Constantine the Great and the First Ecumenical Synod (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Constantine the Great and the First Ecumenical Synod 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Transcribed Homily. Delivered during Great Vespers of Saints Constantine and Helen, Makynia of Nafpaktia, on May 20, 2025.)

Tonight, beloved fathers and brethren, Mr. Mayor, Mr. President of the Municipal Council, Mr. Vice-Mayor and members of the Municipal Council, beloved brethren in Christ, we celebrate the memory of the Holy God-crowned Emperors and Equals-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helen, and this sacred church of Saints Constantine and Helen in Makynia, here in Nafpaktos, is holding its feast. We celebrate and solemnly honor the memory of these holy God-crowned Emperors and Equals-to-the-Apostles. And indeed, concerning Saint Helen one may say that she was a woman of virtue, because despite the difficulties she faced in her marriage, she was deemed worthy to bear and raise such a child, who became Emperor and Sole Ruler of the then united Roman Empire, both in East and West. I will not say more about Saint Helen, for on another occasion we have spoken about her. What is of great importance is that Saint Constantine the Great proved himself truly to be a great Emperor, not only for that era, but on a universal and timeless scale.

Venerable Eumenios the New of Crete in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

1. Our Venerable and God-bearing Father Eumenios (1931–1999) was born in Ethia, in the province of Monofatsi, Heraklion, Crete. From his childhood he was wounded by divine eros and followed the monastic path at the Monastery of the Great Martyr Niketas near his birthplace. At his tonsure as a monk he received the name Sophronios, and at his ordination as a hieromonk — performed by Archbishop Timothy of Crete at the Monastery of Kalyviani — he received the name Eumenios. He was afflicted by demonic temptations and came to the glorious Monastery of Koudoumas, where he was freed from the influence of the Evil One. Later he fell ill with a contagious disease, and for this reason came to the Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Athens, which became the arena of his ascetic struggles and a refuge of compassion for all the suffering and gravely ill. At the Hospital for Infectious Diseases he completed the Church of the Holy Unmercenaries and zealously served Saint Nikephoros (Tzanakakis), who was blind, leprous, and paralyzed. He ministered to all the afflicted and seriously ill and became the spiritual father and guide unto salvation for very many Christians of Athens. He endured his own bodily illnesses without complaint, imitating Job, and became distinguished for his humility, meekness, and compassionate love toward every suffering and weary person. He fell asleep in Athens on May 23, 1999, and his grace-filled relics were placed for veneration in the Church of the Holy Unmercenaries at the Hospital for Infectious Diseases, where they received the final kiss of countless mourners. He was buried with public honor in the land of his fathers. Through his holy intercessions, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Homily on the Ascension of the Lord (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

On the Ascension of the Lord

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

Happy Feast of the Ascension of our Lord and God Jesus Christ! The faith connected with the events of this day is confessed every time we recite the Creed. This event is not merely something like the conclusion of the Gospel; in truth, this day is the completion of our salvation! Because Christ, in His Incarnation, overcame the corruption of human nature, since He took from the womb of the Most Pure Mother a nature no longer defiled by sin, though still bearing the consequences of sin — such as mortality, suffering, and vulnerability to pain. As a result of the Incarnation, divine life became accessible to us, a life of which we partake through Holy Communion. By His Crucifixion upon the Cross, the Lord redeemed us from beneath the wrath of God and the curse of death that rested upon every one of us because of Adam’s fall and our own sins, which grew from that fall like a tree from a seed.

By His descent into Hades, the Lord freed the ancient captives and shattered the power of the enemy, while by His Resurrection from the dead Christ destroyed the dominion of death over us, laying the foundation for the universal resurrection. And now the human nature assumed by the Lord had to be glorified. Today, on the Feast of the Ascension, the Lord raises our human nature above all the heavens and seats it at the right hand of God the Father. What does this have to do with us? Everything! Christ ascends into Heaven in order to intercede for us before the Father.

Homily One on the Ascension of the Lord (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily One on the Ascension of the Lord 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

For many of us, the Ascension is only a feast standing between Pascha and Pentecost, and it seems as though it does not possess the same inner content as the other feasts of the Holy Church. It may appear that the Lord ascended only in order to send the Teacher — the Holy Spirit. This feast seems to give nothing to man; indeed, it even appears to deprive man of the Lord’s presence here on earth. For in the past days you felt His presence in His appearances, as the Apostles once did, but now He has departed from us.

One would think that for the Apostles the Ascension of the Lord would have been a loss. Yet the Holy Fathers say that it is a great feast, for today it is not merely that “the Word became flesh,” but that flesh became divine. The New Adam does not descend, but ascends with the flesh into heaven.

Venerable Michael the Confessor and Bishop of Synnada in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

1. This angelic-named Michael, having purified himself through a perfect life and having been dedicated to God from his mother’s embrace, became a priest of the Most High God. By His power he extinguished all the madness of the God-fighters, silencing the godless mouths of the heretics who dared to speak against the depiction of Christ in icons. And because the accursed beast could not endure the divine speech of his tongue (for he neither feared nor trembled before his threats, but cried aloud with a free voice: ‘I honor and venerate the immaculate and divine image of our Savior Jesus Christ and of His holy Mother, while I spit upon your doctrine and regard it as nothing at all’), because the tyrant was thus put to shame and overflowed with rage, he condemned him to distant exile. But Michael, preserving pure and undefiled the image according to which he had been made, and being driven from place to place, reached the spacious breadth of Paradise. Thus he completed the good course and was adorned with double crowns: he was added to the hierarchs as a hierarch, and to the martyrs as a martyr.

Prologue in Sermons: May 23

Do the Unrepentant Sinners Speak Truly When They Say That There Will Be Neither Eternal Blessedness for the Righteous Nor Eternal Torments For Sinners?

May 23

(A discourse of Gregory the Dialogist.)
 
By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Unrepentant sinners say that there will be neither eternal blessedness for the righteous nor eternal torments for sinners. Do they speak the truth?

“A certain soldier,” says Gregory the Dialogist, “perished in a storm at sea, and his body lay lifeless upon the shore. But soon, by the almighty command of God, his soul returned to the body, and he came back to life. What had happened to him while his soul was separated from his body, he related as follows:

THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PASCHA - SUNDAY OF THE BLIND MAN

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

The Healing of the Man Born Blind

Once, when Jesus was in Jerusalem, performing miracles and preaching His teaching, His enemies became so enraged that they wanted to stone Him. But He departed from them and, as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked Him: “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him.”

The Lord had compassion on the unfortunate blind man. Spitting on the ground, He made clay, anointed the blind man’s eyes with it, and said to him: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” This was a spring at the foot of Mount Zion. The blind man went, washed, and received his sight. This miracle filled everyone with amazement. Some said, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

Others said, “It is he.” Others said, “He only resembles him.” But he himself said, “I am the one.”

They began asking the man born blind how he had received his sight. He answered: “The Man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes, and told me to wash in the pool of Siloam. I washed, and now I see.” They brought him to the Pharisees, and it should be noted that this miracle had been performed on the Sabbath day. In response to the Pharisees’ questions, the healed young man again recounted the story of his miraculous healing. Then a dispute arose among the Pharisees concerning Jesus. Some said: “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others objected: “How can a sinful man perform such miracles?” They asked the healed man: “What do you say about Him?” “I think He is a prophet,” he answered.

Homily for the Sunday of the Blind Man (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for the Sunday of the Blind Man

On Spiritual Blindness

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39).

Christ is Risen!

Beloved faithful,

We can draw many teachings of every kind from today’s Holy Gospel if we examine its text carefully. One of these teachings concerns the spiritual blindness of the man enslaved by sins.

How much spiritual blindness there was in the minds of the scribes and Pharisees, who not only did not believe in the miracles beyond nature performed by Christ the Lord, but even greatly blasphemed Him, saying that “by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, He casts out demons” (Mark 3:22). Such blindness filled their minds that though they had eyes, they did not see, and though they had ears, they did not hear. Therefore the Lord calls them “blind Pharisees” (Matthew 23:26).

Concerning this spiritual blindness of the scribes and Pharisees, the chief priests and teachers of the Jews, and the punishment awaiting them for it, the Prophet David says through the Holy Spirit: “Let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and bend their backs forever” (Psalm 69:23). And the great Prophet Isaiah prophesied concerning the spiritual blindness of the people of Israel, saying: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, to this very day” (Isaiah 29:10). And again: “The heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return to Me and I should heal them” (Isaiah 6:10).

Homily One on the Day of the Ascension (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily One on the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman 

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1966 in the Ćelije Monastery, transcribed from a recording.)

Today is the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, the Feast of the Lord’s Ascension with His body into Heaven.

With today’s Feast, the Nativity is brought to completion: it both completes and explains what the Lord Christ intended when He became man, what He desired, what He purposed, why He was born on the Nativity as man, He Who is God, why He took a body upon Himself. Today’s Feast tells us this great and holy mystery and explains why the Lord became man, why He took upon Himself the mocked, humiliated, sinful, and mortal human body. What was the purpose of this? Today’s Great and Holy Day explains it to us. The Lord became incarnate, the Lord took a body upon Himself and became man in order to raise the human body above all the heavens, to glorify the human body with inexpressible glory, to lift it above all Angels and Archangels and seat it at the right hand of God the Father.¹ Thus, this is why the Lord took a body upon Himself: the whole path has been completed. The human body, once disgraced in sins, in death, in horrors and terrors — that human body the Lord took upon Himself and ascended with it into Heaven.