that the icon is considered to express an enormous central truth?

But today we have forgotten this issue. We have forgotten and ignore the value of the icon, and in practice we deny those things which theologically occupied much of the First Ecumenical Council, and also the Seventh Ecumenical Council. We have forgotten the subject that Jesus Christ is God and perfect man.2 That is, Jesus Christ is God and Man [Theanthropos], and since He is God and Man – perfect God and perfect Man – man, therefore, is able to be divinized. Today we have forgotten this. Today, we have left this behind, precisely because we do not know, we have forgotten, we are forgetful of the theology of the icon.

I will also note that we think of Christianity as nothing more than a set of ethical rules which will improve our lives. Moreover, we ignore the resurrection of the dead, because we forget about the “body”, and that “our soul will go to Paradise”, even God’s Kingdom, because the Kingdom of God is where our being is complete. In other words, it is not souls only in the Resurrected life, but the soul with the body. Jesus Christ ascended to heaven with His human nature. We ignore this. And you understand, that by ignoring our theosis, the theosis of our entire being, we are no longer ordering our lives properly.

So, why not eat, drink and be merry? “The body is worth nothing compared to the soul,” we say. “Why not fornicate, then, if the body plays no part at all?” Because the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, it is a temple of the Holy Triune God. The body is to be considered. The body will rise high up, and this is always expressed, I repeat, with the icon, because the icon expresses the theanthropic3 nature of Christ, that God really become human, and, consequently, I also will become a god by the grace of God.

Characteristics of the Icon

We will now say a few words about some of the characteristics of an icon. These characteristics are inexhaustible, and the issue of icons will not be covered by the few things we will say.

The icon is a language, an artistic language, an aesthetic language, if you will, which expresses our Church’s dogmas, that is, they express the Church’s dogmas in an aesthetic, artistic manner. Therefore it is Orthodox theology in form and color. Every Orthodox icon has two dimensions: the timeless dimension (historical) and the present dimension.

An icon first brings us closer to the historical event. For example, the Baptism of Christ is a historical event, and it is well known that history, that is, the history of mankind, cannot be evaporated and disappear. History cannot become ideology. History is history, it is events, and history determines our salvation, because our salvation will happen in space and time. Let us not forget that the mystery of the divine Economy, of God becoming man, is an event, it is history.

Pay attention, I will say it a second and a third time. We cannot evaporate the events. We cannot idealize history. History is history. These are the events. So if we remove history, we basically have no icon, because the icon expresses a historical event. The icon will tell the story. It expresses the historical event.

After bringing us closer to the historical event, the icon wants to connect the believer of each era with the historical event it depicts. How is the believer connected? Is this connection a connection in the memory, like with a photo album, when we look an event from the past? Or it it, as we say, a sentimental approach? To look at an icon to remember something, to feel something. My beloved, it is no more than an approach to the original event in the past! It means that every believer of every era, of every moment in history, approaches this historic event. It is approached not sentimentally, nor in remembrance, but in reality.

When, for example, we say in our hymnology: “The Virgin on this day gives birth to Him who transcends essence”4 or “Today You are baptized in the Jordan, O Lord”5 or “Today is hung upon the Wood”6 this “today” is not literal. It is not, as we would say, the historical Present, but it is today because today I am approaching the event. The event is not far from me. The fact that I am separated by time does not matter. I am not far away. I approach the event and the event approaches me. Therefore, every moment connects me to the original event, and this is what the icon shows me, this is what the icon expresses to me.

But we also have the other dimension, the timeless, the dogmatic. Within the illustrated historical event, for example, as with the Lord’s Baptism, the dogmatic element is shown clearly. We see the Son baptized, the Holy Spirit present, the Father revealing His Son in the world, testifying: “This is My beloved Son.” (Mt. 3:17; Mk. 1:11; Lk. 3:22) What do we have here? In the historic sense, the historic event of the Baptism, that Christ went to the Jordan, we have a dogmatic truth, a timeless truth. Something which stands apart from the historical event.

And so we see that the icon not only retains its historicity, but also presents us something new, something deeper. It presents to us a transfigured world and shows us the Kingdom of God. The icon is a window through which we can see what is neither in space nor time, and at the same time it shows us space and time. The icon is within time and the icon is outside of time.

The faces of the saints, if you will, when they are depicted, are real, but they are not depicted with their natural characteristics. They are real faces, human faces, truly, but at the same time, they are timeless, transfigured faces. They already belong to the realm of the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God we are complete. It will be as you see me and I see you, but at the same time we will be transfigured. In what way will we be transfigured? From corruption to incorruption, from death to immortality.

This is what one sees when he looks at a icon of a saint. He approaches something which is on the one hand in time and on the other hand timeless. He approaches the saint, but the saint no longer lives in this present life. Therefore the saint attracts him to live a transfigured life, for our existence to be transfigured, to change already in this present life, so that we are completely transfigured on the Day of the resurrection of the dead.

As you have noticed, the saints in Orthodox icons always look straight forward. At most, they only look at a three-quarter angle, very slight. Never do we see the back of a saint. We see the face. Why? Because this shows that the believer has a connection with the saint. The sojourner in this life has a connection with the saint whose story is told in the icon. This connection has great significance; it shows that the saint is not estranged from the believers. The saint is not estranged. In the Liturgy we mention the saints; we have their relics in the Holy altar table; we commemorate the saints at the prothesis where we put portions for ourselves. The Saints climbed higher than us, they left us but they remain bound to us. This is why we see the saints painted, narrated, before us.

Moreover, an icon, my beloved, can also become – pay attention – a portal of mercy. How can it become a portal of mercy? When I know that if a door opens, I will find mercy there, I will find my bread there, I will find Grace there, I will find help there, I will find healing there, I knock on that door. The icon is a portal of mercy. Do not forget this. It is the phenomenon of miracle-working icons. We go in front of an icon, we pray and we seek, and the saint depicted gives us that which we ask for. We say: “Panagia, save me”, and not abstractly, of course, wherever we can we pray, but for all good intentions and purposes, we have the icon of Panagia in front of us and we say, “Most-holy Mother of God, save us.” Or we go to the icon of St. Demetrios: “Saint Demetrios, save me.” What does this mean? Will the saint give us a helping hand? Yes! The icon, the painting, we say, the window, was up to that point closed. Then it opened, and the grace of the saint went out. How does this happen? Listen to how this happens.

st-iakovos-of-evia-blessing-with-relic — Saint Iakovos of Evia blessing with the miracle-working relic (skull) of Saint David of Evia.

It is a teaching of our Orthodox Church that when the saint lived in this life, he had the Spirit of God. When he died and left this world, he was not separated from the Spirit of God. He has this Spirit even now where his soul is in Paradise. He was divided. His soul went to Paradise, always united with the Spirit of God, and his body was placed in the grave, where the Spirit of God is united with his body. For the Lord said, We will come to dwell in the man who receives us. (Jn 14:23) Pay attention, He did not say, We will dwell in His soul, but in him, in his being. Not in his soul only, but in his body and soul together. With death, then, man’s body is not separated from the Holy Spirit. Thus we have what we call “holy relics” which work miracles. Why do they work miracles? Because they are united with the Spirit of God.

It is also known that whatever a holy person touches in this world, gives grace, conveys grace. In the Gospel according to St. Mark, this happened with Christ. Pay attention to what he says:

Read the miracle the Saint’s undershirt in Man of God: Saint Nektarios of Aegina. Translated by Peter and Aliki Los, Holy Cross Press.

“And wherever He went, into villages, or cities, or the countryside, they laid the sick in the streets and begged Him that they might touch even the hem of His garment; and all those who touched Him were healed. (Mark 6: 56)

As it happened with Christ, my beloved, He now gives to the Apostles and Saints. Listen:

“…they brought out the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.” (Acts 5:15)

They were all healed. They took the handkerchiefs and aprons of the Apostle Paul, threw them on the patients and they recovered.7

Why? Because the objects that came in contact with their skin were sanctified. Thus, sanctified people, when their lives were hagiographed8, these icons are now miraculous. This is why, my beloved, icons work miracles.

Let us, however, emphasize something. Only Byzantine hagiography retains the prerequisites for dogmatic and moral teaching. Only the Byzantine icon. Western icons do not express anything. They express on the level of an event, and this, many times, is understood incorrectly [by the artist]. To make this clear, take, for example, Joseph with the Theotokos next to each other. They were not a couple. Why show them side by side and call it “The holy family”? They were not a couple. Byzantine hagiography shows the Panagia at the center of the icon and Christ next to her. Joseph? In a corner of the picture, down below, with his back turned, with his back facing the Virgin Mary and Jesus. What does this signify? That this Child is not his. You can see the difference. For this reason, I will tell you, my beloved, to always keep our homes, everywhere, worshipful places, everywhere, with Icons in the Byzantine style, which is dogma.

My beloved, we must not let it escape us that Christ is not only the Word of God, the Word of the Father, but is also an icon of the Father. Furthermore, we must not ignore the fact that man is an icon of Christ. Icons have a deep theology, as we have seen, and the more we study them, the more we find within their borders, without ever being able to exhaust what we find.

This entire world, this sensible world with its bright sunlight, is an icon of the future uncreated world. Moreover, inside the temple where we worship, the Liturgy is an icon of the heavenly Liturgy of the Saints, and communion with God. All the Christian symbols we have are icons of future good things. “They are a shadow of the the things to come,” says the the Apostle Paul to the Colossians (1:17). They are a shadow of the things to come.

This is why the Apostle writes:

“[The priests] who serve are a type and shadow of heavenly things; just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle: ‘See,’ He said, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern showed to you on the mountain.’” (Heb. 8:5)

That is, how he was to make the Ark of the Covenant, and the other things. What did God give him there? Models. Patterns. Therefore, what were the tent, the temple, and the things constructed later? They were representations of the true, of the genuine, of the heavenly.

What am I saying? This life of ours, my beloved, is also an icon. “We walk by faith,” says the Apostle, “not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7) And what is faith? It is an icon. An icon. I do not see the reality, but I live through an intermediary, that is, through faith, not by sight. We do not have the reality. We have faith. We have the icon.

This is why our Church, my beloved, defeated the heretics and celebrates her victory today, which is Orthodoxy, with her projection of holy icons.

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis, March 22, 2023, from a homily recorded by Mr. Athanasios K. and transcribed by Ms. Eleni Linardaki. Text in Greek: Aktines, Audio source: Arnion.gr

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for those who do not know the famous account of the healing by St. Nektarios with the sweater …. THE FIRST MIRACLE ATTRIBUTED TO SAINT NEKTARIOS: During the last days of his life, Saint Nektarios was in the room for the incurables of the hospital, among many poor patients who were at the point of death. Beside the bed of Saint Nektarios was a patient who had been paralyzed for years. As soon as Nektarios gave up his spirit, a nurse of the hospital, together with a nun who had accompanied him, began to prepare his holy body for transportation to Aegina for burial. They removed an old sweater from him and placed it for convenience on the bed of the paralytic and continued to prepare the body. Suddenly, the paralytic became well and rose from his bed, praising the Lord. This was the first miracle after the repose of Saint Nektarios. (www.aeginagreece.com/aegina-island/greece/agios-nektarios-church-monastery)
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GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE SELF-KNOWLEDGE OF THE PUBLICAN

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “The Self-knowledge of the Publican” on February 12, 1995. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the quotations are not direct.

“The Self-knowledge of the Publican”

A homily by Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Sunday of The Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14)

Before our eyes, once again, my beloved, is the precious parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. With this parable the Lord wishes to teach many lessons. He speaks to us about humility and pride, about “spiritual ethics”, if you will, sufficiency and insuffiency, about what makes a prayer good or bad, about the appearance of two types of people who go before the Lord, about the self-confidence of the one and the self-knowledge of the other. All this was spoken from the authentic mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, so every point of the Lord’s teaching is an authentic answer.

The twist of the parable is known. Two men went up into the holy place, that is into the temple, in order to pray. One was a Pharisee, from the known order of the Pharisees, and the other a tax-collector, from among those who collected for the Romans, by way of auctions, in order to get the tribute.

The Pharisee, weighed down with self-confidence from his status, knowledge of the law and good deeds, stands and says his prayer to God with a great amount of self-confidence and arrogance. The tax-collector is also weighed down, however with crimes and various sins, and stands at one end to also say his prayer. His guilt, however, does not permit him to raise his head. The Evangelist Luke points out that He did not even wish to lift his eyes to heaven. He beats his breast constantly, is cut to the heart, grieving in his heart over the multitude of his many sins, and says continuously: “O God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

We see, my beloved, in the behavior of the tax-collector a conspicuous self-knowledge, for he observed his condition and, as a result, asked mercy from the Lord. He was looking at himself. This is precisely what self-knowledge means: To be able to see yourself.

The Pharisee was not looking at himself, because his arrogance and his self-confidence were in the way, and thus, he was not able to see how he truly was. He thought that only the heavy hitting sins are those which defile a man. This is what the Pharisee believed. He was the type who says (and to this day, there is still the type who say): “I haven’t stolen anything. I haven’t killed anyone. I’m ok.” Whereas the tax-collector, he was looking at his true self.

We ask: What is self-knowledge? Self-knowledge is to be able to see the true condition of yourself. To have knowledge of yourself. Self-knowledge doesn’t deceive you like a delusion or arrogance or self-confidence, because at every moment this self-knowledge shows you the measure of your ability and the depth of your sinfulness. It asks you: Who are you? Self-knowledge, then, is the true knowledge of ourselves. It is the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks: “Know thyself.”

This knowledge of self is dynamic – not static – because at every moment I must know myself. Then, if I know myself, I will not think highly of myself. Instead, I will have in front of me the true, precise knowledge of myself, and this, of course, is humility automatically. I will have made, says St. Basil the Great, a return to my intrinsic worth, a return to my actual worth, that which I truly am.

Works by St. Peter Damascene and Blessed Nikitas Stithatos are found in the Philokalia.

Self knowledge is always bound with humility. It is not possible to have humility before, automatically. We have humility from a good objective: self-knowledge. Thus, when I have humility, I will also certainly have, inseparably, the help and grace of God, because “God gives His grace to the humble” (Jas 4:6). He gives His grace.

St. Peter Damascene says,

There is nothing better than to know one’s own sickness [weakness] and ignorance, nor anything worse than not recognizing them.1

Moreover, Blessed Nikitas Stithatos emphasizes,

Know yourself; this is indeed humility, the humility that teaches us to be inwardly humble and makes us contrite.2

The work which we have to complete on the earth is the spiritual work. God gave the first-formed couple three commands: the command of fasting (only from one tree, but to test them); the command of cultivating Paradise; and of preserving the hedge of Paradise (Gen. 2:15-17). But Paradise is within us, the kingdom of God is within us (Lk. 17:21). Adam, therefore, had to work and maintain the inner Paradise. Blessed Nikitas says that this is our task, to cultivate and to guard it:

You must cultivate and guard this humility, for if you do not yet know yourself, you cannot know what humility is and you have not yet embarked truly on the task of cultivating and guarding.”3

My beloved, of course we cultivate the earth, we do our biological work, but our primary work is this, the spiritual work. Why is spiritual work also called work? How is it possible to make myself better? Blessed Nikitas continues,

To know oneself is the goal of practicing the virtues.4

And Saint John of the Ladder tells us,

The one who knows himself never sets out to do something beyond himself.5

The one who has knowledge of himself, who knows who he is, also knows his abilities and his limitations. At no time will he be tricked into taking something up which is greater than his abilities. This one, my beloved, has strength in all things, in his spiritual condition, his profession, in anything whatsoever.

You cannot take up something if you do not have self-knowledge, since you may lack this or that. How will you take it up? The Lord tells us two parables about this: The parable of a king preparing to go to war (Lk. 14:31-33) and the parable about building a tower (Lk. 14:28-30).

Someone, it says, begins to build a tower that is very tall (and this is not about our spiritual building), but he does not sit down to figure out the cost, and once it reaches a certain height, the construction is abandoned. Then the passers-by mock, saying, “This man could not complete his construction.”

Is this not someone who is beginning the spiritual life? At some point, he sees that he cannot afford the roof, that is, to cover the spiritual restoration work and he stops the construction altogether. Do you know that we inhabit our buildings which have not been completed? I will put it in simple language: The crows nest there, that is, the passions of the soul return, and they encircle us in the world. Why? Because we do not estimate our abilities.

Did you begin? How will you figure out the cost? Did you start to be Christian? It is straightforward, but be careful. Have you considered whether you will endure the mockeries and persecutions, as we heard in today’s Epistle reading? It says, “Whoever wishes to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Are you prepared? Are you perhaps someone who does not withstand temptations? Do you compromise with the world? Are you strong? If you have self-knowledge and humility you will know these things.

And how will we maintain true self-knowledge so that we are not tricked into thinking that we know ourselves when we do not? With a constant increase in humility; by becoming as humble as we can be so that our eyes open better; by taking a sincere look at ourselves, straight in the eyes.

If two men, who have no association with each other at all and who do not know each other, both tell me that I have the same shortcoming, then I register the thought, because if only one tells me, it is possible for me to dismiss it, but if both tell me, then I surely begin to ponder and say, “This is how it is”, even though I do not see it. I will begin to see it, and then I will discover it.

Moreover, at every moment, look within and examine yourself. Why? Because as I said, self-knowledge is dynamic. Must I examine how things are going with myself at every moment? The one who does so does well. Isn’t it good to ask forgiveness from God?

Saint Basil the Great suggests a certain technique, a method, that helps greatly in preventing repeated mistakes: When the day is over, make an examination of our past misdeeds, a cross-examination our consciences. How did we sin? How did I do today? How did things go? Did they go well? Did they not go well? 6

In our evening prayers, the Psalmist says, as he lays in bed (and we also in our own prayer): O Lord, today I struck You; I did this, this and this. Please forgive. And if it is something considerable, we make a note of it during our prayer to confess it. Are we doing well? We say “Glory be to God.” Are we not doing well? “Forgive us, O Lord.” Do this every evening. Then we can recognize ourselves at every hour and understand where we are.

The fruit of self-knowledge, my beloved, is the entire posture and movement of the tax-collector in his prayer. Did you see him? Did you observe? Did you also see the other? “Standing”, it says. He wore himself out offering prayers and said, “God, thank you.”7 Certainly, it is very important to say thank you to God and we must give thanks at every moment: “Glory be to God”, “Thank You, O Lord”; and every evening, “Thank you, O Lord”, but to say the thank you with arrogance, “that I am not like the others, the sinners”, this is something very terrible. He sees the tax-collector in the back. What was he doing there? Not only was he showing humility of soul, but also humility of body. How? With tears, with bows, with groans, with the downward inclination of his head. “He did not dare”, it says, “lift his eyes to heaven.” He looked to the ground.

Most significantly, the tax-collector in the parable grieved in his heart, and also had a prayer in his mouth and in his heart: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” That is, O Lord, be merciful, sympathetic, compassionate. Forgive me, the sinner. It means: If you exercise Your justice, O Lord, who can stand before You? The Psalmist says: Who is able to stand before God if God exercises His justice? No one. (Ps. 142:2)

Moreover, the fruit of self knowledge is that which we encounter frequently in the sayings of the Desert Fathers: “All will be saved but me.”

Moreover, it is that which St. Paul said: “I am the greatest of sinners” (1 Tim 1:16). As more time passed he descended the stairs. He says in his epistles, “I am the least of the Apostles” (1 Cor 15:9). Then later, as he had matured more, he writes, “I am the least of men” (Eph. 3:8). Finally, toward the end of his life he writes, “I am the greatest of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

It is that which Saint Silouan the Athonite said: “Keep your mind in hell and despair not.” 8

Beloved, our Lord painted a colorful picture in the parable of the tax-collector and the Pharisee, in order to teach us self-knowledge and humility. We conclude with the same line of the parable: “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

ΤΕΛΟΣ
ΚΑΙ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΔΟΞΑ

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis, February 27, 2024, to the best of his ability, from source audio Homily #629 on www.arnion.gr. Some sentences have been amended.

Philokalia, Vol. 3, St. Peter Damascene, Book 1, Treasury of Divine Knowledge, “That We Should Not Despair Even If We Sin Many Times”.
Philokalia, Vol. 4. On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect: One Hundred Texts, #35
ibid.
ibid.
see The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Classics of Western Christianity Series
Quote amended. See also Saint Basil and his rule, E.F. Morison, B.D., Oxford, London, 1912. pp. 64-65.
This note is the author’s, which we made a footnote: “(God is used as the vocative case, O God; very many times we find the nominative case used as the vocative)”
See St. Silouan the Athonite, [St.] Elder Sophrony, tr. Rosemary Edmonds.

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

TODAY’S YOUTH AND ASPIRATIONS

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “TODAY’S YOUTH AND ASPIRATIONS” on November 27, 1994 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was Abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

“TODAY’S YOUTH AND ASPIRATIONS” – a homily by Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Thirteenth Sunday of Luke (Luke 18:18-27), Homily Β308

The account of the rich young man, my beloved, who approached the Lord seeking what he must do to gain eternal life, is truly very moving for us. Although the question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” is an enormous topic, it seems that the Lord’s reply is very mundane. What did He tell him? “Keep the commandments.” Very simple. “Keep the commandments.” Perhaps the young man thought there was some great, extraordinary, unknown law, and for this reason asked: “Which ones?” (Mat 19:18) And the Lord listed for him the laws from the decalogue which were very familiar to everyone.

It is the same today, my beloved, they dismiss the Ten Commandments because they are very familiar. It is a peculiarity of man to disdain something he already knows. Always. Is it something said in a homily? the commandments? the Divine Liturgy? They feel a need to set aside what they learned, disdain it. Why? “Eh, we know these things; we’ve heard them a thousand times.” This is because the person does not always see the same thing as if it were the first time! This is an enormous subject.

This is not only the case with spiritual things, but also with our nature. We like to go all around, to the mountains, to the forest, to the sea, always. We also want to see new people. How many times do we get bored being with the same person every day, whether our spouse, children or friends. They get boring. We are always interested in something new.

“Eh, we know these things.” We do not see with new eyes. We should sense that we are seeing something for the first time. Where is this ability found? Within us. Only within us. It is the same with the Ten Commandments. “Eh, I know them.” What did the young man say? “I have kept them from my youth.” Yes, he kept the commandments from the time he was a small child. However, had he truly been keeping the commandments all his life, there would have been no need for him to ask the Lord which commandments to keep, because he would have known that the commandments are the road, the way, the conduct whereby we reach eternal life.

Boredom of the commandments is the mistake of this young man, his failure. “The commandments?” “Yes, my good young man, there are things which never get old – the commandments of Christ. They are timeless. They are always the same, yet always new.” It is the same with the New Testament, reading about the person of Jesus Christ. “Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13:8), the Apostle Paul says. The Ten Commandments must be lived, not just known.

Yet there is also something that surpasses the commandments, and this is what the young man was after. The Lord told him: “One thing you lack.” “What is it, Sir?” “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow Me.” Where does the emphasis fall in this sentence? Not on the wealth, not on “distribute to the poor”. Where, then, does the emphasis fall? on “come follow Me”. The estate of the rich young man was, quite simply, an obstacle, therefore it was necessary for him to leave the heart of it, in order to follow Christ

What is this “come follow Me”? It is a dedication; something that goes beyond keeping the commandments. It is no longer “what will I keep”, but “who must I become.” I repeat. It is no longer “what will I keep.” If the commandments are kept, they are not kept for the sake of keeping them, as many as they may be, but for “Who have I become? How have I been formed by them? How have I been built up?” The young man, however, stopped at “what should I keep”. He could not get beyond himself and his money. The Lord told him to sell whatever he had for no other reason than to free him from the “what do I have to do” mentality and to advance to “who do I have to be”.

In any case, more than whether the rich young man misses the mark or not, what is of interest in this young man is his search for an aspiration. This is very significant. It is about eternal life. “What must I do to attain eternal life?” In the Evangelist Mark’s account of this dialogue, he informs us that the Lord showed the young man sympathy, “and Jesus looked at Him with love.” (Mk 10:21) Who did He have sympathy for? The one who had an aspiration, and certainly the greatest of aspirations, eternal life.

What are aspirations? They are worthy desires. They are what draw a man toward the higher things. They remove him from what is mundane in life and show him “the good life”, in the spiritual sense of the term. (When we say “the good life” it usually means one eats and drinks well, but the spiritual meaning is to become a very spiritual man, a very lofty man.) Aspirations are those worthwhile things innate in us all; they are according to our nature. To say, “our nature” means “I am a human being, whether I want to be or not; I cannot be something other than my nature.” The worthy desires, the aspirations, then, are things in accordance with our nature that are transferred, passed on, in order to reach the point of resembling God. Aspirations, worthy desires, make a person be that which he must become. It is what Pindar said: “Become who you are.” (Pythian 2, line 72) Be what you are by nature. In other words, become a person.

The aspirations, the worthy desires, are many: religion, country, family, education, relationships, virtues, work; all these things are worthy desires. The Apostle Paul writes something marvelous to the Philippians. He shows us these worthy desires and lists them: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is holy, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasant, whatever is of good repute, if there is any virtue, if there is anything worthy of praise, consider these things and do the same.” (4:8-9) In the same epistle he writes: “Our citizenship is in heaven.” (3:20) What does this mean? It means that the highest of aspirations is heaven, the highest of aspirations is the Kingdom of God, eternal life.

All of these worthy desires are attained either from revelation (whatever the word of God reveals to us) or from the natural innate ability. As human beings, we were made in the image of God, we have reason and we think; therefore we can be a perfect container for worthy desires and aspirations. What did the Ancient Greeks philosophize about? What did Pindar say? “Become who you are.” This is not from revelation, but from an innate ability.

We pose the question: Do young people today, like the young man we heard about in today’s gospel passage, have aspirations? What aspirations do they have? It well known that our times are characterized by cultural or spiritual decline. We are declining continually, and the result is a severely scarred society, decayed humanism. The scars are deep.

Other than the exceptions, of course, our youth today do not have aspirations. To be precise, their aspirations are faults, not worthy desires. They show their approval for things which, in other eras, people would feel shame. It is this which the Apostle Paul writes about to the Philippians: “whose God is their belly, who praise what they should be ashamed of, who think of earthly things.” (Phil 3:19) These are the aspirations of our youth today.

Furthermore, Saint Paul writes about the ancient world and its spirit, which our Christians today have surpassed. In his epistle to the Romans, he writes: “They have become vain in their thinking, their senseless heart has been darkened; claiming to be wise, they became fools. (Rom 1:21) Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts, to the uncleanness of dishonoring their bodies between them” (Rom 1:24) (he is speaking about homosexuality here). “So you want to be left to yourselves, wherever you end up.” “Just as they did not want to think about God, God gave them up to an unprincipled mind… (oh, this unprincipled mind, beloved, an unprincipled mind; an unprincipled, childish mind), …doing not what it should, but filling up with every unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, quarreling, deceits, bad morals, gossip, backbiting, hatred of God, wantonness, pride, arrogance; they are inventors of evils, disobedient to parents, senseless, unfaithful, cold-hearted, stiff-necked, merciless.” (Rom 1: 28-31)

The list is long. These are faults. Our youth people remain in these faults. Why? To honor their parents? “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12) is the Fifth Commandment, which we heard from the Lord today. Whose parents are honored today?

The aspirations of our young people today are always faults, a systematic, organized laziness, carelessness. Carelessness, laziness, is the sin of the second half of the twentieth-century. We see irresponsibility, unmerciful laziness, everywhere.

Go take look around the square at 10 in the morning in our city of Larisa. Whether it is winter or summer, young men and women go there to do what? They go there to sit… and sit… and sit. Don’t tell me, “they sit there because they are unemployed.” Don’t tell me this. They go there to sit. They sit longer than frogs. It appears that they exert the least possible amount of effort; whenever possible, they do less. At the same time they look for money. From where? From their parents, of course. They are thieves. Today this thievery happens on a grand scale. Why? In order to waste it on all kinds of pleasures: the cigarettes, the drugs, the hard liquor. They spend endless, wasted hours at the restaurants, the nightclubs, in front of the TV, at the dances and concerts, where they have demonic content; and they also have a demonic look: bedraggled, moronic, absent minded, with the boys deliberately tearing their jeans. Only serious boys and girls do not adopt this lifestyle, the earrings, the rings, the long hair, and intentional idleness – not unemployed – idleness, willful laziness. They don’t want to work. All of our young people today desire to acquire faults, to fill their souls with them. It is pitiful, very pitiful.

But how did our youths end up with these faults? How did this happen? There are many ways: The two world wars in our century, the confusion and realignment of foreign relations, the development of extreme individualism, are how we arrived at the borders of anarchy, like we know this anarchy and live in it today. God, religion, family and country are viewed as worthless; and “where God is removed, then everything is allowed” says Dostoyevsky. It is true. If God is out of the picture, then I am allowed to do anything.

So we find ourselves in a climate of deep decline where the young people do not have aspirations anymore. Instead, they pursue faults. The family cannot help, because it too is, unfortunately, mixed up with rotten ideas (there are exceptions of course). Even good children from Christian families find themselves in this widespread bad climate which affects everyone, and they become corrupted also. The child will go down the street, into society; he will go to school and he will be suffer great harm.

Can we do anything about this? One time, beloved, the Lord said about a demon-possessed child: “This kind of demon cannot be driven out except by prayer and fasting.” (Mt 17:21, Mk 9:29) “Lord,” the disciples said, “why couldn’t we heal the child?” “This kind of demon cannot be driven out except by prayer and fasting.” What does this mean? It means that people in our days are prey for the devil. Therefore, those who understand, those who are pained, those who still maintain within them their spiritual health, let them fast and pray, not neglecting Wednesdays and Fridays and the Lenten Fast. We also pray to the Lord to cast out the demons which are ravaging mankind, particularly our youth.

Furthermore, the Lord needs witnesses in everywhere, to speak to the young people, to wisen them, to enlighten them. The educational system we offer today is, of course, like one big paralytic (who will deny it?). The children cannot do a thing on their own. Perhaps we fear and disapprove of what they are taught. Those of you, however, who are teachers and who are listening to me, who have your spiritual health within, should present them an alternative. Tell the children, your elementary school students, your middle-school students, your high-school students, TELL THEM WHAT IS CORRECT. We will do whatever we can, nonetheless. We are beginning to see it, the value of boundaries, not to go beyond them…

Beloved, the young man of the Gospel is to be commended, of course, for seeking to attain eternal life. For certain, He did not attain it. He did not attain it because his heart was held captive by the passion of greed. Though he did have tenacity; he had tenacity. He saw things to aspire to and he desired them.

There are, of course, young people among us who have beautiful aspirations, with elevated thinking, with love for Christ. Glory be to God, they exist. We are to guard these young ones, protect them, praise them, and give them encouragement in these days which are so disappointing.

To conclude, we will do whatever we can, as each of us understands we can do, in order to save those who are left. So we will give our witness. Let them not pay attention to us at all. We will give our witness, nonetheless. There will always be people to find, there will be a remnant, there will be a people of God. There will be “the small flock”, as the Lord said. (Is 11:11) He will watch over it; they will benefit. Let God, beloved, let God be saddened over the new generation and let Him show them mercy.

ΤΕΛΟΣ
ΚΑΙ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΔΟΞΑ

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis, Nov. 26, 2023, from a homily transcription by Ms. Eleni Linardaki and Mr. Athanasios K.

Text source in Greek: Aktines, Nov. 26, 2022, Audio source: Arnion.gr
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GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

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THE PARABLE OF THE RICH FOOL

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “AM I PERHAPS FOOLISH? – The parable of the Rich Fool” on November 22, 1998 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was Abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

AM I PERHAPS FOOLISH? – The parable of the Rich Fool – Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Ninth Sunday of Luke (Luke 12:16-21), Homily Β387

It is a heavy thing for God to characterize you as foolish, my beloved. God praises a man when he is correct, as God wants him to be, but gives the heavy characterization when a man has left the road of doing His will. This He makes clear in the parable of the rich fool which we heard today, beloved, in our gospel passage.

In this parable, the Lord tells us that a certain man’s field had a bumper crop that year, and He indicates that this man was rich. The man was absorbed in thought. He was thinking where he would store his new crops. Do you see? Another care to think about. (You also see the poor having cares. Both the poor and the rich have cares. The one says: “How am I going to eat today?” The other says: “I have so many choices; what am I going to eat today?”) However, the rich man does not think to give away some of last year’s crop to the poor, but decides to gather together whatever he has and store it in new barns.

The characteristic of the rich man in the parable is dreadful self-love, love for himself. This is shown by his manner of speech throughout the parable, by the repetition of “my”. What does he say? “And I will gather up all my fruit and my grain, and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have much good stored up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry’” (Luke 12:18). Do you see? “They are my goods. They are mine.” He did not consider how others were doing, only how I am doing, how I will live well. Not a single thought of giving to the poor, to his neighbor who might presently be in need.

The night on which he had these thoughts of greed, God appears to him in his sleep and says to him: “Fool, tonight your soul is demanded of you (By whom? The demons.); all that you have stored up, whose will they be?” The voice of God is fearful, my beloved. It is fearful also to be called “fool”. God called him “fool”… Can we truly comprehend God saying this to us? Can we comprehend what this means? What is a “fool”? He is the opposite of the prudent man. Foolishness is the opposite of prudence. He is someone without understanding, not prudent. He is foolish. [The word in Greek for foolish, άφρων (ahfron), is composed of the prefix ά- , which negates, and φρήν/φρενός “thinking”, hence “not thinking”, without prudence, foolish.]

It is known that there are four cardinal virtues for man; every other virtue arises from one of these four. (I have spoken many times about these four cardinal virtues in other homilies. It’s ok if we talk about them again, because a homily is not a flowery talk, but a lesson, a catechism; and school teachers say that repetition helps one remember something permanently.) So then, the four cardinal virtues are prudence, temperance [self-control], courage and justice. We also find these virtues mentioned in the Fourth book of Maccabees, verse 18: “There are four kinds of wisdom: prudence, justice, courage and temperance”. We must also say that these four cardinal virtues are found in the wise Ancient Greeks.

Prudence corresponds to thought, to the mind. Those who are prudent use their mind; temperance corresponds to feelings, the heart; courage corresponds to the will; and justice (also called discrimination), on the other side counterbalances the first three. When we say justice, we all think of a scale. The symbol of justice is the scale. It is these, I repeat, which are in equilibrium: prudence, temperance and courage. What does “counterbalance” mean? For one not to be very large and another very small, as with an right triangle, where one leg, prudence for example, is very long and another, courage, is very short. You may have a strong mind and understand many things, yet have no courage. So the virtue of justice counterbalances the other three other virtues, and balance is achieved. This is very very important.

And now we see how foolishness appears, which is what the passage we heard today is about. The delusion “happiness is found in abundance” is created. “I am so happy! My crops produced abundantly! and I still have so much from last year, even from two years ago. And this year, my, what a good crop!” So then, this delusion is created, a delusion, that happiness is found in abundance, “because if I do not have money, I will die miserable’. (St. John Cassian the Roman mentioned that a certain monk acquired money and stashed it under a plank on the floor of his cell, for if I do not have money, I will die miserable.) It is an expression. “I will die miserable.” Pay attention, I will make a distinction (of course I do not say it to my children): “Children, look, this money I have is for my funeral”; or, “Put this shroud (which they buy from the Holy Land), on me for my burial”. We do not mean this. Far from it. They are in no way related.

Voluntary poverty, willing poverty, remedies this. And this voluntary poverty, the Fathers say, is first on the list of virtues. How did the Lord begin the Beatitudes? “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt 5:3). What does this mean? The poor in spirit are those who are poor from choosing to be poor. They want to be poor. They are not fools. They are not stupid. They are not inept for getting rid of money. Why, then, do they wish to be poor? To attain a goal. That is to say, “because I want to work for the Kingdom of God.” This is also why they do not marry. “I am not inept,,” some will say, “test me a little, to see if I am inept.”

So then, “blessed are the poor in spirit” means those who are poor by a deliberate choice, so that “God’s Kingdom will belong to them” (Mt 5:3). If you were to open the collected works of St. Isaac the Syrian, you will see that the first of 80 or 90 homilies are about voluntary poverty. Why? Because it is the starting point of acquiring all the other virtues. Not that a rich man cannot be saved, of course. However the Lord did say that “it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God” (Mt 19:23), because they are deluded from their possessions, from their wealth.1 And then the disciples said: “Who, then, can be saved?” And the Lord said: “What is impossible for man is possible for God”. Yes, a rich man can be saved, the one who gives to the poor, the one who is charitable, whose wealth does not hinder him, whose heart is not attached to material things.

So then, the one who is greedy, the one who amasses, is proud deep down. He has arrogance, of body. The one who chooses not to fast has arrogance of body, not of spirit. Arrogance of body is to say: “I don’t fast because I want to keep my body healthy”. Whereas fasting humbles the body. That is, I humble my body by giving it ordinary food and moderate portions. Fasting, then, breaks the body’s arrogance. A man’s greediness prompted the Lord to speak the parable of the foolish rich man, in order for the greed to be made manifest. He had the dialogue beforehand, [“…speak to my brother, and tell him to divide the inheritance with me.” (v13)], and this offered the occasion for Him to relate the parable.

And He said: “Be careful; guard yourself from every kind of greed; for a man’s life does not consist of his many possessions” (Lk 12:15). It is the delusion I mentioned, that happiness is found in abundance, which motivates a man to be greedy. He is deluded. What is the right amount? The Apostle Paul tells us: “Reverence with contentment” (Heb 13:5, Phil 4:11, 1 Tim 6:8). That is, “be devout and content with what you have. Limit yourself.” The Apostle Paul says, “If we have food and shelter we have enough” (1 Tim 6:8) (shelter includes the clothes we wear and and our house, the roof over our head). We have food to eat. Glory be to God. We should not want to become one of the rich, because those who want to become rich, from all the deceptions that are required, fall into traps and desires, says the Apostle Paul (1 Tim 6:9)2; they pierce their heart [with many sorrows]. Indeed, the rich man has many cares, many more than the poor man, who is content with little and lives on a day’s wage, with almost no cares at all.

Concerning foolishness, I remind you of the saying, “he wasted the help of riches.”3 “Do other people exist?” Yes, my good man. “Are there also other people?” Do you understand what I am saying? “We have our heating, we have our food, we have our table, our clothes.” How many people are there right now in this cold weather who sleep by a river under a bridge! In Paris, the poor sleep under the bridge over the Seine. In London, the poor sleep under the bridge over the Thames. The poor sleep in half-completed buildings and are hungry. Is this not known to everyone? But concerning the poor we will say, “No one can get through to them, they are mentally ill, they don’t understand anything.” And prudence, this marvelous product of the mind, is completely absent, because we are foolish. So they cannot develop charity and a social conscience.

Moreover, in their foolishness the perception is born that “Everyone will die but me”. Mr so-and-so died. “Eh, he died. I didn’t die.” In this way the delusion is created, that “I am the only one who will not die”. Such a man, the fool, puts death out of mind; for him death doesn’t exist. The rich man in the parable did not figure that he might die one day. “Soul,” he said, “you have goods stored up for many years. Your life is in front of you.” And then the surprise came, “this very night your soul is required of you”. Frightening! The emphasis falls on “this very night”, that is, tonight you will die! It happens to all of us, my beloved, we think we will not die. Pay attention to this if you will… there is, of course, a hidden explanation here: God made man to live eternally, and this is the reason he believes he will not die. So we have here a case of I will not die so I can enjoy all of my goods. The mind says: “You will die. This is logical. Everyone dies.” The heart says: “No, you will not die.”

There is yet another delusion. In their foolishness, they cultivate the destructive perspective that there is no life after death. They say: “Who died and came back to tell us there is life after death?” This perception is clearly the suicide of our existence. There is nothing after? You say nothing exists. Is this not suicide? That is, don’t you think you will end up in eternal punishment and in eternal hell? And yet there are many who wish to think: “There is no other life. Life is food and drink. There is nothing after this life”. This is utter materialism. (On the pedestal, my beloved, of the statue of Sennacherib, the last of the Assyrian kings, is inscribed the same law: “Life is to be passed with whatever food, whatever drink, whatever pleasure”, pleasure meaning erotic pleasure of the body. And it seems that Sennacherib was a very much homosexual. A king… and yet he was wearing women’s clothing in front of the people… A dreadful condition!) We hear this erroneous idea: “It is known that there is no other life”, repeated over and over by the press and by the mass media. “What is there beyond? Nothing. Where will we go? Will we go to the stars? We will go to the stars, I know this. After that, what will we do? Nothing.”

The parable continues with the voice of God saying to the foolish rich man: “That which you stored up, whose will it be?” Hmm, indeed, the heir will arrive and say the old expression: “A problem, death is a unexpected problem” [literally, “bean by bean, then death comes”]. That is, a man saves “bean by bean” in order to become wealthy. “A problem, death is a problem… bean soup for the heir!” The heir takes the entire inheritance and eats it up! Indeed, you gather it up, O man, you gather it, but for whom? For your children? For your nephew or niece? For them to consume it all. You gather bean by bean and they will make bean soup, and eat it all at once. How foolish indeed the man is!

But when he feeds on the food of foolishness, of senselessness, then the monster is born, which is called atheism4. The Psalmist speaks about such a fool in Psalm 13: “The foolish man says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (13:1). Who says God does not exist? The foolish man. The man with no sense. Yes. The wasting of the mind gives birth to atheism; because nature, which we all perceive, is like an open book, from which we learn Whose Creation it is. And you say, “God does not exist”? You say everything happened by chance? By chance? By chance? Is there any chance of this? And you say everything began by itself? By itself? A spontaneous beginning? That everything began by itself? You are foolish! Someone will say, “But I am a knowledgeable scientist.” You are foolish! You are a senseless man. The absence of prudence, then, leads also to atheism.

The atheist is senseless in every way to those around him. The atheist does not have “a sane mind”. I put “sane mind” in quotation marks, because they are not crazy for the nuthouse, but they are crazy nevertheless. Foolish. Senseless. Because atheism is irrational. Saint Basil the Great says: “God called him ‘fool’ because he was godless.”

And foolishness today, unfortunately, is very widespread. We must bring this out in the open, if we want to be candid. The Psalmist again says: “The Lord looks down from heaven…” (as if peeking out the window from a higher floor. It is a beautiful image) “…upon the sons of men to see if there are any who have any sense, who search diligently for God. They have all gone astray (they all took a wrong turn somewhere), they are altogether worthless [ἠχρειώθησαν], no one does what is good, not even one”, says King David in Psalm 13.

Beloved, the absence of prudence is greatly lamentable. God gave us the mind to always be oriented toward whatever is true, authentic and beneficial. He loves us, and cries out to us: “Accept correction, lest the Lord be angered and you perish from the way of the just,” He says in Psalm 2. What is this “Correction”? It is one of the many names of the second person of the Holy Trinity. Like the name “Wisdom [Sophia, Σοφία]. So then, He says to us: “Seek Christ, lest the Lord be angered, because He is the One who gives us wisdom”. Indeed. In the book of Proverbs we read: “The one lacking sense turns away from Me” (Prov 1:32). The author of Proverbs speaks in the name of Enhypostatic Wisdom. “He who is senseless”, he says, “let him come close to me and acquire wisdom” (Prov 1:23).

What is wisdom? “Knowledge of the Maker,” says St. Peter the Damascene, “and not only to know the Maker, but also for your mind to be watchful. What must I do? What musn’t I do?” And who gives us prudence? The Enhypostatic Wisdom of God. Then we have true wisdom, and not worldly wisdom like the rich man of the parable. Prudence, most importantly, is that which points to the Kingdom of God. Everything else is relative. Never let foolishness, my beloved, rule our heart. Amen.

ΤΕΛΟΣ
ΚΑΙ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΔΟΞΑ

Saint John Chrysostom: “But having said it was difficult [for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, He proceeds to show that it is even impossible, and not merely impossible, but even in the highest degree impossible, by giving the comparison of the camel and the needle.” Homily 63 on Matthew, New Advent [edited]

“But those who would be rich fall into temptations and snares, and into many senseless acts and desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”

Tertullian: “The endowing of a man indeed with riches, is not an incongruity to God, for by the help of riches even rich men are comforted and assisted; moreover, by them many a work of justice and charity is carried out. But yet there are serious faults which accompany riches; and it is because of these that woes are denounced on the rich, even in the Gospel.” (Against Marcion, Book IV, Chp 15, New Advent)

[αθεΐα, “a-theist” no-god, godless]

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis, Nov. 19, 2023, from a homily transcription by Ms. Eleni Linardaki and Mr. Athanasios K.
We reconstructed a few portions of the text in order for the ideas to make sense in English.

Text source in Greek: Aktines, Audio source: Arnion.gr

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

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THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN – THE CHURCH AS INN, INFIRMARY, ARK OF SALVATION

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “The parable of the Good Samaritan. The Church as Inn, Infirmary, Ark of salvation” on November 15, 1981 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was Abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

The parable of the Good Samaritan. The Church as Inn, Infirmary, Ark of salvation – Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Eighth Sunday of Luke (Luke 10:25-37), Homily Β60

Blessed Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

My beloved, if we only had the parable of the Good Samaritan, which we heard in today’s gospel passage, if only this parable were written down, together with the parable of the Prodigal Son, it would be enough to give us a marvelous outline of man’s fall, God’s love and the salvation of humanity. We see this in today’s parable, especially when it says, a certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. (Jerusalem stands for Paradise of old; and Jericho, the land of misery and apostasy. Falling into the hands of brigands is nothing but the fall of man into the hands of demons and the passions.) Furthermore, the priest and the Levite who approach, come and go, passing him right by, so the ritual law, the law of ethics and their way of life did not help them.

Then the Good Samaritan approaches. He stands for the incarnate Son of God and the compassion of God. He admits to the Inn the wounded man who had fallen into the hands of the brigands. The wounded man stands for humanity and the Inn stands for the Church, which is also an infirmary where one receives treatment and the Ark that saves.

All the emphasis of the parable falls on the person of the Samaritan and the Inn. I beg you to pay attention. The Inn is the Church. As you know, in the old days there was no such thing as a hotel, only the inn; the inn accepted everyone, whether well-dressed or poorly-dressed, rich or poor. If a beggar were to show up at a hotel today, not even a fancy one, he would not be permitted to stay if he is filthy and his clothing is tattered. The inn, however, accepted everyone, not only men and women, but animals as well, because they were travelers passing through, and they had their animals. The animals were led to the stables of the inn and they in the rooms. The inn [πανδοχείο], as its name implies [“παν” (anyone) + “δοχείο” (accepts)], accepted for anyone.

Have you ever really considered the Church to be an Inn that accepts anyone? Consider that it receives people in any condition, whether ragged, filthy or sick, no matter what. In other words, it accepts sinners, no matter what degree of sinner they are. The Church accepts everyone. Her objective is their sanctification, their perfection. As the Apostle Paul says, the Church has no other objective than the perfecting of God’s people (Eph 4:12), than to work out the commandment of God: “Become holy, for I am holy” (Lev 20:7). Whoever enters the Church, enters to become holy. Saint John Chrysostom offers the following very beautiful interpretation:

“Entering this refuge (Christ, that is) and finding humanity defiled, squalid, naked and bloodied, He bathes, anoints, nurtures and clothes it, He who became clothed in humanity receives him, and in this way He brings humanity back.”

Truly, one sees how much love God shows to “bring humanity back”, He picks it up and brings it to the Inn of the Church. The Church admits sinners and releases saints. In the early Church, something very moving was happening. Soon after entering the Church, former idolaters, those formerly unethical, and those who were formerly immoral became saints. Everyone entered from the main gate and went out from another gate of the Church to martyrdom! And they became martyrs! What a beautiful sight! Back then, everyone saw this happening frequently, but it has not happened like this for many years now, so we have only a small glimpse of how sinners were received into the Church and went out as saints and martyrs.

Actually, the Church receives the entire creation. As I said, the Church is an Inn. As an Inn, it does not accept people only, but material elements also. For example, when we celebrate a memorial, we have koliva, and when we celebrate an Artoklasia service, we have sweet bread. At times, we also put flowers in Church. All of these are material things. They represent the Creation. Whatever the Church receives, it sanctifies, in order that the entire creation may be sanctified, to unite everything with Christ, to make it into the Kingdom of God. Truly, the Church is an Inn.

But the Church is also an infirmary, because in this present world the faithful do nothing but battle constantly against the principalities and powers of darkness “in high places”, says the Apostle Paul (Eph 6:12). Consequently, the present life is nothing but an unending battlefield. Here battles are against wicked people and the wicked demons, but also against our former evil, corrupt and unjust self. Following every battle there are always injured, there are injuries and wounds. Those who are wounded in their battles, from their struggle and effort, arrive at the infirmary of the Church in order for them to be treated.

The Church is an infirmary. How beautiful! Consider how in the ancient world there were no hospitals. The inns took on the special function, as did the ancient Pagan temples, but had the essential features we know today, since there were no infirmaries. The Church emerged and stood out as the true infirmary both for souls, and no less, for bodies. Because when the Lord sends out His disciples, and through His disciples their successors, to heal all those who were sick among the people, this shows that the Church is nothing else but an infirmary, a clinic.

What medicines does she use? her wonderful medicines? They are the two denarii which the Good Samaritan gives to the innkeeper (who stands for the priest), saying: “Use these to heal my friend who is very sick, my greatly wounded friend (humanity)”. They are His word [λόγος] and the Sacraments. With these two denarii, the word of God and the Sacraments of the Church are are used by the Church, my beloved, to heal. Many times people say to me: “How can I get well? What must I do?” And I reply: “Come to Church and listen to the word of God”. I tell them this because I have seen it happen. It is a reality. Those who continuously and attentively listen to the word of God cultivate their soul, and their wounds, which they acquired because of their sins, heal. They stop sinning. These medicines, my beloved, are very very effective. The word of God and the Sacraments: Confession, Holy Communion, prayer… All of these are the means by which the Church treats her wounded faithful.

The Church is also an Ark of salvation. You remember the old story of Noah and his ark (Gen. 7:9). Whatever remained outside the ark was drowned. Whatever remained inside the ark was protected and saved. This is also how it is with the Ark of the Church, my beloved. (We know the ark of old was a prefigurement [τύπος] of the Church.) Whoever remains outside perishes. How do they perish? From the streams and flood of ideas and sights and obscenities and various sins. Every person perishes. It is impossible for anyone to be saved outside the Church. Only those who are in the Church are protected, these only are saved.

However, when we say “I am in the Church”, be careful here. We will remove a misunderstanding which people may have. When we say “I am in the Church” we do not mean I am in the temple. The temple is called “Church” by connotation, because the faithful are inside the temple. Therefore, to be in the Church does not mean that I am inside the temple, because I can be inside the temple, but not participate in God’s Sacraments, and if this is the case, then I am an outsider, I am estranged from the saving elements which Christ has given me. Someone will say “I am in the Church”, “I am a member”, as the Apostle Paul says “we are members of the Body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27), but I am a member only when I am organically attached to the Body of Christ. This is what Church is.

The Church is the Body of Christ. Only when I commune of the Body and Blood of Christ and keep the commandments of God can I say that I am in the Church. Remember what the Lord says: “Whoever does not remain united with Me, as a branch to the vine, the trunk of the vine, and I am this trunk, does not bear fruit, but dries up and is gathered to be burned” (Jn. 15:6). This means that we must be belong organically, as a branch is connected to the trunk of the vine, and is given juice. So also must I be united with Christ, be a member of the Body of Christ, to have these juices of life, His Body and His Blood, flowing through me, which are, for me, life eternal. Only then can I say that I am in the Church, otherwise I am not. Do not be deceived.

If I try to fool myself, that I am a chanter or a council member or a groundskeeper of the Church, but do not receive Holy Communion, do not be deceived, I am outside the Church. Even if I am under the roof the Church, I am outside the Ark. I will be carried away by the flood and I will not be saved.

My beloved, I have been a priest for a number of years. Rarely, very rarely do I see chanters and council members receiving communion and going to confession. Why they do not, I do not know. It is not the time for me to tell you why, but I have learned this much and I have confirmed it: The chanters and the council members do not participate in the Sacraments of the Church.

At some point, at the Judgment, what the Lord told us will happen will happen with them: “Lord, didn’t You speak in our squares? Didn’t You come to our house to eat?” (Lk 13:26-27) In other words, the council members and the chanters and whoever else will say: “Lord, didn’t You come to us in the person of the priest and of the bishop to preach to us in the temple? Didn’t we take You home and offer You hospitality? Didn’t we set a fine table for You? How is it that You say You do not know us?” “I assure you,” the Lord says, “I do not know you, you workers of iniquity. Get out of here.” (Lk 13:27) Did you hear what the Lord said? It is frightful. Away with the deceptions, my beloved, away with the delusions. Only if I am repentant, only if I become a communicant of the Body and Blood of Christ, only if I am worthy as much as humanly possible, only if I keep the commandments of God, only then can I say that I am in the Church. Only then can I maintain the hope that I will be saved. Only then. But know this much, “outside the Church there is no salvation”, St. Cyprian of Carthage says clearly (Epistle 72, 21).

My beloved, we have seen that the Church is the great workshop of sanctification, the Inn which receives the rational and irrational creation to sanctify them, to make them incorruptible, to make them immortal, to lead them to the bliss of God. We have also seen that the Church is a marvelous infirmary and the true Ark which saves.

But let us close with these marvelous words of Holy Saint John Chrysostom: “Do not separate from the Church; there is no bastion other than the Church. Your hope? The Church. Your salvation? The Church. Your refuge? The Church.”

ΤΕΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΔΟΞΑ

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis, Nov. 11, 2023, from a homily transcription by Ms. Eleni Linardaki and Mr. Athanasios K.

Text source in Greek: Aktines, Audio source: Arnion.gr

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THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS PSYCHOANALYZED

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: Two Psychological Studies” on November 4, 1995 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was the former abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

The Rich Man and Lazarus psychoanalyzed – Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Fifth Sunday of Luke (Luke 16:19-31), Homily Β323

Blessed Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus which we heard in today’s Gospel passage, my beloved, is a fictional story, which the Lord told as a reply to the Pharisees.

The Evengelist Luke notes: “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things; and they ridiculed Him.” (Lk. 16:14). (They ridiculed Him every time He spoke about voluntary poverty.) “And He said to them: ‘You are ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what is esteemed by men is an abomination before God. (Lk. 16:15) The Lord also told this parable to show them that they should not boast about their riches, their honor, their nobility, etc., because the scenery changes after death, the dwelling place changes. He also said that there are two dwelling places. One on Earth, this present life. The other in Heaven, after death. It is from here precisely that the Lord develops this parable.

As always, every word of the Lord is of great significance. With this parable, He does not want to teach just one thing, but also other things from other angles. The word of God is never exhausted. It is significant to note that, in every age, more and more is perceived in Holy Scripture, there is always something new to discover, an answer to offer us. Let us offer, then, a psychoanalysis of the two persons in the parable, beginning first with the rich man.

The Evangelist writes: “There was a man who was very rich, he wore fine linen dyed in purple and who feasted sumptuously every day. (19) (Purple was the color of kings in those days and was very expensive. The fine linen was an exclusive type of cotton from Egypt, certainly very expensive in those days also.) A rich man, like all rich men, this one included, lives well and is involved in politics. Exactly how this rich man acquired his wealth is not mentioned in the parable. Perhaps by fraud. Perhaps honorably. But this has no bearing here. His sin is not that he is rich, because God is also rich. And Abraham, who will enter as a third party in this parable, was not simply rich, but super rich. However, at no time in his life did Abraham ever make the acquisition of wealth the goal of his life, and because he did not make this the goal of his life, consequently, he was not attached to earthly wealth.

In his letter to the Hebrews, the Apostle tells us that Abraham “looked for a city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). Which city is this, whose architect and builder is God? It is the Kingdom of God. That is, he lived on Earth but his mind was in Heaven. He accepted, received and awaited the Kingdom of God. We read elsewhere that he acquired no land at all, not even a piece the size of his foot (Acts 7:5). Why not? Because Abraham was always saying that he was a foreigner and a sojourner (Gen 23:4) – not in the land of Canaan, where God told him to settle permanently (Gen 17:8) – but in this present world. It is remarkable that we find Abraham in a parable where the Lord said he was in Paradise. This is what is remarkable: Truly, Abraham had gained Paradise.

We could say that He used the structure of the parable to open a dialogue between two wealthy men, Abraham and the rich man, who, after death, certainly did not go to Paradise, but to Hades. “A great chasm,” Abraham says, “has been established between you and us. We can neither go to you, neither can you come to us” (26). It is astounding. This dialogue between Abraham and the rich man in the parable shows that wealth is not something evil in and of itself, but rather, one’s attitude toward the wealth. Since the goal in life for a rich man is to acquire wealth, whatever wealth he may acquire, naturally, is for him to enjoy – all the good things in life.

First, he felt the need for a sense of security… As it is says in another parable, “I have much good stored up for many years” (Lk. 12:19). A rich man always has this feeling of security, because he has lots of money. Whether he is hungry or whatever else he might encounter, everything will go his way, because he has the money. (This is, of course, a delusion, because wealth comes and goes. Money is most unreliable. It changes hands with great ease; it leaves my pocket and goes into someone else’s.) This is how a rich man has a sense of security. He desires to be rich in order to feel secure.

He also wants to enjoy the comforts riches provide, to live “the good life”, to eat and drink well. Living this life, what does he say? “Everything is going well.” How does he feel? “Everything is for me.” Thus, little by little, an egocentric personality forms in a rich man, and the world must revolve around him. In the egocentric man there is no room for anyone else, not even God Himself. To the contrary, God must revolve around the him, to grant his every wish.

This is how a rich man seeks God: He makes his cross, he lights a candle, to assure himself that he is in God’s favor, for him not not to lose his possessions. You see, then, a person whose religiousness is self-seeking, whose religiousness is, in the eyes of God, of course rejected.

How does he think? Like one of the boys today who expect money from his father. I heard one boy say to another: “Look, your dad has to give you money for bringing you into this world!” It is the same with the foolish rich man. What does he say? “God is obligated to give me good things.” Moreover, he also becomes the hedonistic type. St. Theophylacht comments:

Not only was the rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, but he enjoyed every other delight; he feasted, not now and then, but every single day! And not in moderation, but sumptuously.”

St. Theophylacht renders “sumptuously” [λαμπρῶς] as “prodigal and extravagant”. And what is a hedonist essentially? A materialist; an idol worshiper. He worships what is material; he worships the flesh.

It follows that he is a heartless man. He does not take any interest in how someone else is doing. Really, how long was poor Lazarus outside the gate of his house? A very long time. He was not moved, even though he saw him every day from his window and from the balcony of his house, eating the crumbs his servants shook off his tablecloth. He was not moved.

A heartless man is also uncommunicative. He does not have relationships. He is self-centered. Many times, in order to reassure his conscience, he practices traces of religiousness.The rich man in the parable recognizes his ancestor Abraham from Hades and seeks his mercy, shouting, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me!” Of course, there is no way for him to be helped. He did, then, have natural love, but only for his brothers, his close relatives, by showing concern for them not to end up in that place of torment; there was love, but it was limited, only for his relatives. For poor Lazarus, whom he saw there every day on the other side of his gate, he showed no compassion at all, nor love. You see, then, that he did have a trace of humanity. Unfortunately, it was not able to save him.

His life was a portrait of arrogance. His presence certainly provoked the poor. He is an example of what is said in the Psalms, “It is the rich who make the poor burn” (Ps. 9:23). It is this fire of jealousy that makes the poor envy and wish evils for those who enjoy the good things wealth provides, while he himself has nothing to eat. “They burn the poor”, it says.

And what is especially noteworthy in this story is this: The rich man has no name. What does it say? The learned Holy Chrysostom comments:

“And where do we find the name of the rich man? Nowhere. He is nameless. How rich he was! yet his name is nowhere to be found…”

Another interpreter, St. Theophylacht, says,

“The man was unworthy of being given a name by God.”

And something more from a third interpreter:

“It is written about evil-doers: ‘…do not let their names pass through my lips when I remember them.’” (Ps. 15:4b)

God knows all things, yet this is what He says: “I do not wish to remember” (of course God cannot forget; it is an expression). We also use this expression: “I don’t ever want to hear his name again!” And we say with contempt another expression: “I don’t want to have anything to do with him”. This is what God is saying: “I do not want to remember the name of this sinner, nor will I even mention his name with my lips”. So then, the rich man in the parable is nameless. That is, he had no personhood, for a name is what makes a person.

And now we come to the personality of the poor man Lazarus. The parable provides a sufficient description of him. He was poor. Whether he was born into poverty or not, we do not know. In any case, he was not poor from prodigal living, because there is a certain reverence in his character. (It happens many times that the poor are isolated from society because of their poverty, without them being responsible, of course, for their poverty.)

What makes this poor man a person is that he was given a name. He was called Lazarus. And the name “Lazarus” has a meaning: “God is my help” (Ps. 17:3, Ps. 61:8). Someone may ask: Since God was his help, why didn’t He deliver him out of poverty? Why didn’t He heal his sores, which it says “he was covered with”? Why not? I have said it before and I will say it again: We must change our understanding about what divine help is.

Divine help does not mean for God to take away my poverty, to take away my sickness, or to change my adverse situations. God’s help is, rather, to help me endure all these things, that I might see the face of God. This is what it means to be helped, to be saved. St. Theophylacht also comments: “The poor man’s name is remembered”. And do you know that it is the only name given in all the parables? It is a unique case.

Allow me to open a brief parenthesis, because a parable has many interpretations. You know that another Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was risen from the dead after being dead for four days. Not only did the Jews not believe, they even called a council together to prevent the miracle of Jesus Christ from being made known, because, it says, all of Judea went to Bethany to see Lazarus who had been resurrected (Jn 12:9). And the wretched ones plotted to murder Lazarus also. (Jn. 12:10) Did they believe? No. This is why the Lord gave the name in this parable, as if He wanted to say to the Jews: “Lazarus was resurrected, and you did not believe.”

The parable continues and builds up another aspect. Abraham says to him, “My child, if they do not accept Moses and the Law and the Prophets, they are not going to believe, even if someone resurrected from the dead goes to warn them.”

Lazarus was resurrected. The Lord worked this miracle for them. They saw the resurrected man. Did they believe? Perhaps they might have said,“Do it again, in front of us this time,” as they premeditated His murder.

Christ gave them a reply. He used a parable which consisted of a poor man at the gate of a rich man’s house, and composed an animated dialogue with the rich landowner. Beside sitting there, the poor man offered no other testimony. He did not protest for equality. He did not insult the rich man. He did not seek to enjoy the kind of life inside his mansion. Not once did he ever lift his fist (the contemporary symbol of social equality). He never had enough food; all he ate was the rich man’s table scraps, which he picked out of the trash. What does this show? He had great humility. And not only was he poor, but sick as well, covered with sores. His condition is why he was isolated by society. They despised him. He was covered with open sores. The stray dogs were his companions. Only the dogs showed a friendly disposition toward him.

It appears that poverty puts one closer to the Creator. It shows us a way to live that is in accord with man’s nature. A child who is poor gets dirty playing outside. This is closer to his nature than whatever games a rich kid may play. Wealth, if you think about it, pushes a human being away from natural human behavior. Poverty brings a man closer to what is natural. His food is also more natural, and his behavior is more natural. Wealth creates an artificial world, a phony world.

In poor Lazarus, however, we find a desirable virtue, holy silence! In holy silence, which has much to say, we discover the mystery of the human person. We see the Lord also keeping silent. “Do you not answer me?”, Pilate said to Him. “But He was silent” (Mk. 14:61), precisely because he had much to say. The one who is silent has much to say.

Finally, the presence of the poor man sitting across from the rich man was a challenge to wealth, a challenge which should have left an impression on the rich man, making him feel ashamed; he should have covered his face before Lazarus’ poverty. When shame is absent, the challenge appears.

Today, beloved, with this parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Lord shows us two personalities, concerning two stations in life, two different attitudes toward God and fellow human beings. Having these in front of us, we should reflect on ourselves. As we said, neither wealth nor poverty are good in and of themselves. They simply offer two opportunities for a man to improve his character.

Being poor and being wealthy are two different stations in life that create their own dynamic, we could say, whereby a human being can show concern and genuine human love for others. The difference in stations is not to blame, but social confinement, which breeds hostile relations, murder, hate and war. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is, my beloved, a thumbnail sketch of two personalities; we must study them and learn how we must behave before God and man.

Translated by Anthony Hatzidakis and Fr.E.H., Nov. 6, 2023, from a homily transcription by Ms. Eleni Linardaki and Mr. Athanasios K.

Text in Greek: Aktines, Audio source: Arnion.gr

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THE PHENOMENON OF DEMONIC POSSESSION

Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios of blessed memory (+2006) delivered this homily “The phenomenon of demonic possession” on October 20, 1996 at the Holy Monastery Komneniou in Larisa, Greece, where he was the former abbot. The homily was delivered in a free manner and recorded live. Most of the scriptural quotations are not direct quotations.

The phenomenon of demonic possession – Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios

Sixth Sunday of Luke (Luke 8:26-39), Homily Β346
The demon-possessed man (Luke 8: 5-15)

We are filled with fear, my beloved, every time we hear a gospel passage that refers to demons and the victims of demons, those who are demon-possessed.

The Lord passed by the eastern shore of Lake Gennesaret, precisely to meet this man, described in today’s gospel passage as “demon-possessed”. And He freed him. The evangelist John writes: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8) The work of the devil is to possess both created things and man, and to prevent God’s intervention. An irrational creation that is demonically possessed always destroys itself. Case in point, the demonic possession of the two thousand pigs that choked to death in the lake.

There are various kinds of demonic possession of a man, such as the possessed man in today’s Gospel passage who lived alone outside in the countryside like an animal, to the demon possessed Gerasenes who did not want the Lord to visit them, to the demon possessed swineherds who practiced a profession not permitted by God.

Anything that takes us away or keeps us away from Christ is demonically possessed. Everything that is not close to Christ. The Lord said: “He who is not with Me is against Me.” (Lk 11:23) There is no third category. Either you are with Christ or you are not. Everything that opposes Christ is also demonically possessed.

Man, beloved, is created in the image of Christ and has no reason to be far from Christ. We assumed His form, based on the form that He would become, embrace and clothe His creation with. He took the form that He had earlier given to us. … That is, He did not become what Adam was, but Adam became what Christ was, what the Logos of God was when he became human. Therefore, man’s estrangement from Christ is an unnatural condition, it is demonic. Since we have this relation to Christ, but do not approach our relative, our behavior is unnatural.

Once the first-formed man and woman put their faith in the devil, they turned away from God. In other words, they believed the deceptive words of the devil and did not believe what God said: “You are not to eat from this tree. If you eat its fruit, you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). Of course their death was primarily spiritual, and much later, physical. From the time they believed the devil, they became his property. That is why “the whole world”, as the evangelist John tells us, “lies on the ground in wickedness” (1 Jn 5:19). The mentality of the world, its way of life, is in the hands of the devil. Frightful! Now, in order for man to be freed from the devil, he must return and believe in the divine-human person of Christ. This is how it has always happened and how it must always happen.

The purest expression of demonic possession is idolatry, i.e. the worship of creation, in which the devil hides behind. Let us not forget that idolatry is making a comeback. Can you believe it? The Logos of God tells us this will happen in the book of Revelation.

The angel who guides, so they told John the Evangelist in the mysteries of the future and the present, who sees a beast, the dragon, and the angel says to him: “Why do you marvel? … The beast which you saw, was, and is not, and shall come up out of the bottomless pit and go into destruction.” (Rev 17:7-8). The beast is the idolatry that prevails, it is an expression, as I told you before, of the dominion of Satan.

When Christ came and walked among us, people began to believe in the Christ. Therefore the beast of idolatry was no more. But the beast will return, but he won’t last for long. He will go to perdition, to the abyss, that is, when idolatry returns – did you catch what I said? – idolatry will return, and when it returns, the end of time is not far away. Therefore the return of idolatry is a sign that the end of time is near.

Demonic possession refers to the whole person, but sometimes only in the body, as shown with Job who was wounded physically. They dominated Job’s body. When the devil asked the Lord if he could tempt Job, He said to him: “He is in your hand. Just spare his life” (Job 2:5-6). Sometimes demonic possession is only in the soul, like the Gerasenes who did not accept Christ. “Please, leave!” (Luke 8:37) For he had gone to their city to preach. They were frightened. And the Lord entered the boat and left. Yes, demonic possession exists. Demonic possession in the soul.

Unbelief, or atheism, may not sound like something crazy is being done, but it is the height of demonic possession. It gives birth to the demonic possession of the soul. And these are not small matters, of course. Demonic possession of the soul is demonic rule over the powers of the soul. What are the “powers of the soul?” Mind, feeling, will, and these constitute the personality of man, his self-awareness, what we call “I”. These powers are how I know that I am myself and not someone else, my person, the self, my personal me. Demonic possession goes so far as covering up the human “I”. It is, in other words, a cover-up, so to speak, of the personality. What did the possessed man say when he was asked by the Lord “What is your name?” He did not say, “My name is so-and-so.” But he said, “Legion.” Why? The demons were speaking… My beloved, it is a fearful thing. Let me put it another way: Man “loses” his personality. Why do I put this in quotation marks? Because when the Lord healed the possessed man, the man found himself again, he found his self, he found his personality. So mind, will and feeling are fettered by the devil.

Finally, sometimes demonic possession refers to the body and the soul. That is, the whole person.

But what demonizes a man? Unbelief and all sin. These two things. Idolatry, to be precise, if you were indeed baptized. Please pay attention to the Baptismal service and see how the Church casts out demons. The priest says: “Depart”, with the Catechumen facing west, “and never enter God’s creature again.”

Then there are the so-called “Eastern religions” which are expressions of idolatry. Buddhism, Hinduism, etc… all of them. They use magic. Magic is a central element of paganism, with psychics and mediums.

And there is also demonic music, music that only serves to divert the attention of our young people away from God, for them to be entertained.

Then there is blasphemy. Blasphemy in a broad sense is demonic possession. There is the usual blasphemy of God, that which we hear with our ears in the streets, and there is also heresy, which is also a form of blasphemy, the blaspheming of God by saying that Jesus Christ is not consubstantial with the Father, or that the Holy Spirit is an energy of God and is not a person. When the heretics, chiliasts and other heretics say these things, they blaspheme. The sins of the flesh are also blasphemy, because the human body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In general, every sin that persists, which is not eradicated with repentance is blasphemy.

Finally, it is blasphemy when one receives Holy Communion having grave sins or when one disbelieves the reality of the Holy Eucharist.

When we go to receive, we renew our confession of faith at the last minute. We say, “I believe that this is truly Your most pure Body and that this is truly Your precious Blood.” Of course, our senses do not tell us this, because it is a mystery. We sense wine and bread. In reality, however, it is the Body and Blood of Christ. This is why the Apostle Paul says, What forgiveness will a man receive, if he receives the Body and Blood of Christ unworthily, when he considers it not to be the Body and Blood of Christ? (1 Cor 11:27) It is with this confession of faith that he receives forgiveness. So there is no forgiveness for the man who does not believe. There are chilling examples of this from the Church Fathers but in modern times as well. Someone will receive Holy Communion, step back two meters, fall to the ground, foam at the mouth, and get beaten up. Why? Because he was possessed, my beloved, because he communed without believing.

And what are the symptoms of demonic possession? Today’s Gospel passage tells us that this demon-possessed man was not wearing any clothes. He had taken them off. In our modern society today, nudism is in fashion, in every season. Don’t they stop to consider that they become a scandal to the children of God, to the people of God? The women just don’t put a brake on this trend. This is demonic possession. The man in the gospel passage, it says, did not dress.

Because God made, it says, leathern tunics and clothed the first-formed man and woman. Why? Because their simplicity [child-like-ness] was destroyed. So there is always a need for clothing. If we wear no clothing, we take off the garment of God gave us, and we scandalize other people.

For example, in His letter to the bishop of Pergamum, the Lord says: “I have something against you, because you hold there the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cause scandal before the children of Israel and eat idolatrous things and commit fornication.” (Rev 2:12-17) So here we have those who keep the teaching of the Nicolaitans in the same way. (Rev 2:6). Balak was a king of the Moabites. He saw the Jews approaching from the desert, two-million of them. He says, “What am I going to do; They will devour my city. They will lick me like a cow licks grass” (Num 22:4). And the King called for a magician from Persia (the king’s name was Balaam), and he says to him: “I want you to curse them for me!” but he didn’t catch anything; this happened three times), so He said to him: “I will tell you what to do: Make ceremonies (they were the ceremonies of Beelthegor) and invite the Jews to the feasts” (so they would sacrifice to the idols and then, as the pagan festivals usually were, they would indulge in feasts and fornication). “And then God,” he says, “will turn away from them,” and Balak did this, and twenty-three thousand men were slain that day! It is a frightful story. It is in the book “Numbers” in the Old Testament (Num 22).

What did he say? “In order to succeed, for God to punish them.” Here too, he also says, “You have the Nicolaitans, who show their nakedness and their fornications” (Nicolaitanism was eroticism. Eroticism today? Rampant in the streets, rambunctious! You see? Scandal!)

Furthermore, this possessed man did not live in a house. Demonic possession is also, to give an example, when people, even young men and women, leave their houses in the morning to go to Larissa square to watch the pedestrians walk by on a nice day. If it’s not a nice day, they sit inside, along the street, both young men and women, idle, not doing any work.

Hey girl, don’t you have any work at home? So why did you go out this morning? You, my dear, don’t you have anything to do?

And you see them cross-legged, sipping their little coffee, puffing their little cigarette, etc. The pedestrian streets of Larissa are full. What does this show? People don’t stay at home to make a little progress in life, but go out (and I don’t mean on an errand, for something legitimate). This is happening every day.

And what else does it say? That this possessed man lived in the tombs. He did not live at home. At that time the graves were little caves on the hillsides, etc. The youth of today are graves of sin; places of spiritual necrosis. They frequent all the various dens of sin. Cafes, nightclubs, etc. characterized by the Holy Bible, my beloved, as “places of death and treasuries of hell”. This is where they go…

So we have demonic possession in this wider sense, in every age and especially in our age. Beloved, the phenomenon of demonic possession is terrible. Beholding the possessed man in today’s Gospel passage should be enough to convince us. Go and re-read the passage. See what a miserable man he was. Yes, today people exhibit demonic behaviors, especially many of our young people.

We have said that two things demonize a man. Unbelief and sin. Let us be careful. Let us hold the gates of the soul closed to passions and alienation from God. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. It is enough to belong exclusively to our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Translation, editing and emphases by Anthony Hatzidakis from a transcription by Ms. Eleni Linardaki and Mr. Athanasios K.

Greek text source: Aktines, Audio source: Arnion.gr

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Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PARABLE OF THE RICH FOOL

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN – THE CHURCH AS INN, INFIRMARY, ARK OF SALVATION

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PHENOMENON OF DEMONIC POSSESSION

Were the Disciples deceived, deceiving others or telling the truth? ChatGPT weighs in.

PRISON SCIENCE 101: Selections from the Gulag Archipelago

THE NEED FOR CATECHIZING GOD’S PEOPLE

Articles for author: Elder Athanasios Mitilinaios

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

WHAT WILL I BUILD ON MY FOUNDATION?

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

MAN AND HIS BOUNDARIES

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE DENIAL OF PENTECOST IS CALLED “GLOBALIZATION”

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE ICON: ITS IMPORTANCE TO ORTHODOXY

Why the issue of the Icon is central

Characteristics of the Icon

Ordering our publications helps us to continue translating and publishing new material for you. Have you read our book on the human nature of Christ: Jesus: Fallen? The Human Nature of Christ Examined from an Eastern Orthodox Perspective

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE SELF-KNOWLEDGE OF THE PUBLICAN

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

TODAY’S YOUTH AND ASPIRATIONS

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PARABLE OF THE RICH FOOL

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN – THE CHURCH AS INN, INFIRMARY, ARK OF SALVATION

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS PSYCHOANALYZED

GIVING WITNESS TO THE TRUE CHURCH

Orthodox Christians all over the world have received the unchanging Christian Faith, passed down from the Holy Apostles to their successors, and continue to practice it today in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church.

THE PHENOMENON OF DEMONIC POSSESSION

Ordering our publications helps us to continue translating and publishing new material for you.
Have you read our book on the human nature of Christ: Jesus: Fallen? The Human Nature of Christ Examined from an Eastern Orthodox Perspective