Saints Of The Eastern Orthodox Church

"We renounce the law of the flesh along with the passions and desires."

"Only through self-denial can we be saved."

"The true will is the will of the spirit, which is the desire for the good."

"In the Kingdom of God the old man who is corrupted by sin cannot enter. For this reason, he must strip himself of the old man along with the passions and desires and be clothed in “the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”"

"The grace of God, despite being infinite, does not save on its own, because He does not wish to violate the free agency of man."

"It is necessary for us to will our salvation so as to seek it."

"We should regulate those passions rationally and lead them with authority and hold the reins ... in no way enduring the subjugation of our free agency."

"We should employ even the irrational passions with rationality."

"The aesthetic nature is unfree because it is moved by something else and does not move according to its own will."

"The intellectual nature is self-motivating and thus free."

"The being who is unfree and dependent, subjected to instinctual drives, is not an intelligent being because the spirit is free and independent by nature and in no way subordinate."

"Moral freedom makes man a moral being and an image of God."

"Ignorance of the beautiful, of the good, of the true would make man an amoral being and would make ‘morality’ a word devoid of meaning."

"Those who sin out of ignorance must recognize that they are hoarding great wrongs in themselves."

"Woe unto those who request money rather than devotion, contrition, and the satisfaction of the divine through true and virtuous life for the forgiveness of sins."

"For this reason he did not settle in one place on Athos, as most monks do in tranquil cells, but kept moving from one place to another nearby like a vagrant. He would quickly build huts, and then burn them down again with fire. This behavior was strange for the monks, and even for people in general. The blessed one never possessed a digging fork or hoe, nor a purse, nor a bench, a table, a pot, flour, oil, or wine, nor any other material necessity, nor bread, but living like an immaterial being in places untouched by materiality, he thus possessed only the semblance of a small hut, large enough only to contain his much-suffering body. And after building this out of grasses, he would soon burn it down. For this reason, although he was not in error, he was considered deranged, and at the same time he was given the sobriquet Hutburner by earthly-minded people, who did not see in him the illuminating divine grace of the Spirit which sheltered him like a divine, celestial tent and spread sweetness, and the eternal hope and prayer which always refreshed him like dew."

"When candle wax is far from the fire, it is solid and can be grasped, but when you put it in the fire it melts, and there it burns in the flame and catches fire and becomes all light and so finds a perfect end in the fire. There is no way for it not to melt in the fire and pour out like water. So too, while man's intellect is by itself, without encountering God, it thinks that everything is solidly in its power. But when it draws near, as it were, to the fire of Divinity and the Holy Spirit, it is completely dominated by that divine light and becomes all light, and there within the flame of the All-Holy Spirit it is set aflame and softened by divine perceptions. And in that fire of Divinity, there is no way for it to consider it own concerns and desires."

"If one rejects the Orthodox creed and the eastern ascetic experience of life in Christ, which has been acquired throughout the centuries, then Orthodox culture would be left with nothing but the Greek minor [key] and Russian tetraphony."

"There are three things I cannot take in: nondogmatic faith, nonecclesiological Christianity and nonascetic Christianity. These three - the church, dogma, and asceticism - constitute one single life for me."

"No one on this earth can avoid affliction; and although the afflictions which the Lord sends are not great men imagine them beyond their strength and are crushed by them. This is because they will not humble their souls and commit themselves to the will of God. But the Lord Himself guides with His grace those who are given over to God's will, and they bear all things with fortitude for the sake of God Whom they have so loved and with Whom they are glorified for ever. It is impossible to escape tribulation in this world but the man who is given over to the will of God bears tribulation easily, seeing it but putting his trust in the Lord, and so his tribulations pass."

"In my young days ... I had been attracted to the idea of pure creativity, taking the form of abstract art. ... I derived ideas for my abstract studies from life around me. I would look at a man, a house, a plant, at intricate machinery, extravagant shadowscapes on walls or ceilings, at quivering bonfire flames, and would compose them into abstract pictures, creating in my imagination visions that were not like actual reality. ... Fortunately I soon realised that it was not given to me, a human being, to create from 'nothing', in the way only God can create. I realised that everything that I created was conditioned by what was already in existence. I could not invent a new colour or line that had never existed anywhere before. An abstract picture is like a string of words, beautiful and sonorous in themselves, perhaps, but never expressing a complete thought ..."

"There are known instances when Blessed Staretz Silouan in prayer beheld something remote as though it were happening close by; when he saw into someone's future, or when profound secrets of the human soul were revealed to him. There are many people still alive who can bear witness to this in their own case but he himself never aspired to it and never accorded much significance to it. His soul was totally engulfed in compassion for the world. He concentrated himself utterly on prayer for the world, and in his spiritual life prized this love above all else."

"No sin is unforgivable except the sin that is not repented of."

"Most people neither hear nor understand God speaking in their hearts: they listen to the urging of passion, which inhabits the soul and with its clamour drowns the still small voice of God."

"Stand on the edge of the abyss and when you feel that it is beyond your strength, break off and have a cup of tea.""

"Thus, after spending three days in this place of fragrance, he descended at the bidding of our Lady the Mother of God as far as her church, the one called Panagia. After spending some days there, he went up again to the summit of Athos and kissed the spot where the Mother of God had appeared to stand in glory. He tearfully sought to see the vision once again, but he did not succeed; for only light and unceasing divine fragrance fell invisibly upon the holy one's senses, as before, and filled him with joy and inexpressible happiness. After going up two or three times from the Panagia and being granted this experience, he then went down from there and, going to Karmelion, found a solitary elder there and told him about his vision."

"Leaving the great and wondrous Lavra, he first set off at full speed on the ascent of Athos, where the tablets of grace were promised by the Mother of God. And thus he reached it, without eating anything, on the seventh [Sunday after Easter]; for that day was the first [Sunday] after the Ascension, the so-called Sunday of the Holy Fathers. After arriving at the summit there and prostrating himself and praying to God, as was his custom every night, he spent the whole night in vigil together with some monks. But when all the monks departed in the morning and no one was left behind, he remained there alone for three entire days and nights without food and wearing only a single garment, in the service of God. And he constantly had the name of the Mother of God on his tongue, in his mind and heart through mental prayer in the Spirit."

"Spiritual discourse always keeps the soul free from self-esteem, for it gives every part of the soul a sense of light, so that it no longer needs the praise of men."

"One side of the soul is carried away by the passionate part in man, and we are then captivated by the good things of this life, but the other side of the soul frequently delights in the activity of the intellect and, as a result, when we practice self-restraint, the intellect longs to pursue heavenly beauty."

"With tears we sow seeds of prayer in the earth of the heart, hoping to reap the harvest in joy."

"The eye of the soul cannot be led astray when its veil, by which I mean the body, is refined to near-transparency through self-control."

"Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts."

"If the soul, through attentiveness, reduces the blindness caused by the love of this world, it will consider its slightest faults to be very grave and will continually shed tears. ... But if the soul persists in its worldly disposition, even though it commits a murder or some other act deserving severe punishment, it takes little notice; and it is quite unable to discern its other faults, often considering them to be signs of progress, and in its wretchedness it is not ashamed to defend them heatedly."

"The perceptive faculty natural to our soul is single, but it is split into two distinct modes of operation as a result of Adam's disobedience."

"No one can love God consciously in his heart unless he has first feared Him with all his heart. Through the action of fear the soul is purified and, as it were, made malleable and so it becomes awakened to the action of love."

"Whoever loves himself cannot love God."

"If, therefore, we learn persistently to be detached from the good things of this world, we shall be able to unite the earthly appetite of the soul to its spiritual and intellectual aspiration, through the communion of the Holy Spirit who brings this about within us. For unless His divinity actively illumines the inner shrine of our heart, we shall not be able to taste God's goodness with the perceptive faculty undivided, that is, with unified aspiration."

"Who, when asked, will refuse to give what is needful to one who lives a holy life?"

"The philosopher must be above all a free man, and not a slave of the passions."

"Philosophy is a state of moral integrity combined with a doctrine of true knowledge concerning reality."

"One was not rich while another was destitute, nor did one overeat while another starved. The generosity of those who were well off made good what others lacked, this willingness to share eliminating every anomaly and establishing equality and fairness - though even then inequality still existed, produced not as it is now by the mad struggle for social status, but by a great desire to live more humbly than others. Envy, malice, arrogance and haughtiness were banished, along with all that leads to discord."

"Why do we cling to money and possessions, and disperse our intellect among a host of useless cares? Our preoccupation with such things diverts us from what is more important and makes us neglect the well-being of the soul, leading us to perdition."

"By crouching a little we are able to spring upwards; and in the same way our faculty of discrimination, after stooping to attend to the needs of the body, can once more look upwards unimpeded, separating itself from all worldly thoughts."

"Men ... have been given legs that bend: in this way they can descend sometimes to fulfill the needs of the body, and at other times ascend to fulfill those of the soul."

"We should turn our attention to material things only in so far as some necessity forces us to do so. But always to be creeping on the ground in search of pleasure is defiling and degrading for someone with experience of spiritual knowledge."

"When bodily concerns predominate, everything in man is asleep: the intellect, the soul and the senses."

"Improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truth they signify."

"How was Moses able to withstand Pharaoh when he had nothing but holiness to give him courage (cf. Exod. 5)? ... A solitary prophet once censured a king for his unlawful acts, when the king had his whole army with him. ... These holy men achieved such things because they had resolved to live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants. The fact of needing nothing made them superior to all men. They chose to forsake the body and to free themselves from life in the flesh, rather than to betray the cause of holiness and, because of their bodily needs, to flatter the wealthy."

"But, as for us, when we lack something, instead of struggling courageously against our difficulties, we come fawning to the rich, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we call them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked."

"We should not flatter, because of our needs, those who value highly the very things it is our vocation to despise."