Historical Introduction to the Fall of Constantinople (Fr. George Metallinos)

Historical Introduction to the Fall of Constantinople

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

It is always welcome and comforting to see texts that give Greeks an opportunity to recall the great moments of their historical journey. Especially in our time, where the new globalization, emerging through purely materialistic, authoritarian and plutocratic visions, pushes centuries-old traditions of faith and spiritual culture into the background.

This elegant volume, with its vibrant concise description of the story and its sensitive illustration, raises a voice of rebaptism to this memory.

We believe it would be appropriate to provide a rough record of the historical context within which the conditions were created that ultimately led to the "taking of the City".

Homily Three on the Ascension of the Lord (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three on the Ascension of the Lord

By St. John of Kronstadt

"To this end has the most high God appeared on earth as a lowly man, because He wishes to draw heavenward all who cry aloud to Him: Alleluia!" (Akathist to the Theotokos, Oikos 8)

Although man was created from the earth in body, he was created for heaven. The earth was given to man as a temporary dwelling, as a place of preparation for a higher, heavenly life. But the pernicious violation of the first commandment by the first people inclined both soul and body to the earth and distorted the entire mental, moral and physical structure of human life. Earthly, temporary, physical aspirations, legal and illegal, took precedence over heavenly, eternal, spiritual aspirations. Human nature and human life became distorted and corrupted, and the human race corrupted its nature and ruined the divine gift - its soul, which God breathed into its nature in paradise.

In order to renew the physical and spiritual nature of man, to cleanse, sanctify and direct him to the path of salvation, it was necessary for the Son of God Himself to descend to earth, to become a man, and by His word, His life and His example to show him the true path of life, and by His blood to renew our nature corrupted by sin, in order to raise it to heaven. For this reason the high God came down to earth, that He might raise us to heaven. The Apostle says: "If you are risen with Christ, then set your minds on heavenly things, and not on earthly things" (Col. 3:1).

May: Day 29: Teaching 2: Blessed John of Ustiug

May: Day 29: Teaching 2:
Blessed John of Ustiug

(Why Did Holy Men Sometimes Choose New, Unusual Paths To Salvation?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Blessed John (15th century), whose commemoration is today, was born near the city of Ustiug. Even from his youth he showed the virtues of a future ascetic: he spent his nights in prayer, spoke little, on Wednesdays and Fridays he did not eat at all, and on other days he ate bread and water. When his father died and his mother took monastic vows at the Trinity Monastery in Orlets, John lived with her for some time, and then settled in Ustiug, near the cathedral church. He continued to spend his nights in prayer, and during the day he walked around the city, covered only with rags. John had to endure much from the cold, and even more from the people of Ustiug, who often laughed at him and often even beat him. John endured all insults with meekness and prayed for his offenders.

The priest of the cathedral church, Gregory, seeing John often, wanted to know his exploits better. One day he happened to see John praying for a long time with his hands raised to heaven, then, having leveled the coals in the oven, he protected himself with the sign of the cross and with the words: "The light of Your face has been marked upon us, O Lord," calmly lay down on the hot coals. The priest, considering John to be mad and fearing that he might burn, went in to him. John came out of the oven and sternly said to the priest: "Do not dare to speak of what you saw until my death." The astonished priest fulfilled his will, and from that time on he was filled with respect for the blessed one.

Blessed John died on May 29, 1494 and was buried near the cathedral church in Ustiug. His feast day was established at the Moscow Synod of 1547.

May: Day 29: Teaching 1: Holy Martyr Theodosia of Tyre

 

May: Day 29: Teaching 1:
Holy Martyr Theodosia of Tyre

(Christian Consolation at the Death of Those Dear To Us)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Martyr Theodosia, who is celebrated today, was born in the city of Tyre and was raised in a pious family. She was 18 years old when the last persecution of Christians began in Caesarea in Palestine. Despite her youth, she already had firm faith in her heart. She fearlessly visited the martyrs for the faith who were languishing in prison, and once, when those who confessed Christ were in the court of the ruler Urban, she approached them, bowed down and begged them to remember her when they would be before God. For this they seized her, scourged her entire body and threw her into the sea. This was in 308.

On the night after her martyrdom, Theodosia appeared in a dream to her parents, in a blaze of glory, and consoled them, persuading them not to grieve for her, who was rejoicing in the Kingdom of God.

The relics of Saint Theodosia were subsequently transferred to Constantinople, and parts of them are located in the West in different places.

II. Saint Theodosia, who appeared after her death in the radiance of glory to console her grieving parents, whom she undoubtedly consoled, reminds us of the truth that a Christian, losing people near and dear to his heart, can have spiritual consolation in his grief.

This is the consolation we receive from the Christian faith.

Summer 2025 Updates

Dear Readers:

As we roll into the summer I wanted to provide a couple of updates and make a few requests.

First thing I wanted to address was my newsletters. Many people have been asking me why they are not getting email updates from me anymore, or those who recently signed up are asking if I am providing email updates when I make posts. For this I wanted to clarify and announce that from now on I have two newsletters you can sign up for, one is a weekly free newsletter and one is for paid members that is sent out daily. Paid members have been already getting the daily email newsletter, which will soon be getting an upgrade to include more offerings besides just my daily postings. The free newsletter I have neglected during the transition to the daily newsletter, but from now on I will be emailing a weekly newsletter for free which you can sign up for on my websites and will be different from the daily newsletter. I expect the free newsletter to be emailed once a week every Saturday beginning this June.

Secondly, it has come to my attention that some of you who ordered the booklet by Righteous Alexei Mechev which I offered and you purchased a few months back was never received. I sent out less than 200 of my 500 copies and believed I had completed all the orders, but apparently some orders never showed up on my end even though the payments were fully processed. It has taken me a few weeks to look into this and finally found out the answer, which is complicated to summarize, but the error had to do with the check out link I had used that did not properly indicate orders were made on my end. Till this day I cannot access the information (such as the address of someone who made an order) for these orders unless I manually type in the name of the person who ordered. So I am asking if you did order a booklet, please send me an email to mystagogy1@gmail.com which I set up to specifically address this issue and get all the orders out. I cannot send out these orders unless you contact me and send me your name to look up your order manually. I apologize for the delay and inconvenience, but assure everyone you will soon get your orders as long as you contact me.

Thirdly, despite the setback with some of the booklet orders, I do regret publicly offering them the way I did, which as you recall was done in haste to make up for a loss due to the person who originally commissioned the order for 500 booklets but had a medical issue that prevented him from paying and fulfilling the order. Many of you came through to help me make up for my loss, but I was in no way prepared to deal with hundreds of people and orders when I live a very busy life and work a fulltime job, which is why I had to put an end to selling them despite my desperation to get rid of them. Then when you have a setback like I described above and can't fulfill the orders, it just causes bigger problems that I need to focus on and fix. However, I was impressed that there was so much interest in this booklet by a relatively unknown author, and it made me consider after several requests to offer similar booklets in the future. It was even suggested to me to offer a booklet once a month or bi-monthly to help support my ministry, which I would love to do if I could. I am considering how to make a project like this feasible.

Lastly, as a personal request, due to some recent major financial setbacks of my own (besides the booklet issue), I wanted to appeal to your generosity to consider making a contribution to this ministry to help me continue to do what I do, if you find any benefit in what I am doing. Without your financial support, I would not be able to do anything. And with my recent financial setbacks it requires me to work more to make up for my losses, and in the summer months this is especially difficult because it is my slow season businesswise. This would dramatically decrease the time I can offer to the work of this ministry. This past year I had made a few requests to help a woman in crisis that was generously fulfilled by my readers, which made me very happy, but being such a small ministry it is unfortunate that when I do things like that it hurts me personally on a financial level and could jeopardize all my work for the Mystagogy Resource Center, which means I have to rely on my readers even more. By sending a financial gift to the Mystagogy Resource Center, you will also be qualified to be subscribed to my daily newsletter, for which I ask at least either a monthly subscription of $5 (Paypal or Patreon) or annual subscription of $60.

As I have done in the past, I will set a goal for $3500 which I will update daily towards the top of my main website page.

Thank you and have a wonderful summer!

John Sanidopoulos

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