Rating: 10|Votes: 4
So for that reason one should, in fact, fish well and diligently, just as the Lord foretells and teaches, saying, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,’ and, again, through the prophets: ‘“Behold, I am sending forth many fishers and hunters,” says the Lord,’ et cetera. So it behoved us to spread our nets, that a vast multitude and throng might be caught for God, and so there might be clergy everywhere who baptized and exhorted a needy and desirous people. Just as the Lord says in the Gospel, admonishing and instructing: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the end of time.’
Hieromonk Anthony (Torp)
His life was intertwined with the upheavals of the nineteenth century: the dissolution of the Georgian Kingdom, its annexation by Russia, and the Greek Insurrection of 1821. Within these events St. Hilarion led a life that encompassed the fullness of Christianity. As a married priest he was the royal confessor, and later as a monk he witnessed to the Faith before the Muslims. He finally became a vessel of the Holy Spirit as a great ascetic and spiritual father on Mount Athos. Where he was called “St. Hilarion the Georgian".
Rating: 6,5|Votes: 11
Wisely governing the Church, Hierarch Gregory tirelessly planted the Word of God. Saint Gregory compiled in the Latin tongue the order of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (used during Great Lent), which before him was known only in oral tradition.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
Rating: 7,9|Votes: 8
The Lord said to His Apostles about the evil spirits, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting (Mk. 9:29). Here is a new aspect of fasting! Fasting is acceptable to God when it is preceded by the great virtue of mercy; fasting prepares a reward in heaven when it is foreign to hypocrisy and vainglory; fasting works when it is joined with another great virtue—prayer. How does it work? It not only tames the passions in the human body, but it enters into battle with the spirits of evil, and conquers them.
Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
Rating: 6,5|Votes: 2
So it is also in the spiritual life. As a Christian gradually ascends, the force of spiritual and ascetical labours lifts him on high. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "Strive to enter in through the narrow gate." That is, the Christian ought to be an ascetic. Not only the monastic, but every Christian. He must take pains for his soul and his life.