"It has been calculated astronomically that the distance from the Earth to the Sun is one hundred and fifty million versts (approximately 160 million km)."

"Icons are the Church's response to the crying need of our nature."

"Love without thinking: love is simple. Love will never make a mistake."

"The Liturgy is a supper, a meal of God's love for the human race."

"The Lutherans say: “Why should we ask for the prayers of the saints for ourselves? We ask God Himself”—and they contradict themselves: for why do they ask the pastor to pray for them? They would pray without a pastor if everyone had the same access to God and there was no need for sanctified intercessors for us. — What blindness! — They say: by praying to the saints, we are idolaters. That is not true. We do not honor a single saint as God, we do not pray to a single saint as God, but only ask for his prayers for us; is there even a shadow of idolatry here? — Just as we ask living ministers and intercessors for us before God to pray for us, so we also ask the heavenly intercessors, who have great boldness before Him due to their love for God; moreover, many of them were intercessors and advocates for the world before God even here on Earth; there, in heaven, their activity only continues, has larger dimensions, and is especially strong, because it is not hindered by heavy and sluggish flesh. — All the saints, although they have finished their earthly course, are alive: “For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him” (Luke 20:38)."

"Leo Tolstoy and writers like him, whose number is countless, have appeared and live on Earth to cloud and corrupt with their godlessness, faithlessness, and anarchy the multitude of people who follow them and read their blasphemous writings. Lord, destroy them from the Earth or turn them to faith, humble their demonic pride!"

"The life of the heart is love; its death is malice and enmity against a brother."

"Mercy is to love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, to those who assault you, to those who persecute you, to protect the persecuted, and so on."

"A neighbor is a being equal to me, the same human as I, the very image of God."

"At night, our soul is free from worldly vanity, and therefore the spiritual world can freely act upon it, and it can freely accept its impressions."

"Faith is the key to God's treasury."

"Forced prayer develops sanctimony."

"The flesh flourishes, but the soul withers."

"The science of sciences is to conquer the sin that lives in us."

"Always consider it a great blessing to converse in prayer with the Lord, or with the Most Pure Lady, the Mother of God, or with Angels, or with holy people, and pray to Them always with joy and with a tremble of reverence, remembering with Whom you, an unclean and insignificant worm, are speaking."

"The character of people in the second half of the 19th century is self-worship, self-legislation (autonomy), materialism in life, and spiritual skepticism (unbelief)."

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

"The body is only the material shell of the soul, its house."

"The Church is eternal truth, because it is united with Truth—Christ—and is animated by the Spirit of Truth."

"To repent means to feel in your heart the falsehood, madness, and guilt of your sins—it means to realize that you have offended your Creator, Lord, Father, and Benefactor, who is infinitely holy and infinitely disgusted by sin—it means to desire with all your soul to correct and atone for them."

"Churches are spiritual schools, clinics, places of enlightenment, rest stops for travelers to heaven, houses of charity where we are shown the greatest benefits and divine assistance to prepare us for settling in heaven."

"Democracy is in hell, and in heaven, it is the Kingdom."

"The Church is truly an earthly paradise."

"Consider all sweetness as sweepings and filth; do not love anything earthly, do not pity anything earthly for a person, and do not hold enmity against him for anything. Love seeks to please the beloved and to value nothing for his sake."

"Conscience in people is nothing other than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men."

"Caprice is the germ of heart decay, the rust of the heart, the moth of love, the seed of malice, an abomination to the Lord."

"All the saints will be witnesses to the salvific nature of the Christian faith against all our learned secular ignoramuses who pride themselves on their false education, against all non-Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and especially against those who are only called Orthodox Christians but have long since changed their faith in practice. That is why martyrs are called “witnesses” in Greek. Remember, Christian, how many witnesses will be against you at the judgment of Christ."

"All Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:26), all Israel, that is, the true Israelites, like Nathanael, of whom the Lord said: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (John 1:47). These are the Israelites who will be saved. The majority of Jews, because of their cunning and countless unrepented evil deeds, will perish. Change quickly with a good change, every Christian, as long as the doors of God’s mercy are not closed to you. Do works of mercy, while it is day; the night is coming, when no one can work (John 9:4)."

"Demon-possessed individuals are peaceful until they are brought close to a sacred object. When they are, an extraordinary force, a repulsion from the sacred, blasphemy, spitting on the sacred, and a piercing scream emerge from them."

"The devil is such an evil needle that at all times and everywhere it climbs into your heart's eyes, clouding and suppressing them; it is such a poisonous dust that constantly floats in our mental atmosphere and settles caustically on the heart, eating away at it and drilling it."

"Thought in God corresponds to the Father, words to the Son, and deeds to the Holy Spirit, who completes everything."

"Avarice is from the devil, generosity is from God."

"Arius, the heretic, reduced the Creator to the rank of creatures and did not recognize Him as consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, a single Being with Him and the Holy Spirit."

"Adam and Eve ruined themselves through gluttony."

"Envy in a Christian is madness."

"Superficial prayer is hypocrisy, blasphemy, vain prayer."

"The soul of the first person is from God, and from Him are all the souls of subsequent people; all are the breath of His Divine Spirit."

"The soul is a house, passions are fire."

"Sorrows are a great teacher."

"Sweets, money—are worse than ordinary dust, sweepings, because they clutter the soul, while ordinary sweepings only clutter the body, clothing, or a room."

"Hashem teaches that even prophets made mistakes, as only God is infallible by nature. However, Jesus and Muhammad made only minor occasional mistakes and Muhammad, his daughter Fatimah[, and] the Twelve Imams can be called inherently infallible, and the Twelve Mahdis, including the Qaim/Riser, are in the category of “earned infallibility.” This does not mean that the covenant of Muhammad is still in force, and at any rate we do not know the integrality of his teachings, as the Quran that we have today is incomplete and corrupted."

"Hashem and his followers referred to an old prophecy that they applied to the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. This prophecy, which circulated widely amongst the Shiites, indicated that the Imam al-Mahdi should appear after the death of a King of Hejaz (i.e., Saudi Arabia) called Abdullah, identified by certain signs. According to Shia sources, Prophet Muhammad prophesied that “Hejaz will be ruled by a man whose name is the name of an animal, if you see him from far, you will think he is cross-eyed, and if you come close to him, you do not see anything (wrong) in his eyes. He will be succeeded by a brother of his, named Abdullah… Whoever guarantees for me the death of Abdullah, I guarantee for him the Riser/Qaim.” The AROPL notes that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia had the name of an animal (Fahd meaning “leopard”) and had the eye problem described in the prophecy. He died in 2005 and was succeeded by his brother Abdullah, who died in turn on January 23, 2015. Abdullah Hashem advanced his claims immediately after this event."

"I remember 14 years ago, I fell into prostration to God and submitted myself and said:"

"“I am a messenger to you from Imam Al-Mahdi”"

"Even the most elementary research reveals that Paul derived his titles for Christ from Jewish messianic expectation. Confrontation with Rome was an unforeseen consequence."

"Sh. Abdullah’s sons were not priests and did not aim for that office. One of them worked for the national Iran Oil Company. Twenty-three years later, on my second trip to the Mandaeans in Ahwaz, the yalufa Sh. Salem Choheili told me that Sh. Abdullah — who had long since died — had appeared to him in a dream, asking why his son had tied up all the sheikh’s books and texts with rope and put them in a box. There, hidden and subject to decay, the texts were weeping. Sh. Choheili had then told the man’s sister about his dream, asking her to inquire on the matter with her brother. A suggestion was put forth: the next time I come visiting, I ought to bring money to pay the son, so that I could inspect the books to see if they are still all right."

"I begin to sense Sh. Salem’s status, the respect he enjoys in the community. Several days later, in fact, I ask him why he didn’t become a priest. He answers, “Then, I could not work with someone like you.” I understand his mediating role; he does not have to abide by the priestly, strict rules for interaction with outsiders."

"I love poets who bring together poetry and life in all its motion: Neruda, Forché, Cardenal, Dugan, Bishop"